I’m jogging down Bunton Hill by myself, in the darkness. I’m wearing one of those jogging headlamp things… which throws out two perfect intersecting circles of light in front of my face, like an illuminated Venn diagram.
As I continue running, I suddenly spot… looming out of the darkness in front of me… this!
It’s a hedgehog.
I’ve never seen a hedgehog before, in the flesh (in the prickle?). But I guess I’d say it looks exactly like I’d expect a hedgehog to look. Round and prickly. Like a large, brown, pointy pumice stone – for use by masochists.
The hedgehog is completely immobile. For a moment I think it must be dead… but then I see it’s little hedgehoggy face, twitching in the relentless glare from my jogging headlamp.
A horrible thought hits me. Is the hedgehog immobile, because I’ve just dazzled it? It seems entirely likely. Shit! Sorry hedgehog.
I panic. Clearly I can’t leave the hedgehog where it is, in the middle of the road. It’ll be hedgehog pizza, before you know it! But it’s not giving the slightest indication it’s planning to move. What can I do?
A couple of seconds later, the hedgehog twizzles around slightly and hobbles (hoggles?) forward a couple of inches. It turns out that thing sticking out behind of it, which I assumed was some kind of unsavoury hedgehog turd, is actually its back leg… which the little creature rudders itself around with.
‘Go hedgehog!’ I whoop.
Unfortunately, the hedgehog immediately stops again. Maybe I’ve managed to dazzle it a second time.
The hedgehog appears to have stopped moving for good now. Is it ill? I’ve got to do something!
I root around, in one of the hedgerows by the road, and pull out a suitably long stick… then give the hedgehog a very gentle prod on the back. The hedgehog doesn’t move at all. It’s stuck to the road like a sea urchin (a particularly spiny one).
OK. I don’t believe I’m about to do this. I take off my zip-up running top (I still have a T-shirt underneath), wrap the top around my hands… then do the unthinkable…
… I actually try to pick up the hedgehog.
‘OW!’
As it turns out, you get exactly what it says on the tin with hedgehogs… they are really prickly. Not prickly in a cuddly, fluffy way. Prickly in a I just feel like a hundred hot pins have been stuck in my hands, even though they were covered by my jogging top kind of a way.
I hastily retreat from the hedgehog. ‘Good natural defence system!’ I say to the animal, despite my pain. The hedgehog doesn’t reply.
Any minute, I’m expecting a pair of car headlights to come swooping up the road. What am I going to do? I’m all out of options.
Obviously, it’s now I ring Lizzie.
‘Come down Bunton Hill, right away!’ I implore her, over the phone. ‘With gardening gloves!’
‘Gardening gloves?’ she asks, half-interested, half-bored.
‘I need them to pick up a hedgehog!’
Lizzie sighs. ‘OK. I’ll be there in a minute.’ I can’t see her face, obviously, but I know what Lizzie’s expression is saying. It’s saying only YOU would ring me up, asking me to walk down a hill with gardening gloves in the darkness, to pick up a hedgehog. Part of me feels embarrassed about this… but the other half feels… proud! Only a truly caring man, would go to such ends (i.e. dragging their partner out, at 9.30pm) to save a wild animal! What a sensitive individual I must be!
Five minutes pass. Then ten minutes. Still no sight of Lizzie. I’m getting impatient. The hedgehog looks – well, exactly the same. I ring Lizzie again.
‘Hello! Hedgehog Helpline!’ Lizzie trills pertly, on the other end of the line. ‘I’m just walking past the church,’ she continues. ‘I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.’
Finally – through the hedgerows – I see a light coming towards the bend of the road, around which I’m waiting.
Oh god, is it a car? Is the hedgehog about to be curtains? Very prickly curtains? No… it’s a torch! Thank heavens!
I’m looking upwards, waiting for Lizzie to appear around the corner… clutching those gardening gloves.
As I do so, the hedgehog finally decides to get up off its prickly arse… and hobbles over to the grassy kerb of the road, up onto it… then disappears into a bush.
Lizzie sees its bum disappear into the bush, as she arrives.
‘Was that it?’ she asks, surprisingly patiently.
‘Yes,’ I nod, slightly nervously. ‘Er. It wasn’t moving before. It just decided to then.’
‘It probably wasn’t moving because you kept dazzling it with your headlamp,’ suggests Lizzie, perfectly reasonably.
Hmmm, I can’t deny it. She’s probably got a point.
Moments later, we’re both schlepping back up the hill. I feel the least I can do is accompany Lizzie back home – rather than continuing my jog – after her unnecessary call-out.
For the first time, I glance over and examine the hedgehog picking-up gear Lizzie has brought with her.
One pair of gardening gloves. Present and correct.
One single, empty cardboard file from a filing cabinet. Er.
‘What’s the file for?’ I ask Lizzie. ‘Were you planning to file the hedgehog?’
She doesn’t bother answering.
‘I don’t think it would have fit in the filing cabinet,’ I quip. ‘Maybe if you’d been a bit later, and it had been flattened by a car, it might have done.’
I smirk, pleased with my comments.
Lizzie scowls back at me. ‘The file was to pick up the hedgehog, OK?’
‘I used my HANDS to pick it up,’ I say, feeling very brave.
‘Ugh,’ says Lizzie. ‘It probably had fleas. And worms!’
‘D’you think?’ I gulp.
Will I ever get used to the wildlife around here? I wonder to myself, as we continue walking.
P. D. Clifton 
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