Close Encounters of the Hedgehog Kind

It was late. I was tired. I may have had a glass of wine or two. I walked into my kitchen after a night out with friends and spotted that the cow's worth of milk I'd bought from the supermarket earlier that evening had not been put away. *insert tired sigh here*

I'm not saying my big family gets through a lot of milk each week but we have a separate fridge outside to store it all in. So I picked up the bags of milk and headed to our outbuilding where the fridge/freezer is. Along with a million bits of wood in varying sizes which DH swears will "come in handy" one day. When the next flood comes and he needs to build an Ark?

Anyway, I digress. So there's a small step up into this outbuilding and as I brought my second foot up to step inside I scraped it across something sharp. It felt like a thistle. Now I'm no Charlie Dimmock so it could well have been a thistle in my garden but I didn't remember one growing in the concrete by the outbuilding step.

So I turned the light on and turned round to see a large hedgehog looking at me with what can only be described as an aggrieved expression.

Yes, I had tripped over a hedgehog.

Or as DH prefers to phrase it, kicked a hedgehog.

My big toe was stinging and sore - I slopped antibacterial cream on it and it still hurt more than I expected from the light grazing (not kicking) incident.

Worried, I Googled "infection from hedgehog spines" and saw a million horror stories about nasty diseases you could get and some horrible sounding hedgehog habit where they transfer toxic toad nastiness onto their own prickles whilst foaming at the mouth. I kid you not! Go Google it!

But finally I found one less alarmist piece saying that hedgehog injuries often smart more than expected as their spines have a mild irritant naturally which can affect some people more than others. Phew!

I'm glad to report I am fully recovered from my Close Encounter of the Hedgehog Kind - and since Mr H Hog posed for a few pictures then meandered off in a calm fashion I guess he's none the worse for wear either.