On finding that one's meal is being eaten by someone else

Categories: journal

Date: 17 August 2009 10:34:53

Last night, I reckoned that the cat was looking too bright eyed to settle, so I gave him some food outside, expecting him to spend the night in the garden. Not long after, I looked out the kitchen window to see him sitting on the little wooden table which lives in the middle of the patio. I don't know how to describe the expression on his face - perhaps puzzled, and a bit put out. Then I realised that a dark shape was tucking into the cat's supper.

On closer inspection, I realised that the dark shape was a hedgehog. Fortunately, Mrs tiggyWinkle had chosen the cat food instead of the bowl of milk (which, my daughter informs me, gives hedgehogs diarrhoea). We all trooped out for a closer look, which probably precipitated the hedgehog's decision to start legging it for the seclusion of a nearby flower bed.

The cat could have come indoors at this point, but he elected to stay on the patio. I wonder if we'll see the hedgehog again ...