Prickly

I would have loved to take this photo, but I didn't
Photo from Wikipedia

As I was driving my route this morning, I saw several flattened creatures on the side or even in the middle of the road. Most of them were hedgehogs. Lured by the heat of the tarmac, they make their way to and try to cross the roads, where they are then hit and killed by cars.

So, when I saw another one that was in the middle of the road, I felt quite sorry for it. Until I realised it wasn't quite in the middle and it wasn't dead! It had had a fright from the car that had just sped past (well, he was going about 15 miles an hour, but to a hedgehog, that must seem like supersonic, no pun intended) and was sitting still on my side of the road. 

Not my hands, and not 'my' hedgehog either
Photo from groei.nl

I only had one passenger and we were nearing the last stop, so I stopped the bus, got out and tried to pick the hedgehog up. Because the minute I tried, it became a quivering ball of prickly spines. I tried again and this time I was able to gently lift it up, take it to the other side of the road (where it was clearly headed) and put it down in the high grass. 

When I came back about ten minutes later, the hedgehog was gone. Scuttled off into the safety of the grass and hopefully living a long life yet! As for me: I felt the prickly spines for a few hours yet!