PRICKLY PINK EYES

I don’t know how common they are but this young albino hedgehog was seen strolling across the car park and then the green grassy meadows of East Bergholt High School early one evening by Mark Atkinson, the residential caretaker. His delight couldn’t be contained so he sought to find me – someone he knew who would really appreciate seeing it.

This amazing creature was curled up into a cute ball (as they do) when I first set eyes on it. After a while, it gingerly stretched out its legs and, as if without any care in the world, started to explore its immediate surroundings, quite oblivious of the pictures I was taking. The encounter was pure magic! In a while, the sniffing and scraping led it to some dense undergrowth nearby, out of sight but definitely not out of mind! I had experienced a kind of pleasure that nature provides only once in a while. How lucky was that?

My sincere hope was for the young enterprising one to survive into adulthood.

Rasik Bhadresa East Bergholt