X-word

It's coming, ready or not! Big red-dressed basturn heading for your chimney very soon. Several people have broken the no-present rule already (R.'s included in this), causing me a 'world of pain'.

I got the kiddos' pressies- portable tellies- partly as pressies for me, hoping that these will further my evil plan to reclaim my spaces (sitting room and my bedroom). That was a major coup, until we opened the boxes last night to discover they are big gay pink tellies. That's fine for the wee wan, but the Big Wan's not too impressed. His has to go back to be exchanged for a manly black or silver telly, in case he's turned gay against his will. I'm not clear if the pink telly will turn the wee wan gay too, but she's more secure in whatever sexuality it is she's been assigned.

Now that R.'s out of the country I can reveal more about the hedgehog situation, since she's not here to hit me. R. became all misty-eyed when she read about disabled, distressed Uist hedgehogs requiring homes in the 'Big Issue' and took it upon herself to 'adopt' one for her small garden.

However, her act of altruism did not extend to thinking through the implications, including that even while hibernating, hedgehogs require food and water every few days. R.'s lifestyle includes spending an average of one week in four out of town, and just as soon as she obtained the wretched, half-blind animal she's headed off for a 3.5 week trip to another hemisphere. All her sensible friends have refused to have anything to do with the beast. We had a late night phone call in which I reassured her of my unconditional love for her, and also my considerable pissed-offness at her irresponsible actions.

The Uist situation is a fucking mess of human irresponsibility. Some stupid human imported Erinaceus europaeus to Uist, an environment lacking natural hedgehog predators, so that the hedgehog population exploded to several thousand in just a few years, upsetting the natural species balance and endangering local rare birds, whose eggs represent a delicacy to the invading Erinacaidae. A cull of hedgehogs was started, then halted when bunny-huggers got upset about killing cute little Tiggywinkles to protect the avian community. Now they're exporting excess hedgehogs to the mainland for re-homing, including the lame ones who'd normally be destined for rapid natural selection out of the population.

This chain of events has left me in the unenviable position of forced checking/ feeding/ watering of an unfit hog, displaced to an unnaturally small territory, every few days for the next 3.5 weeks while sincerely wishing it dead.

Merry Xmas!