Goodbye Miss P

  Miss Pricklesworth (Miss P for short)

7th January 2011-16th May 2011

Miss P was an African Pygmy Hedgehog born into a family of four siblings and brought into the world by Kelly from Fragglewood Hedgehogs in Essex. We adopted her the day she turned 6 weeks old and brought her home in a cardboard box on the train.When we got her home and opened her up she couldn't wait to take a peak around her new home! 

Her main diet was Whiskers chicken flavour cat biscuits - with a particular preference for the yellow variety.

She was my first pet and brought with her so much love and affection, everything she did made me happy. Every time she ran around the park with her head held proudly in the air as she scurried off with her little legs, my whole heart felt light. She was such an incredible pet. And very intelligent too! Once she was shown a part of the flat or park, the very next time she was there she knew where she was. But the most impressive thing happened one morning when I was getting my breakfast. I don't have a garden but do have a little concrete courtyard and every morning she would run around it in circles. She could be happily left for 30 minutes and continue running without boredom.

That morning I let her out, watched her for a few minutes then went inside to get my breakfast. When I opened the front door of my flat to go back outside she was there proudly waiting outside and wondered into the flat as though nothing had happened where as infact she had climbed out of the courtyard, up some concrete stairs and walked through a corridor to find her way home. She casually wondered around a bit then climbed back inside her house.

I only ever got upset with her once, when I was really tired and desperate for sleep, she wondered underneath my wardrobe and refused to budge. I spent from midnight to 12.30 trying to entice her out, but she refused, so fed up, I left her and went to bed - 5 minutes later she wondered out of her own accord and went home.

She loved snuggling up inside fleece blankets but given a choice, especially in the early days liked to climb inside Matt's very hot and sticky shoes. She also loved his stinky socks! And generally loved him him very much as was always climbing up his back and around his neck making content snuffling noises. 

 Hedgies can swim and she also loved having a soak in the bath and a good paddle around. This is a shot from her first ever bathtime. 

Probably her most favourite thing to do though was hiding in the leaves at the park and munching on ants. 

She was a fantastic climber too and felt at home among the trees.

One morning we were watching her play and zoom around the park then in a blink of an eye she vanished. We searched the park in fear, high and low for 45 minutes and eventually found her hiding inside a concrete tunnel. We spent another 30 minutes trying to get her out, and when we did she was very happy and had obviously loved her adventure.

Miss P after being rescued from inside a tunnel!

She was always seeking out the next challenge so my messy room was like a dream to her. She would climb up folders, hide behind cushions, inside carrier bags, scale picture frames, watch me type on the computer and loved pooing behind my craft tool box. 

 Sadly in the end it was poo that made her life so short. She eat some mouse poo which made her very poorly and despite a few days of TLC and medication she passed away aged just 4 months : ( It is a terrible tale as although mice are very common in London we don't see them much, but it turned out the reason we attracted a mouse is because they discovered her food supply and were helping themselves to her cat biscuits and subsequently pooing around the entire flat. Before we realised, it was too late : (

On the day she passed away we took her to the park and buried her in her favourite spot, adjacent to the concrete tunnel she so adored. It was a small service attended by our neighbours who's rabbits Elvis and Priscilla she enjoyed playing with. 

Then we had a small wake were we all recalled our favourite memories of her - for she touched everyone who had ever met her.

As in life where she was so adventurous, her death became adventurous too. The morning after we buried her we returned to discover her grave had been dug up and she was missing : ( It was one of the saddest feelings ever. We eventually decided to search all the bins in the park and found her coffin which had been a little chewed by a dog.

So we brought her home and put her in the freezer until we decided what to do. We put her coffin inside a thick Ikea carrier back advisable because this prevents any freezer burn while the freezing itself prevents decomposing.

We buried her again today, properly so she can finally rest in peace.I knitted her a special blanket and Matt engraved a message on the back of a sequin. One of his 'stinker' socks also went inside.

Miss P, you brought so much happiness, laughter and joy, life is not the same without you - there was so much else in the world I wanted to show you but never got a chance. But I hope you have some good memories of us and look forward to seeing you again on the other side.

Hopper Mad!

Hoppers in London - finally located!

I encountered hoppers when I was in Sri Lanka last year and from the first bite I was hooked. I could eat them every day and I could most definately eat one right now! Hoppers are like pancakes but rather than flat, they are bowl shaped because they're cooked in bowl shaped pans. They are much lighter than pancakes,  more wafer thin and are made from fermented rice flour batter giving them a slight sourness. Because they are bowl shaped, you can opt to have a filling inside, a popular breakfast dish is 'egg hopper' where by the egg is cooked inside the hopper as it cooks. You can peel the sides off and dip them into the yolk just as you would toast soldiers. Just like this:

Yum!

Plain hoppers can also be eaten with curries instead of rice or bread, they taste sublime and are very healthy. Ever since I got back to the UK I've been craving them but they are a mission to find! There's a lot of Sri Lankan restaurants in London but not many that serve hoppers. 


Raveen, a Sri Lankan friend of mine recently drove past Hopper Box in Gants Hills (in Essex but also on the Central Line of the London Underground so very easy to get to) and it didn't take much persuading to get to down there.


So on Friday night myself and three friends ventured East and sampled Hopper Box. 


Trouble was the menu had soooo many yummy sounding dishes, I came there for hoppers but was drawn in to all the other specialities. 

So aswell as two hoppers (priced very reasonably at £2.95 for the pair) I also had a pumpkin curry and pittu - a kind of steamed rice/coconut cake, again a substitute to rice and judging by the link, very complicated to make! My cohorts also had hoppers as well as chicken and devilled anchovies. 

Pittu

It was a fine establishment, very clean, spacious and welcoming with a theatre style kitchen so you can watch over your hoppers being cooked. It's quite new still and they're not sure how to manage the numbers - it was packed so with just two members of staff there was alot of waiting involved. This just meant I had to order a second mango lassi which was no problem as the first was delicious.

Mango lassi is a combo of mango and yogurt

Food was good, hoppers wereworth the wait but not as 'tall and bowl formed' as they should have been.

In Sri Lanka, I loved eating hoppers for breakfast, here they are at the Galle Face Hotel where I spent my first night:

And here at a really sweet art cafe in the colonial coastal town of Galle where they had endless fillings, I even tried a sweet version with bananas and honey.....ahh the memories.

Next up Raveen plans to show us another eaterie that serves 'better' hoppers in Hendon, hope to go there next month and will report back.


Until then, here's a parting shot of the boys drinking Lion Brand beer, the official beer of Sri Lanka.