I wasn`t mugged, but knelt down to give some money to a beggar at Brighton station and as he was talking to me (obviously a diversionary tactic), I noticed his hand was reaching into my bag for my purse. He didn`t get it because I pulled away, but I felt really shocked and upset at the time. Guess I was naive.

“Alert, alert” cried Ptolemy the Polecat bursting into Mr. and Mrs. Hedgehog’s residence. “Boars in edible underwear are roaming the forest!”

“Sshh” cried the Hedgehogs “We is watching BBC4!”

“Oh, the culture channel” remarked Ptolemy drawing up a log to sit on “Good is it, nice bit of Mahler or Darcey’s Farewell?”

“No, it’s Iron Maiden live in Rio, goodness, they do have a lot of energy, tight jeans  and hair extensions” replied Mrs. H, adjusting her bombazine dress and fiddling with her starched white cuffs.

“Don’t they bite the heads off rats, them Iron Maidens?”  enquired Ptolemy, “I like doing that as well”

“Wasn’t that Ozzy Osbourne and bats?” said Mr. H.

“I like doing that as well” said Ptolemy, licking his lips.

“What about Alice Cooper and the chickens?”  piped up little Miss H.

“Now you’re talking!  Nothing like some chicken gizzards!  But the beak is indigestible to say the least, gives me terrible wind”  said Ptolemy

“Now, about these bores in underwear” harrumphed Mr. H adjusting his leather gaiters.

“No worries mate” replied Ptolemy “No-one messes with a Polecat with hair extensions and an Iron Butterfly tattoo. I’ll see them boers off and I quite look forward to wearing their underwear (but don’t tell anyone I am a novice cross dresser)

“I love Iron Butterfly’s In-a-Gadda-da-Vida” confessed young Miss H, blushing coyly, “it’s not Heavy Metallurgy but more like Hawkwind crossed with Bauhaus innit?  But I am dead fond of Alien Sex Dwarfs and Virgin Prunes on a different intellectual level”

“Mrs. H.” remarked Ptolemy “You have a lovely daughter.”

“Hot in here, isn’t it?” remarked Mrs. Hedgehog adjusting her cuffs, “Tell me, Ptolemy is an unusual name for a Polecat, were you parents from the other side of the River?”

“No, my given name, given by the Vicar at the font was (and here he blushed) Peter, and I gave him a nasty nip when he poured that water over me head, but due to my interest in astrology I changed it to that of my hero, Ptolemy, I oft roam these woods with me telescope in me pocket, observing necks and the like”

“Fancy some bramble muffins and staying to see the Alice Cooper documentary?” asked Mrs. H.

“Don’t mind if I do” he replied, surreptitiously checking his breath and edging closer to Little Miss H. and eyeing her neck.  If anyone was ripe for neck biting it was her.

Each mugging is different, and has its own reasons. It can depend on a lot of factors, whether its through some kind of addiction, or just a simple popularity quest (don't get me started) .

All you can really do in the aftermath of that situation - and i don't mean just mugging - is sort it out and carry on; once you come to the realization that these things do happen in a lot of places these days...

I was once happy-slapped little more than an hour before i had to play a concerto. It was the first one I did as well, so I was already nervous. but somehow an experience like that can snap one out of one's stupor and increase determination levels many times.

quote from Eruanto,
but somehow an experience like that can snap one out of one's stupor and increase determination levels many times.

You very mature for your age. Thank you for many good points in this one sentence.

The little boar (who was in fact a big boar) looked at her underwear. There was nothing wrong with it. She felt a little disappointed: Hm, people are always critical of you, no matter how hard you try. This underwear is not in fact even dirty. She sighed: I should not be angry with people. Some people will understand you and some will be critical no matter what you do and how hard you try. 
She sighed again, she remembered the young lad who gave her good take on recent things. In fact she had a tendency to forget that though many other boars, bears and different mascots were also helpful lately.
She heard it in her ears like if someone whispered: Concentrate on positive things. If one door closes, there is another door that opens somewhere. Every experience is valuable and may be what you are going through now has its purpose too. It will mobilize you, or perhaps you were too complacent lately.
There was a little beautiful cat there who said in passing: Don't be so dramatic, it all will be well after all.
The big boar (who thought he was little) was still sad, but was much cheered up by some of his friends, who were also animals. One should count one's blessings and I have many things to be grateful for. He looked for his Spelling. This little animal was always trying to get away and had to be kept on a very short leash. No matter how the boar (the same as a bear) tried he could never control it completely, but because she was tired that beast felt that its freedom is finally approaching. The spelling was looking for any opportunity to misbehave.
Well, thought the boar, after all tomorrow is another day.

Hedgehogs are excellent - we used to regularly have one visit our garden at our old house in Suffolk (i'll post a (very poor) photograph later on when I am at home)  On one ocassion, we had a pair (probably parent and offspring) and they were happily snuffling around for some time!  Sadly there don't seem to be any in our current garden.

In both that garden and this one, we have no nasty chemicals so nothing was made ill by eating things from our garden.  The best way Lynn found to stop slugs and snails was to grow things that they won't eat and use copper tape around those things that you can't do without that they do like.



"Oh no" said Tristram folding away his theremin "a hedgehog!  I'm off!"

Several hours later he got through the door...

Mine eat hollyhocks! However the hollyhock plant is sometimes tough enough to survive the onslaught. They don't eat any form of primrose or geranium (including the wild geranium), alyssum, montbretia, roses, mallows, monkshood, scabious or valerian. Most poppies (not Iceland poppies) are all right as well. I've never managed to grow a delphinium or lupin, though, and I'd like both. I adopt Jonathan's approach to snails and slugs.

EDIT to add nigella (love-in-a-mist) and limnanthes (poached egg flower) to the inedible-to-snails list.

So that's where my aubretia went.

MONTbretia, not aubretia, is the flower I can grow (in fact can't stop). It's often called crocosmia, but I've always called it montbretia.