Tipsy hedgehogs
Hilde and Norbert Press are a lovely German couple who visit SRQ two or three times each year.
Norbert formerly worked for IBM, and Hilde for Pan Am Airways, and then Delta Airways. They are wonderfully fluent in English.
They can fly free (on stand-by) with Delta, and they often house sit whilst they are in SRQ.
Hilde is a superb cook. Ben and I were their guests for a delicious dinner last Tuesday.
H and B began to talk about the insidious Spanish invasion of Germany. (And you thought that it was the Germans who were colonising Majorca).
But this invasion is of slugs, huge “Spanish” slugs which have come into Germany via imported produce. They have no predators in Germany, so they are multiplying beyond measure.
Ben and I naturally told B and H of the well known killer of slugs - beer. Placed in a shallow dish in the garden it attracts slugs, who then get - well “sluggish”, and cannot escape.
The Press’s knew all about this, and told us that they had tried this remedy.
But as Norbert explained, the remedy itself caused two further problems.
First, if you put the beer out, it attracts not only “your” slugs, but also all the slugs in the neighbourhood. The word gets out “hey pals, there is a party” (in Spanish of course).
Second, the beer also attracts hedgehogs ( “Igels” in German). They suck up the beer; get wasted; then wander tipsily over highways where they get run over by passing cars.
Couldn’t possibly happen to English hedgehogs could it?!
Norbert formerly worked for IBM, and Hilde for Pan Am Airways, and then Delta Airways. They are wonderfully fluent in English.
They can fly free (on stand-by) with Delta, and they often house sit whilst they are in SRQ.
Hilde is a superb cook. Ben and I were their guests for a delicious dinner last Tuesday.
H and B began to talk about the insidious Spanish invasion of Germany. (And you thought that it was the Germans who were colonising Majorca).
But this invasion is of slugs, huge “Spanish” slugs which have come into Germany via imported produce. They have no predators in Germany, so they are multiplying beyond measure.
Ben and I naturally told B and H of the well known killer of slugs - beer. Placed in a shallow dish in the garden it attracts slugs, who then get - well “sluggish”, and cannot escape.
The Press’s knew all about this, and told us that they had tried this remedy.
But as Norbert explained, the remedy itself caused two further problems.
First, if you put the beer out, it attracts not only “your” slugs, but also all the slugs in the neighbourhood. The word gets out “hey pals, there is a party” (in Spanish of course).
Second, the beer also attracts hedgehogs ( “Igels” in German). They suck up the beer; get wasted; then wander tipsily over highways where they get run over by passing cars.
Couldn’t possibly happen to English hedgehogs could it?!
That's because we would serve them proper English beer, none of your rubish continental lager, don't you know.
ReplyDelete"!Oye, amigos! Hay una fiesta!" the happy slugs would say.
ReplyDeleteOh, the hedgehogs! If only they weren't getting themselves smushed, that would be the cutest thing imaginable... drunken hedgehogs... hee hee.