Why "Choggy"?
Late one night, in 1973, a small child had been brought outside by her parents to see some hedgehogs. The girl was totally captivated by the timid, snuffling creatures & stood, slack jawed for several moments- watching- enjoying their quiet shuffling, their complete obliviousness to her presence.
The sheer exuberance of witnessing a brief shard of the lives of these shy little balls of prickles welled up in the child. She was abuzz with adrenaline & somewhere in her brain, a trip-switch was triggered & all the joy she felt at having been able to share a moment of her life with these quiet, introverted, loveable animals was released in the form of one almighty shriek of "'Ello chog!".
The hedgehogs were scared half to death & scuttled away as fast as their little legs would carry them (muttering "Blimey- that child's a loon! I'm off!" under their breaths). But the child grew up having learned a very important lesson... never shout at a hedgehog!
I was that child! So as you can see, the nic originates from the fact that I've always been fond of Hedgehogs - they're cute little buggers, not too cuddly, but cute none the less.
For anyone who's interested, I also have a hedgehog shaped birthmark on my knee.
My name's Ceri (it's Welsh, but pronounced the same as the Irish version: Kerry) and I'm a 30 year old gay girl from Birkenhead, Wirral now living and working in Surrey, where I moved in May 2001 to live with my partner, Sarah.
I have one younger sister, Genevieve, who lives in Birkenhead, Wirral with my Dad, John and our pets. There's a "bitza" dog, called Riff Raff ("Bitza" because he's made up of "bitza" this and "bitza" that - he's mostly Border Collie, but with a Labrador shaped head and belly... my Mum, used to call him a "Labradolly"!) and eight cats (yes, eight!) The cats are called *deep breath*
My mum, Margaret, died on Tuesday 2nd March 1999 and is much missed by us all.
So, who are ya really, then?
Teapot is our original moggie, and Goofy her daughter. Purrrky originally belonged to a friend but we took him in (Purrky that is, not the friend!) because as a 3 month old kitten he was dying of liver failure and our friend couldn't cope (incidentally, about a year on from when the Vet gave him virtually no chance of surviving, he's fit and strong). Pheido was a stray whose original owners never claimed her. Taz belonged to another friend who had to move house and couldn't take her with him, so we took her in and then discovered she was pregnant, and thus arrived Stalin, Lenin and Karl (I've NO idea what Gen was on when she decided to call them all after communists!!! The other one of the litter has been re-homed now but was originally called Kaiser Bill). Stalin and Karl only have three legs each due to an accident shortly after they were born - all together now "aaaawwwww!".
