For HP is a hedgehog ... or in my vocabulary a hedgepig ... hence the HP moniker.
I've spotted him three or four times now, as have the cats, and both the latter shy away.
They'll approach anything else, but not HP or any of his ilk.
They either have a genetic inbuilt ingredient which subconsciously tells them not to dab at him or they have indeed dabbed out at him, and discovered that ain't fur across his frame.
It's mobile cactus.
You hear the hedgepigs sometimes at night, grunting and shuffling about, and I don't mind that too much because they don't bark or howl or leave their unwanteds over the roof of the car.
Some 30 years ago at our previous abode there was one very friendly hedgepig who would, eventually after realising I was actually putting food out for him, just carry on with his shuffling duties of garden life.
Which was basically nothing.
He'd often emerge during the day, despite the fact they are effectively night creatures.
But he was clearly off the usual beaten track.
I would put pieces of bread smothered with peanut butter out for him and he'd take to them like a hedgepig possessed.
Once, and please don't try this at home kids, I even carefully picked him up for a brief couple of seconds and he cared not one whit.
I put him down and he just looked at me.
He was, as I noted earlier, off the usual biological beaten track for that species and I came to enjoy his presence.
To the point (and this is where it could be argued it starts getting a bit weird) I would sometimes call him.
I called him Piggy-Pig.
Standing out there under the trees down the back with a slab of bread smothered in peanut butter (he preferred it crunchy) and calling out "here Piggy-Pig" would have surely convinced the neighbours I'd started on the home brew early that day.
Then one day he just wasn't there.
All the calling and all the crunchy peanut butter placings did not result in anything other than more strange looks from the neighbours.
Rather than fear the worst I told myself he must have come across a better brand of peanut butter somewhere.
Or he stumbled upon a trap, because apparently that's what one should consider placing out there if these spiky fellows are lodging nearby.
I never figured they were a destructive element of ecology, but according to the Department of Conservation they are.
Which is kind of odd, as the country they were originally brought out here from, dear old Blighty, is actually encouraging people is some parts of the land to ensure they have a comfortable and safe resting spot or home as hedgehogs numbers are falling.
The first "shipment" of hedgehogs was brought out here about 1870 by the Canterbury Acclimatisation Society by all accounts, and there were several more group arrivals through until around the turn of the century.
They were introduced to control pests like slugs and snails and grass grubs but unfortunately they also had a liking for the eggs of ground-based birds.
Not to mention small native skinks.
Oh dear.
But you can't blame the little hedgepigs (aka hedgehogs).
They were sent away on sailing ships from their home fields and shrubbery to a faraway land and just had to get on with life ... unfortunately at something of a cost to our ecology.
It has actually been established that despite a fall in numbers they are today more numerous here than in Britain.
So hey, why don't we just gather a good number of them up and send them back?
To cover the idiocy of the associated bureaucracy and red tape required to carry out such things we could simply declare them to be overstayers.
But they can't have little HP.
He's happy and poses no threat to anything ... except I suppose our supply of peanut butter.
