Users of the Mid-Levels Escalator should be warned about the organization behind the touching banner hanging from a building in Cochrane Street asking people to give shelter to mendicant rabbits. Although friendly and welcoming on the surface, this supposedly charitable group has a nasty, intolerant and hostile side.
My first visit to the sanctuary for distressed rodents was a success. No sooner had I announced that I would like to adopt a bunny than the volunteer workers gave me a lovely, bouncy animal – one ‘Flopsy’ – complete with a cage and enough food to keep it happy for several days. Very pleased with it, I went back a week later to adopt another, and they were delighted to give me a particularly fluffy one, called Bo-Bo. When I returned for a third a few days later, they were decidedly cooler and asked me questions about the size of my apartment, before they agreed to give me an intelligent-faced and plump specimen, A-Mei, that caught my eye.
However, my fourth visit this morning turns out to be altogether less pleasant – indeed, as soon as I walk through the door one member of staff runs between me and the creatures’ compound and stands guard with a baseball bat. Apparently, they had followed me after I left last time with A-Mei bundled under my arm and watched me cross over to Graham Street market to adopt some onions, celery, carrots and potatoes, and go into 7-Eleven for a half-bottle of cheap red wine. On the grounds of such paltry, circumstantial evidence, I am now banished from the premises.
Now I need to find a use for some spare sprigs of thyme.
In Sweden they are an environmentally friendly fuel.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2009/10/091015_rabbit_burning_wup_sl.shtml
You have been reported to PETA [the real one] and they are sending a couple of Yorkshire vets to give you manual colonoscopy to check for Leporidae remains. To save all a lot of bother suggest a large double castor oil apertif and bag to output for the likely lads.
Very tasty – where is the shop? And, do you still have some thyme to spare?
Two of my simple pleasures is watching the look on locals’ faces when a) giving them licorice or b) wistfully pining for some roast rabbit. Try it.
When Parkview was first ready for sale ( 85-86??) The TV advert featured a rabbit frolicking in the hillsides of Tai Tam Country Park ( remember that?) Not very likely – I thought. But a couple of years later whilst running, I came across a bunny hopping along Sir Cecil’s Ride behind the Cricket Club. An escapee or abandoned ??? Don’t know – but not indigenous. I’d bet one of the rat snakes had it for dinner.