Fox Reality

Bad news on the foxes, folks.
Not just cute and nostalgia-inducing.
Big story here about a fox that mauled two twin babies in their cots in their upstairs bedroom while they slept. Very rare for a fox.
It came in -- one story said attracted to the noise babies make while sleeping -- through an open window.
It's been warm here, so everyone's had their windows and back doors open.
We have too.
We always have our bedroom window open.
There are 10,000-20,000 foxes in London, I've read; 27 per square mile, I heard on the radio.
The last attack by a fox was years ago though. They usually just run away from bigger humans.
But they're becoming bolder, the stories say.
The distraught mother of the twins (can you imagine?) says she confronted the fox -- she and her husband were watching TV downstairs while the babies slept upstairs with a window open -- when she ran upstairs when her twin girls started crying.
Fox just stared her down, she said, not moving.
Not scared at all.
That's scary.
Stories quoted neighbors saying they run across foxes in their gardens a lot and that the foxes are everywhere.
A bit like here.
We did surprise a fox in our garden one night.
It ran away right away.
We thought it was kinda cute at the time.
Now not so sure.
I love having my kitchen door open, though, opening on to our cute little south-facing garden. Especially when the sun is shining.
But the trash is in the kitchen, so that must be a draw.
If any foxes are around.
Which they are.
I can see one now on the roof of the big wood shed in the old lumberyard directly in front of us.
Oh well.
It's drizzling and grey now though.
And they say it's staying that way for the week.
So the door's shut.
I wish the cute foxes hadn't done that.

The Fox Family

I said last year that England didn't really have a night noise, like Italy does. That here, even in busy London, it was the noise of quiet.
Wrong.
It's the sound of foxes. At least around here.
I've been jet-lagged, and my husband's been away, so I've been going to sleep close to three every morning.
I told you about the family of foxes that live in the seemingly abandoned, empty stand of houses across the street from me, right?
I hadn't seen them the first day after I returned from the States. And I was worried.
I like the foxes. A lot. Even if yes, they can be mangy.
They're little. And red. Cute. They lie in the sun scratching themselves.
And where do you get to live among foxes? Seriously? In a city?
They remind me of my dog of a dozen years back in the States. They're the same color. And shape. Just a bit smaller.
The dog we had to put down before we came.
My beloved Lucy. My best friend.
Named after Lucille Ball, that great American red-head.
Back to the foxes.
Hadn't seen them yet. Really wanted to.
Had noticed a big new demolition sign on the front of the houses, though, which used to be a local lumberyard.
The big, once important lumberyard -- maybe 10 houses all together -- is right on the High Road.
We live around the corner from the High Road now, which just goes on and on for miles through one London neighborhood after another.
Never really ends, this continuous London High Road, as far as I can tell.
Whatever you call it.
I'm worried now they're going to take the whole stand of houses down though. That somebody bought it. They would, wouldn't they? The market's good.
The noise we'll have to endure.
And the foxes. Above all, the foxes.
I was still up, magazines and newspapers strewn around me on the bed, when I heard them. I glanced at the clock radio. 2:30 a.m.
A high-pitched wailing. Followed by some more.
A fox fight. Or something.
I looked out.
Two of them were sitting outside about twenty feet apart on our little private road (we live in a weird little gated community in the middle of everything).
They were staring at each other.
Looking kinda chill, though.
Like Lucy could look, all curled up, but still hyper-alert.
What's going on out there, guys?
My next door neighbor, a retired British gentleman who lives here part-time with his wife, told me the foxes run the place at night.
They run along the high back walls.
In the dead of night.
Or along our private road.
When most people are asleep.
This morning -- okay, afternoon -- a fox sat on the roof of the lumberyard's big old shed (please do not take that glorious old wood shed down), scratching himself, hoping the sun comes out later. Like everyone else in the neighborhood.
Hello there! You're still here.
So good to see you.
Please don't go yet.

The Foxes

I've told you about the foxes all over the place here in London, haven't I?
How at my old apartment, the elderly lady downstairs (who actually drove me nuts, but then we probably drove her nuts first), warned me to keep the lid on my rubbish bin (or top on the trash can) so the foxes wouldn't get to it?
How I laughed to myself and said right, yeah, that's a nice understated British way to say RATS.
How right after that, I saw my first fox, followed by my second and my third, and then I stopped counting?
Well, we've moved to fox city, folks.
They're all over the place here.
It's kind of eerie, actually, but original too.
There's a stand of unoccupied houses in front of us.
And a fox family has moved in there.
I kid you not.
They roam in and out of the broken windows there, sunning themselves on the roof, cleaning their paws in the daylight, a whole bunch of them. There's always one out there.
It's like something out of an Edgar Allen Poe story.
The Foxes. By Edgar Allen Poe.
What do they get up to in the dead of night?
Our bedroom window looks out over the unoccupied houses. Which I know sounds trashy. But is actually kinda cool.
When I get up, first thing I do is look out the window and check what the foxes are up to.
This morning, one was out there, scratching his/her butt, when I opened the curtains.
He/she looked up at me, and stopped scratching.
Some of them look pretty unhealthy -- scrawny and mangy.
Yeah, some of them have mange, my neighbor told me.
Okay.
One of them walked into our garden last night.
But then ran away.
They're more scared of you than you are of them, my neighbor said.
Okay.
My husband says there are so many because they stopped hunting them here, the land of the fox hunt.
Okay.
The Foxes. By Edgar Allen Poe.
Every day.
Every night.
Right outside our bedroom window.