Garden Trio

Flad the cat isn't scared of foxes. In fact, he's quite curious, as you can see from the picture. In the foreground is Olive, who I now think is a young vixen as there are no signs of any 'family jewels'. Behind her is her littermate, Kinky, another, but shyer, vixen. Olive appears every lunchtime when I come into the kitchen. I think she lurks in the bushes watching for me. Now that the evenings are dark, I peer out of the steamed-up window and see her waiting patiently beneath the fruit trees, her eyes gleaming like emeralds when I shine the torch on her.

This week she has eaten five out of the box of six organic eggs which were destined for my stomach, not hers. She also had half of my fish pie from last night's dinner. Once the scraggy runt of the litter, not expected to survive the winter, I think she's now in with a good chance, even if I starve in the process!



We had a sprinkling of snow on Saturday night and in the morning I spotted these prints of a pigeon that had gone round in circles. Maybe it was a Saturday night drunk!

Fox 1, Cat 0

As if it wasn't enough being chased by a deer, today poor old Flad hurtled through the cat flap with the vixen, mother of this year's cubs, in hot pursuit. She halted in front of the cat flap and pondered for a moment, as if wondering whether or not to venture through. Luckily, she didn't and I hope she never does. She and her progeny cause enough trouble as it is. One of them was even impudent enough to crap in poor Flad's outdoor bed, a cardboard box filled with the paper out of the shredder. I stroked him and spoke soothingly to him whilst watching the vixen's brush, an unusual shade of copper beech auburn, disappear round the bushes. Flad's tail was so fluffed out, he looked like a black and white fox himself.