I forgot to mention the fox yesterday. How could he have slipped my mind when he forged such an impression by his brief appearance last Saturday morning? I love seeing them. I’ve seen four. I remember each one. One was in our garden in Cambridge. It stood by the kitchen door holding my stare for what seemed like hours (it wasn’t) before turning tail and bounding over our fence. The other was years before in Manchester. It was another early morning and it was crossing a busy, though then empty thoroughfare. Then there was the one I saw on the Prom. He too held my stare. I could see his body move with his breath. And now this one. It crossed the path of our car just after the new Dovey bridge roadworks. He was a flash of fur, a pointed nose, sharp-ended ears and then a brush tail escaping into the scrub. Seen and then gone. Marvellous. Life is made anew by such wildness. I thought about how he saw the world, the smells he caught, the sensations of being out there scavenger, trying to survive. How I love them.
