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January 25, 2008
Good afternoon Mr Fox
Had the most bizarre experience this afternoon (for me, at least). Walking home from an appointment with my real estate agent today, I wandered up St Stephen's Avenue in Shepherd's Bush and was faced with a wild fox, casually heading my way. Now I understand that urban foxes are common in London, roaming the streets under the cover of darkness, and I have in fact spotted a fox in suburban parks of Australia in the dead of night on a rare occasion. However, this was broad daylight, and the fox was happy to come within about 10 feet of me before casually deciding to swap to the other side of the road, where the opportunity to ransack a 'refuse sack' (read: bag of rubbish) was apparently more appealing than wandering past me in the street.
I don't think I've ever come as close to feral wildlife in my life. But at the moment that it seemed that a fox would simply pass me in the middle of the day, with the sun shining down and the fox possibly ducking his head in a general acknowledgement, as if to say "g'day, how's it going?" (I assumed the fox would greet me with an Australian accent, as he was clearly quite comfortable with me), and suddenly I thought, "well if it wasn't for you, Mr Fox, then the rat situation in London would be abysmal".
I'm not sure whether I had consumed too many cups of tea or not, but the prospect of actually feeling relaxed and gratified about passing a wild fox in the street struck me afterwards as possibly more weird than seeing the vulpine individual happily strutting his stuff down a quiet suburban street of London.
Posted by jj at January 25, 2008 7:51 PM
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Never too many cups of tea me ol'china ;-)
That has made my AUSTRALIA DAY morning JJ! Personally, I'm not concerned about your feeling comfortable in the presence of a fox; but you must be missing Oz (just a little) if you could imagine him (her?) as an expat.
//
And you're right about the rats - if it weren't for the presence of the foxes (and stray/feral cats,dogs,wolves,bears,dragons,dwarfs) London would be overrun by rodents. Black Death anyone?
Posted by: jo.c at January 25, 2008 10:29 PM
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