My fox is looking out for me. With one sleepy eye, the other covered by his fluffy tail.

I have been feeling overwhelmed lately, so I have taken to hiding out on the steps that lead to my tiny urban garden. And I know I covered the benefits of engaging with wildlife in my last post but after a couple of weeks of taking my own advice I can honestly say – it works!

Urban Britain is busy and all too often angry, but I think I may be suffering from the lack of social interaction more than I had thought. The current instinct is to back away from people we don’t know, to smile behind a mask and from a distance. And this has made every interaction more difficult and more stressful for me. Sure, I can smile with my eyes and speak louder to communicate. But the overall impression is people are dangerous. Specifically with vulnerable members of my immediate family, they literally threaten my world.

My garden, and more specifically the trees and ‘wasteground’ that it backs onto, with allotments beyond that is a surprising pool of biodiversity. Blackbirds visit daily, as does a not fully red-breasted robin, a family of wrens, and the pigeons and doves that take it in turns to scout and coo from the dead wood tree, which has been left with clean staggered perches, almost deliberately. All of this is often interrupted by the shockingly noisy skirmishes which breakout amongst the squirrels, leading to impressive chases amongst the branches and of course there are the ever chaotic and brashly noisy magpies.

But it is the cat-like sleepy fox that makes my mornings and evenings quite so special. He sleepily acknowledges the chaotic noise of the magpies and squirrels with me and looks up at me curiously, though briefly if my phone rings or if I chat with my children from my step.

But mostly, he just sleeps, tail curled over his nose, adjusting his position as the sun’s beams arc slowly around, apparently ignoring me as I sip my morning tea, watching over me with one beady eye open.

In the evening he is altogether different as he prowls, sniffing the days’ activities of other creatures, metres from the spot he sleeps in. He is often joined by another allotment fox, who appears elegantly on my neighbours garden wall, without effort or sound, checking his boundaries, confidently ignoring the wall-bound pet dogs of my neighbours. And so, as I end my day I take my leave of them to retire under my duvet and we part company, their ‘day’ begins. Their nocturnal life only glimpsed as fleeting shadows by us daytime creatures.

Until the morning, when we meet again, me with a hot cup of tea in my hand, while he naps in view, telling me once more, that there is always more, so much more than my life and daily cares.