vermin
I've previously blogged about our rather less than feral fox population, currently we have one extremely healthy looking specimen, which lounges around in sunny patches in the back garden, and on occasion looks in at my bedroom window (my bedroom is partially below ground, and when lying in bed I am near eye level with the garden). This fox is so degage (sorry haven't found acute accent yet) about our presence in its world that I was able, whilst under the influence of a modicum of wine, to creep up to within three yards of it before it showed any sign of concern. If I were in its position the prospect of a mildly pissed electrician lurching up the path trying to be silent would have had me over the hills and far away long before. One of our neighbours has actually been able to pick up one of the foxes, when it became stuck down the side of a neighbours outhouse, I hope she was de-fleaed after.I'm afraid that things are going to get worse for our urban foxes, and no, I'm not referring to the putative formation of the Ealing and Acton hunt, putting their chelsea tractors to good use delivering Jocelyn and Jocasta to the the latest opportunity to blood themselves. No indeed, our council have decided to up the ante on the recycling front and issue us with special buckets to take our compostable waste, this is not just for coffee grounds and apple peelings, but also for bones, cooked meat and all manner of disgustingness that we have previously been told not to put on our compost heaps because they encourage rats and other vermin. So, instead of lying out on the street overnight in tempting black sacks just waiting for a questing nose, there will be a row of buckets filled with putrefying gunk, three points occur to me; 1) I wouldn't want to be the bucket emptier, is this the modern equivalent of the night-soil collector? 2) I'm very glad they have lids, our foxes may be urban, but aren't yet equipped with opposable thumbs, 3) Somewhere in West London is going to be the mother of all tiger-worm bins, I hope, unless it's an enormous mound of rotting food, with obligatory entourage of very fat rats.
The problem, of course, is, what will the foxes eat when the muck-buckets are introduced? Or will they move up to the area that has been described as the binge drinking capital of London and feed off discarded chicken bones and partially digested kebabs as once they were wont to do. Our council has a bewildering policy towards recycling, they collect glass, metal and paper from our doors, but refuse cardboard and plastic, they have even started to charge at the local tip despite having converted it to a bespoke recycling centre. This schizophrenia is by no means uncommon, in Glasgow, where I spend a large part of my working life, they will take mixed paper, plastic and cans, but no glass, in Glasgow???
Finally, now that the nights are drawing in, those tiresome little buggers the squirrels are making their presence more obvious, this seems to mean that they feel that they have a remit to dig up my bloody pots. I have been contemplating this with less than enthusiasm, as they do like to pull things up and take a bite just in case they like it, so far, the only way I have found to limit this activity is to put a thick layer of gravel on all the pots, as the pebbles hurt their poor little toes. Maybe the foxes will eat them?
posted by Lampy @ 9/28/2005 12:20:00 pm
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