Wild in the City

Walking back from my sad, bachelor-like evening's entertainment the other night (2 pints of Deuchars, approx 1/4 of the Guardian crossword completed) I heard a strange, melancholy sound up ahead, a cross between a demented duck and a homesick parrot. As I got closer, it appeared to be coming from the garden of one of the few houses in the area which does not have 12 foot walls and an automatically operated, wrought iron gate, so I crossed over the road to see what I could see. Peering over into the garden, I saw not the duck family I'd expected, but a couple of foxes, not 5 yards away from me. One was larger than the other, and the one doing all the moaning was in a slightly contorted, semi-crouching position. I figured they were probably male and female, going through the ritual early stages of "Ey love, d'yer fancy some?" Bathed in the overhead street lamp's light, they looked just wonderful: thick glossy coats and bright eyes, and completely unaware of me.

Now I'm not a great expert on the love lives of foxes, but the one thing I do know for a fact is that, due to a series of spines being involved (I can't remember who the lucky owner of these is, I'm guessing the female) the docking procedure is so technical it was first put into practice on Apollo 11. The outcome is that the male often has his tackle embedded for several hours, while the female has a fag then drags him round Tesco and half a dozen clothes shops. To be honest, I didn't really want to see things get to that stage, my eyes were already watering from the sharp Edinburgh winter air, so as they trotted off into the grounds of the nearby hospital, presumably to pick up a morning after pill, I turned and continued my solitary way home.