The quick red fox jumps over the lazy brown dog.

The Safari was out at tea time for the usual post-work game of footy with big Frank when we noticed a young Fox poking around along the footpath at the edge of the Golden Triangle.
Before too long it had come right out onto the field in full view of the big fella. A bit of a mistake as the ball was quickly abandoned in favour of a harder to catch play-thing. Poor Fox really needed to be conserving energy and looking for something to eat rather than have to run for its life.
We managed to call Frank off and grab hold of him and made him sit quietly. The Fox soon reappeared and by making pishing noises we got it to come slowly our way. Within a couple of minutes it was close enough to throw a couple of broken dog biscuits towards it. The movement shied it off a little but then it saw Frank’s ball sitting in the middle of the field. At first it was a little nervous of it but once it had decided it wasn’t going to be a threat it walked up to it sniffed it and then peed on it – wow, or yuk as we had to pick it up later. All this time Frank was well behaved and sat quietly although restrained by a tight grip on his collar and scruff. When he saw the Fox at his ball maybe he thought it was going to nick it off him as he made a massive lunge and nearly had us over. The Fox saw this too and scarpered back into the cover of the Golden Triangle. Frank investigated his ball decided it was still his and our game resumed.
Before too long the Fox reappeared, it must have been really hungry to risk coming out while Frank was still charging about the field. Once again we stopped the game and threw a couple of broken bits of biscuit towards it which it gratefully accepted. That was it, time to let the little mite search for some food – game over.
On our late night walk once again the Fox was out, this time some other kindly soul had left some chicken bits for it and it was tucking in to them. We left him a large handful of dog biscuits and one of Frank’s bones that we keep in the freezer...we trust they were appreciated.
Might try for a pic at some stage, using the Land Rover as a hide.
Getting to Patch 2 proved tricky after last night’s smattering of snow, which had frozen in to a thin film of ice.
Very annoyingly once we had safely reached the sea wall there was little to see as a pair of dog walkers down by the water’s edge had managed to flush almost all of the birds off our stretch of beach.
In the far southern distance we could see a long line of Cormorants stood on a sandbank, 87 of them.
All we had to look at in front of us was a few Sanderlings and Oystercatchers and several gulls, hardly worth the risk to life and limb!
Getting back to the office down the slope from the prom was ‘interesting’; certainly a lot less control than Amy Williams but maybe a fraction more than Eddie the Eagle!
No news from the patch at lunchtime, many miles away in the dentist’s chair, being relieved of cash rather than teeth.
Where to next? With little chance of a thaw more skating lessons on both the patches will probably be order of the day.
In the meantime let us know who’s relieving you of what in your outback.