Green Beans

Mrs Fox breezed into the Foxes’ Retreat farmhouse kitchen, muddy from digging up leeks. “What are you cooking, Foxy?”

Mr Fox turned guiltily away from the range cooker, a handful of damsons in his sticky paw. 

“Fox! They are for the jam!”

“Sorry, Foxy, my love,” mumbled Mr Fox around a mouth full of plum stones. “I’m making…” he de-stoned his mouth… “I’m making… dinner! Green beans and dill and feta cheese!”

“Where did you get the green beans from?” Mrs Fox asked, in a suspicious tone, eyeing the empty trug on the counter.

“Er, there were a whole load in there,” he gestured to the trug, “they’re for eating, right?”

“Do you know the difference between runner beans and green beans, Fox?”

“Oh.” Mr Fox’s long vulpine snout drooped. Somewhere at the back of his brain there was a memory of a difference in tenderness and cooking times that seemed like it might be relevant. “They are both green. It would be much easier if beans were colour coded, like lentils.”

“You’ll need to cook them for longer.”

“Fiddlesticks.” Mr Fox added some water to the pan and put the lid on.

Some minutes later, the foxes sat down at the long wooden kitchen table and Mr Fox served the dish - steaming and perfectly cooked. Mrs Fox mused that the culinary rescue service seemed to have worked.

“Delicious, Mr Fox, perfect tender runner beans!”

“Thanks Foxy!” Grinned Mr Fox. “Damson crumble for desert?”

“Oh yes!”

Green Bean and Feta Thingy

Ingredients: An onion, sliced, some green beans (or runner beans), sliced, some fresh dill, and some feta cheese.

Method: Fry off the onion in olive oil until translucent and caramelizing slightly. Add the green beans and heat through. Add a dash of water or two, if you need to cook the beans for longer - like if you accidentally used runner beans. Whack in the dill, chopped, and some salt to taste. Add the chopped feta at the end.

Goes well on toast.

Awen

Mr Fox raised his foxy snout and sniffed the forest breeze; redolent of lake air, leaf mould, decaying bracken and rainfall, with a side-note of winter chill to come, and a piquant astringency of pine sap. “Winter’s coming…” he muttered into his whiskers.

“What’s that, my love?” Queried Mrs Fox, as she unloaded the root vegetables and chocolate into the fridge.

“It smells of winter, on the way. We’ll soon be under snow.”

“What does the Met Office say?”

Mr Fox fumbled his paws against the screen of his smart phone, silently cursing Google for not making the Pixel4a Fox-fur-friendly. ‘Designed by weasels’ he suspected. The Met Office website was a sea of red. “Says it’s going to be red.”

“What, the snow?”

“Ah, no, got it, there’s a storm coming.”

“Storm? What’s her name?”

“Arwen.”

“What, the druidic muse, brewed for a year and a day in Ceridwen’s cauldron, gift to Afagddu of the Night, so that he may see? That’s a terrible name for a storm!”

“No, not Awen. Arwen, with an ‘arr’.”

“I’m not sure which is worse, the Met Office’s choice of names, or their spelling.”

Later that evening, the foxes had filled their bellies with root vegetable stew, eaten a fine pudding of soya yogurt and oats with fresh blueberries, drank innumerable cups of tea and Mrs Fox had soundly thrashed Mr Fox. At Banagarams. Again. They settled into bed as Arwen started to gather pace across the lake, the oak trees outside shouting their susurrating terror. There came a loud thud and a clunk.

“What’s that?!” Mrs Fox’s worried snout poked out into the freshening bedroom air. Her ears quivered.

Mr Fox looked out of the window through the open curtains. “The patio furniture is trying to take flight. I’ll nip out and wedge it in a corner…”

“Oh no, Foxy, No!” wailed Mrs Fox. “I’ve had a vision! Branches through the roof! Squashed fox! Don’t leave me!” Except, she didn’t. She thought to say this, but felt that Mr Fox would think her overly prescient. “Be careful Foxy,” she smiled.

“I will, my love. Two minutes.” Mr Fox got dressed in stout fur, heavy boots and a wooly hat pulled firmly over his ears, and headed out into the storm. “Crikey, it’s a bit blowy out…” Fox muttered to himself, edging along the verandah, ducking smaller branches as they flew through the air. The roaring of the trees was louder out here, much louder. It sounded like a … well, like ten thousand trees being battered by hundred mile-an-hour winds. Which is what it was. He was buffeted and battered and a laughing gust whipped his hat off into the blackness, never to be seen again. With grim purpose he put one foot in front of the other, casting about with his small electrician’s torch, and reached the corner. Up the steps onto the patio, he looked down the yellow torch beam, which illuminated a black-cloaked, hooded figure, leaning over a cauldron.

“Err… hello?” Ventured Mr Fox. The figure remained shrouded in darkness, despite the full glare of the torch. It was as if the inside of the hood was sucking up the light.

“Can I help you? It’s a terrible evening to be abroad.”

The hooded darkness turned to him - and the outline of a moonlit face became visible. Moonlit despite the deep cloud layer muffling all light. The face was at once old and young, wise and fecund, innocent and motherly. A voice seemed to speak directly into Mr Fox’s brain, without passing through his furry ears.

“Ferdinand Fox, of Rutland Shire.

You who are long from home, here in my forest,

Tarry not, upon this place.

Oak and ash push back at the dark,

But Men of Isca Dumnoniorum named the wind.

And so my cauldron bubbles over.

Awen feeds Afagddu anew.

Tarry not!”

Mr Fox looked around, startled. The figure had vanished, along with the cauldron. The National Trust garden furniture was vibrating in the wind. He turned and shouted above the roar “I’ll just…. wedge the furniture…”

“TARRY NOT! That includes mucking around with the patio set.” came the disembodied command.

Mr Fox turned and fled back to the door of the cottage, slipped inside, locked it, and shakily made his way back to the bedroom.

“Mr Fox! You’re safe!” came Mrs Fox’s joyous cry.

“I am, Fox, I am. The weirdest thing just happened…”

At that very instant, a creaking breaking groan shook the cottage, as a huge oak tree was uprooted and crashed through the patio, splintering the balustrade and rupturing the decking as it utterly flattened the benighted furniture. It eventually came to a halt resting the top-most branches against the bedroom window, where they rattled, Wuthering Heights Esque; a faint echo rang in Mr Fox’s brain:

“I did say, tarry not, did I not?”

On The Turn

“This coffee’s on the turn!” exclaimed Mrs Fox, plonking the large mug down on her bedside table with disdain.

“On the turn? What do you mean?” enquired Mr Fox, looking up from his newly minted copy of Elektor magazine, thoughts of thermistors and switch mode micro-power supplies fleeing from his brain like scudding clouds before a cold front.

“It’s gone cold. Well, not hot. Kind of lukewarm. Like coffee that’s well, not hot enough to enjoy any more. Maybe I should have a thermos flask of coffee instead of a cup? Then it would be always hot. Angelina does that. She’s wise, with the ways of tea.”

Mr Fox considered this. It sounded like just the sort of Engineering Challenge that he should rise to. Thermos flask? What was this, the 1950s? Surely there was a more modern approach to the problem. He set the magazine aside and scratched his foxy ears, all the better to help his brain engage in Engineering Mode.

The next morning dawned at Foxes’ Retreat as it usually did, with the woodpigeons cooing and the house sparrows chattering and the gentle murmuring of fox-wake, coffee making and porridge microwave tinging. This acoustic domestic duvet was slightly jarred with Mrs Fox’s shriek. “What on earth is that?!”

Mr Fox stood proudly by the invention adorning the breakfast table. Mrs Fox’s usual red coffee mug was almost invisible under a plethoric birds’ nest of wires and pipes, heating coils, waveguides and a tiny magnetron, with a small circuit board hot-glued onto the side of the mug with bright blue LEDs blinking. The whole mechanism appeared to be connected to a solar panel the size of a tea tray which was propped up next to it with a wooden cooking spoon. “It’s Mr Fox’s patent coffee Anti-Turn machine!”

The Anti-Turn machine took that moment to bring the cup to the boil, sending scalding coffee spilling over the edge and into the circuit board, whose LEDs turned red, before extinguishing with an audible pop and a small puff of smoke. The entire machine made a noise like a steam engine shutting down, and the solar panel fell off the precarious spoon and dented the kitchen table.

Mrs Fox gingerly took the mug from within its heating coil, using a cloth to prevent her paws being singed.

“I think, if its all the same to you, Mr Fox, I’ll just rely on a thermos flask.”

Freecycling Jam…

“A blackcurrant bush,” they said.

“Come and help yourself,” they said.

“Free,” they said.

Mr Fox looked at the back of his works van. Shook his head in bewilderment. The small trifle of a blackcurrant bush had turned out to be mostly triffid. And a large, gnarly, actively-resisting-being-dug-up triffid at that. It had taken three of them to lift it out of the hole, and it now filled the back of the van. All of the back of the van.

On his return to the earth, Mrs Fox was beside herself.

“Think of the jam! Preserve! Cake fillings! Consomme!”

She burbled happily, making busy with the spade and digging a very large hole into which the now rather sorry-for-itself triffid was lowered.

For the plant had not taken kindly to having its roots cut away by the weasel with the spade. Mr Fox was worried. He watered it profusely, in the vain hope that the bush would somehow suck up water directly into its severed root system. But over the weeks that followed, it faded. Leaves curled up and died. Nascent berries tried their best, but barely.

Three months later…

Mr Fox had admitted, he was sceptical about the possibility of a new jam taste. The damsons were on the way, and the mixed fruit jam from earlier in the year was still gracing the store cupboard shelves. And yet. Here they were, he and his vixen, de-stalking a moderate crop of blackcurrants.

The triffid had come through. Produced a modest 1 kilo of fruit, and had started to grow new shoots and green budding leaves. So the fruit was enjambed. The jars sterilised. The labels printed, ready for the sticking.

The best part, thought Mr Fox, was the Fox-Rule-Of-Jam-Making – no matter how many jars you have, there’s always a ramekin left over for foxy snouts.

Delicious.

Warmer Days…

“Mrs Fox!” A shriek bounced through the open window at Foxes’ Retreat.

Mrs Fox peeped outside, slightly unnerved by such a racket in the sublime quiet of Foxes’ Retreat. Mr Fox could be seen hopping, yes hopping, around the edge of the pond.

“It’s Spring, Mrs Fox! Look!”

Sure enough, Mrs Fox noted, her eyes widening at the bulging masses of frogspawn now inhabiting the front garden pond. There were a lot of frogs. She started to count. Mr Fox laughed and shook his long foxy nose at her. Her brow furrowed.

“Sssh. I’m counting….”

“There are too many, Mrs Fox. I have already tried." He pulled her down to squat on the grassy bank next to him, pointing across the pond. “One, two, three… many!” he exclaimed, falling back onto his bottom as he snorted at Mrs Fox’s annoyance.

“Many?” she enquired. “Many?” Is that the best you can do, Fox? After all that adding up work I did with you last winter?!”

Shaking her head, she stood up and set off back to count the deviled eggs she had prepared earlier. There was no mistaking it. There were several missing, and she had a fair idea who knew about them.

“Many, indeed,” she muttered to herself, slipping one of the golden filled halves into her mouth all at once.

Dreaming of Summer…

Mrs Fox flicked through photographs from last summer. She was ready for the warmer weather. She was ready to lay her red fur down on the deep grassy slopes at Foxes’ Retreat again. In short, she was ready for summer.

Both the foxy calendar and the light each evening showed her that Ostara was just around the corner. It was now a matter of a few days away, and that only meant one thing for the Foxes.

“Spring Baths”.

‘Eugh!’ shuddered Mrs Fox, thinking of the most watery event that would herald the shedding of their winter pelts. She always held on to thoughts of after Spring Bath Day, knowing how she would delight and frolic, making free in the meadow with her sleek summer coat.

Mr Fox, on the other hand, always had to be coerced into the seasonal ritual. Him and Millie the Lurcher. As bad as each other. Mrs Fox had placed the tangerine bottle of Dirty Dogz shampoo on the bathroom window sill only this morning. Millie the Lurcher had sloped off, glancing over her shoulder shiftily. Mrs Fox had simply sighed. She was wise, knowing that they would all feel better once the winter scurf was out of their coats.

Mr Fox was nowhere to be found today. One sniff of Spring Bath Day preparations and he was off down the fields, chasing in the woods, surprising pheasants and sending them flapping low over the hedges with his exuberance. Mrs Fox shook her head with a smile. He would come back when he was hungry, she knew it. That was the thing about Foxes. Their stomachs ruled them utterly. Her wonderful Mr Fox had given up rabbits and pheasants long ago, and the smell of a fragrant and hearty Root Vegetable Casserole simmering on the stove would soon have him slipping back into the kitchen.

Mrs Fox turned on the screen and clicked cheerfully on the virtual shopping basket at her local greengrocers. It would all arrive on Thursday, with a smile and a wave, in plenty of time to prepare the snare for Spring Bath Day. She smiled to herself. It was the same every year. Moans, groans and excuses, then the frenzied delight as he shook himself clean and set off to lap the garden, exclaiming with excitement at how much better he felt.

‘Foxes!’ She rolled her eyes and settled her furry tail down onto her yoga mat, closing her eyes. ‘Foxes’, she smiled to herself, as her breathing deepened. ‘What was to be done with them?’

An Evening Stroll…

Mrs Fox eyed the tower of full egg boxes with growing alarm. The Hayloft was still not open for visitors, but the chickens had not taken note. They were back in their full swing of Spring laying, their moults almost all over for the winter. There was much happy clucking around in the cool sunshine of March.

Back to the eggs. Mrs Fox determined to resolve the situation, at least in part, by marching up over the back field and setting a couple of boxes down for Robert and Vernon. She selected the largest and smoothest, from the three oldest hens, Amelia Egghart, Specks and Violet. With great care, she nestled them into cardboard boxes, and slipped them into a bag.

“Mr Fox? I am off to deliver eggs across the fields before it is dark.”

“Wait! I’ll come with you,” replied the lean, tall Fox, arriving at her side from goodness only knows where.

The two Foxes set off across the farmyard, leaving the assortment of dogs to chase wildly in their absence. The heavy wooden farm gate clicked shut on its latch and Mr Fox slipped his paw around Mrs Fox’s waist and hummed a happy tune.

The light was gently fading, and Mrs Fox smiled at the frollicking dairy herd in the field to their left. Their first days out on Spring grass were always wonderful to watch. Joyful bounding and hasty snatching at clumps of the winter-rested meadow alternated erratically as the Foxes made their way towards their neighbours’ farm gate.

“Er… Mr Fox… erm…” Mrs Fox tilted her foxy ears towards the rather close and energetic creatures.

Mr Fox nodded. “They do look quite frisky,”

Mrs Fox considered. “Maybe we could leave the bag on the hedge?”

“Cows eat anything, we can’t risk them pulling it in.”

The Foxes looked about.

“Hm, difficult,” said Mr Fox. “How about over here?”

The Foxes carefully hung the bag with its precious and fragile egg-cargo in the opposite hedge. Mrs Fox pulled out her telephone and sent a message to the dairy farm.

Feeling more than a little surprised at their own caution, the Foxes turned and made their way back to Foxes’ Retreat. But not before having a dusk-lit chat with a particularly beautiful black cow called Clara.

Sticky and Warm

The Foxes had dined that evening on crushed root vegetables, with plenty of butter and two seared duck breasts. They were replete. Sated. Recumbent in their fullness, even. But something was missing.

Mr Fox had crushed meringue nests hopefully with blueberries and sour cherries from deep in the Foxes’ freezer supplies. Something sweet would be bound to bridge the gap to their late night foraging, he thought to himself as he hummed his way out of the store-room and back to the warm farmhouse kitchen.

“Mrs Fox!” he exclaimed. “Whatever are you doing? Is that…? Are they… ? Are you…?!”

Mrs Fox turned, her paw clasping a chocolate covered spoon, whilst her nose also sported a large dollop of the sticky mixture. “I just thought that I should make sure that I can still bake…” she started, by way of explanation, fixing her foxy grin brightly across her long foxy snout. Rice flour and cocoa, sugar and egg shells trailed across the wooden worksurface, betraying her haste to secretly prepare her favourite snack whilst Mr Fox was busy elsewhere attending his inventing tasks.

“Still bake? Are you mad? Fox?” Mr Fox put down the bowls of frozen berries and meringue and rubbed at his furry eyebrows in disbelief. “Mrs Fox, Sit down, this won’t take a minute. Let me explain to you…”

Mrs Fox allowed herself to be led to her chair at the end of the long pine table. She sat patiently down and waited for Mr Fox to explain things to her. She knew the routine. He would explain, She would listen. He would wait for her reply, and then realise that she had known all along. It was a ritual between them, she thought, fondly.

“Mrs Fox,” started Mr Fox, looking lovingly down at his vixen. A twinkle had wrinkled her eyes as she looked back up at him. “Mrs Fox! Are you laughing at me, again?”

“Oh no, Mr Fox, of course not, do go on…I am keen to know why you think I should not practice baking before our summer guests arrive?” She raised an eyebrow and reached over to pat Mr Fox’s round belly. “Is this the problem, Foxy?”

“Ahem! Absolutely not, erm, no! Bake away, Mrs Fox, bake away!” Mr Fox sucked in his long foxy belly, stood tall, and strode off and out of the kitchen, muttering about quality control and the importance of ensuring consistency.

Mrs Fox reached into the oven and drew out the pan oozing stickiness and chocolate at its edges. Mrs Fox’s Fantastic Chocolate Brownies, she thought to herself, ready for testing in ten…. There would be plenty of time for her and her faithful hound to taste them before that silly old Fox came back to complain about his waistcoat buttons again!

Glorious Plans

Mrs Fox peered out into the sunshine. The grass was brighter today, the sun was stronger. It was well past Imbolc, but not yet Ostara. And yet. Surprisingly Spring-like. Pheasants abounded in the fields, strutting and calling to each other cheerfully.

The Foxes had raked and dug, planted and watered. ‘Til they bothed ached all over. Blackcurrant bushes times four. Tick. Gooseberry bushes times four. Tick. Summer Raspberry canes times six. Autumn raspberry canes times six. Tick, tick. Crowns of rhubarb times two (now covered, for fear of frost). Tick. Broad bean seeds times 36. Tick. Tidied up around the Autumn planted onion bed. The fences around the farm yard were going to be fruit hedging this year, as Mrs Fox was determined to be prepared for a further Damson-gate situation.

Last Autumn, for the first time, there had been not a single damson at Foxes’ Retreat. Mrs Fox hoped that the damson trees had been simply taking a break. The year before 74kg of damsons had been picked, without a single step onto a ladder. Mrs Fox had decreed that all fruit out of fox-reach was to be left for the birds to enjoy. Various methods of taking the stones from the damsons had been tried over the years, but the very best was to simmer the damsons gently, then to push them through a cake cooling tray over a waiting pot. This was the stones stayed on the tray and the delicious bright fruit slipped through ready for crumble. Ready for jam. Ready for chutneys. Oh, the things that they had made!

Mrs Fox narrowed her eyes across to the top paddock. Pursed her foxy snout. Considered. The counter plan to ensure fruit at Foxes’ Retreat this year was underway. She wondered if the lazy damson trees could sense her diverting into soft fruit bushes. She wondered if the damson trees were smirking at their rest and expected bumper harvest. Mrs Fox already had three freezer spaces. Just because of the damson trees. And now… potentially more fruit. This might mean more bottling, more preserving of jam, more spicy chutneys to go with delicious cheese. Mrs Fox’s mouth watered.

In the barn, safely under the filly’s discarded foal blanket, were potted up strawberries. Nine. And a jumble of 4” pots of seeds. All planted to germinate into fragrant sweet peas, lupins and echinops to brighten up darker corners in the wilderness of the fireglobe garden. And aubergine seeds, of course, for in the greenhouse later on. They were a gamble. Mrs Fox liked a gamble every now and again. A wild risk to take, but the adrenalin was much needed this year. The bottom drawer in the kitchen was pregnant with seeds for March and April sowings. The greenhouse foundation bricks were being placed carefully, before the preloved greenhouse that Mr Fox had found for them was erected next week.

Time to write, thought Mrs Fox, there were stories to tell today. Her lovely poetic friend, Dominic, had reminded her of the shoes hanging from the lowest branch by the portal. It was time to tell that tale. She settled back, picked up her black fountain pen and relaxed into the familiar world of her writing desk. Smiling.

Mushroom of a Wild Nature

Mrs Fox pondered.

Mushrooms. Wild - Large.

It sounded like quite an adventure, she thought to herself. How wild and large could mushrooms be, after all?

She looked up from her desk and noted that Harry the Heron was still absent. It worried at the back of her mind that she had not seen him since the weather turned colder.

Looking across towards the neighbouring dairy farm, she saw that the field was full of pheasants. Again. Bernard was parading his hens around the field ostensibly, running with an alarming pace at any chancers taking a sneak peek at his harem. Head tilted, Mrs Fox glanced back at her screen, still showing enticing images of the wildest mushrooms in the Peak District.

Click.

A thrill ran through her vulpine body as she considered the culinary options for her purchase. The local greengrocer would be along the next day, trundling through the valley in his truck, stopping off at the villages and farms with boxes of fresh delights for the local people. Stroganoff? No. Soup? No. A risotto? With garlic, thinly sliced onions, white wine and peppercorns, with the butter-fried wildest mushrooms nestled on top? Mrs Fox had glazed over as she thought about the delights ahead.

Wild Mushroom Risotto.

Holding her fountain pen carefully in her paw, she scribed onto the menu board in the kitchen, smiling to herself at the thought of Mr Fox spotting it unexpectedly later in the day.

The following morning, her longed-for package arrived, nestled in a carboard punnet. Fresh scent and a lively firmness sprang back from her touch. Mrs Fox stepped outside to fetch several large sprigs of early parsley from the garden to add into her surprise risotto dish. She smiled to herself as she clipped away at the faithful plant outside the kitchen door.

The smell became almost unmanageable for Mrs Fox’s delicate nose. The mushrooms sank with a deliberate slowness into pools of melted butter in the heavy pan. The parsley-fragrance rose into the kitchen and danced along with the mixed aromas of onions and garlic. Rice stickily clung to the buttery juices as the white wine sloshed down into the pan.

“I say!”

Mrs Fox jumped out of her reverie of flavours, startled by the arrival of Mr Fox.

“Mushroom Risotto, Mrs Fox?” His broad foxy grin showed his shiny white teeth as he licked his lips in anticipation.

“Be careful, Mr Fox!”

It was too late. The wildest of the mushrooms had leapt from the pan and was making its way at increasing pace towards the open kitchen door. Mr Fox dropped to all four paws and set off, skidding at the corner by the refrigerator.

Mrs Fox watched him go in alarm, keeping a weather eye on the heaving pan. She snatched at a circle of stainless steel and clapped it down on the remainder of the wildness in the dish, before letting out a sigh of relief. Squeaks came from under the lid. Surrender followed.

Mr Fox limped back into the kitchen.

“It was no good, my love, it was too fast for me…”

The Foxes looked over at the pan. The lid was bubbling and lifting a little. Mr Fox narrowed his eyes and strode towards the stove.

“Stand back, Mrs Fox, stand back!”

With a deft movement, he swept the pan and its contents to the table and scooped the Wildest Mushroom Risotto ever to be made into the waiting warmed dishes.

“Quick, Mrs Fox, quick!”

The Foxes set about their lunch, and soon the only sign of the battle that had ensued was the buttery residue on their chins. The dishes were licked quite clean.

It’s Marmalade Day again…

Marmalade Day II

Mr Fox pottered around the kitchen, paws treading softly on the warm flagstones. Early morning, his favourite time. The chickens were fed, the dogs waiting patiently on their sofa for their breakfast; the coffee drip- drip- dripping through the filter ‘peace comes dripping slow, dripping from the veil of the morning’ misquoted Foxy, under his breath. The cats had already returned, dark and silky, to their basket on the clothes dryer, satiated.

Mr Fox looked at the rows of marmalade jars on the counter. Each one freshly filled to the brim, sealed and lidded and cleaned down and labelled: “The Cub’s Marmalade, made at Foxe’s Retreat”. He smiled his foxy smile, and pondered… he couldn’t remove one, they had surely been counted. He certainly couldn’t uncap one, dip his long tongue in, swirl it around in a haze of citrussy sugary wonderment, and re-seal it… Mrs Fox would know. And there would be consequences.

The thought that troubled Mr Fox so much was that there had not been enough Quality Control Checks. The Five Stage Marmalade Analysis had not, to his knowledge, been completed. Granted he had been in his shed, tinkering with an egg delivery system (the problem of the eggs cooking from the heat of atmospheric re-entry was just one small part of the whole rail-gun-chicken-egg conundrum) when the marmalade was being made, but he was pretty sure that further testing was required.

Then, like one of those fake-old-filament lightbulbs occasionally seen in Hipster pubs before The Lockdown, a dim glow crept through Mr Fox’s synapses and arrived at his nose – The Ramekin in the Fridge!

The refrigerator door opened, a foxy snout snuffled in, sniffing and whiffling and there, right on the shelf, was The Ramekin… full to the brim with marmalade from the last batch. Mrs Fox’s words played back in his brain ‘there’s always a ramekin of marmalade left, no one knows how, or why…’

Mr Fox knew why. Quality Control.

The toaster beeped, delivering the crisp hot slice of Marmalade Testing Platform to Mr Fox’s quivering paw. A smattering of butter, a generous dollop of orange marmalade, and…

Test One: Unguent Factor.
Result: Oh! Definitely unguent. Hugh Fearnly-Whittingstall would be overjoyed. Pass.

Test Two: Paddington Index.
Result: It sticks to the bread correctly, even when upside-down inside a hat. Pass.

Mr Fox chewed contentedly… remembered that there were three other tests, and popped another slice of bread in the toaster.

Test Three: Clarty or Clarity.
Result: Not so sweet as to be ‘clarty’, as the weasels up north would say; and not bitter at all. Pass.

Test Four: Peel Lump Ratio.
Result: The peel is fine, and beautifully consistent. Top marks! Pass.

Test Five: If The Marmalade Were A Michelin Star Restaurant How Many Starts Would It Have?
Result: Mr Fox had never, to the best of his knowledge, been to anything above a one star. He wasn’t sure how many stars it went up to, but he reckoned five. So. Five. Pass.

Mrs Fox whirled into the kitchen, fresh faced from the sunny autumnal yard, just as Mr Fox was putting the buttery knife into the dishwasher. The half empty ramekin was already settled back into the fridge.

‘Coffee, Mrs Fox?’ He queried with a smile.

[For pictures, please scroll down when you reach our Gallery]

Busy-ness

Mrs Fox sat at her writing desk. She was quite a-quiver. The days of her confinement (her French students had informed her that it was not isolation, merely confinement) had seemed to be stretching endlessly ahead a few weeks ago. Now? Now, there were simply not enough hours each day to do all of the things, thought Mrs Fox.

She smiled at the thanks in the email just arrived from Ms Mouse, having yesterday enjoyed the latest version of a charming short story shared for comment by her friend. So many lovely people, thought Mrs Fox, so very many lovely people.

Tonight, the wonderful Foxes’ Retreat Writers’ Group would meet again, online. She was so looking forward to seeing their smiling faces on her tiny screen again!

Mrs Fox had prepared a writing game for them, to be a little more interactive, she thought. The instructions had been posted. An empty mug, and a full mug, and a favourite pen, and some scrap paper were to be on hand. She had carefully prepared something a little different, with more pressure and pace, to release some of the tension that she was sure they were all feeling.

The other pressing matter was that of her own writing. Her paws had been too slack lately, to tend to her sprouting novel. Tilly glared at her angrily from the timeline, her feeling of neglect evident in her stance. And, to add to the all too frequently avoided looks, Mrs Fox was on rota for tonight to share some of her own writing with the group… and she so wanted to show them something worth sharing… she flicked through files, tidied here, tidied there, sighed long sighs… it was so hard to strike a note, she thought to herself.

Finally, she settled on the ridiculous. A short piece she had written, to get herself writing again, earlier in the year. It contained a sense of a time before now, a time of relative freedom in travel and thought. It noted the chaotic thought flow of this particular Fox.

Perhaps this was a way of avoiding sharing any more of the novel, she thought, but she felt that she needed a different tone tonight, and so went ahead and pressed send.

“The page was printed,” said Ted Hughes’ Thought Fox, a rather close friend of Mrs Fox for many years.

Feeling much calmer, Mrs Fox hastened on to the rest of her activities:

- a writing class to prepare for her wonderful friends in the Cat Family, and their mutual friend, Ms Mouse

- an online language class to prepare for her usual summer French young visitors

- preparing to hold that calm and allowing therapeutic space for her kind clients, all working so hard on themselves during this difficult time

- her own wellbeing with her yoga and pilates work

- Mr Fox’s wellbeing with soup and cake

- time for the animals, confused at the change in routine

- Tilly to tend to, for the present being trapped in 1888… a difficult time for Annie Bryant, not to mention the White Chapel Murderer’s victims, and not yet aware of the Spanish flu and the National Strikes ahead of her and her friends

Letter Writing Day

Glorious sunshine is lighting the cobbles and bricks of the patio in front of the house.  The ever-present moss and weeds no longer visible, thanks to virus-induced pressure hosing last week (or was it the week before that?)

Seedlings sit, restfully, on the wooden yard shelves, waiting permission to overnight outside.  A conflict arises – the back garden, safe from dogs, is abundant with rabbits…. I sit contemplating (fearfully) the endless possibilities presented by Mr McGregor’s garden events in the latest Peter Rabbit film.  It’s a worry.

The chickens settle into their dust baths, in the shade of the wooded area by the bottom paddocks.  The horses lazily flick their tails at early insects.  The dogs lie, reassured by my presence, in various poses around the garden in front of me.  I wonder how they exemplify such accurate yoga stretches, without the chirping voice of Adriene through YouTube. 

The cats, out of sight for too long, will be resting inside their igloo.  What a contradiction of language.  An igloo here, in the warmth of a Derbyshire Spring.  Oops.  Staffordshire.  I can see the County border from here.  Well, if I stood on top of the barn roof, clinging to the solar panel fixings, then I might see the medieval stone bridge, drawing a line between places. 

The sun has been covered by a mean-looking cloud,  It’s not cold yet, but the glare from the writing paper has eased, giving a sense of a chill to come.

Two days ago (or was it three?), I cycled to the village to post something equine to a laboratory.  Fourteen minutes there.  Six minutes back.  A head wind blowing across the park made pedalling hard going on the way there, and unnecessary on the way back.  The stark lack of tourist cars dropped me into the opening credits of Midsomer Murders, a batty old lady pedalling through the countryside, tranquility all around, until… I shook off the thought.

Pigeons are cooing as I write, and I am reminded of Sarah Millican’s comments from her Australian fans.  They call her the ‘Cake Pigeon’ as she coos at cake shop windows.  This could become a Thing at Foxes’ Retreat. Cake Pigeons.  Speaking of which, it is almost the weekend, and therefore almost time for cake…

My Dad will be 80 on Saturday.

Cait and I, on route to her first burn, should have been landing in Cape Town on Saturday.   

“All changed utterly.  A terrible beauty is born”.  W B Yeats… the world is, even now, changed utterly, and terrible battles are being fought, but still I find a beauty in connection, in nature, in discovery of self and others. 

Next door’s cockerel calls across the valley.  Competing with the closer sounds of swallows, blackbirds, pigeons and nuthatches.  The Robin Family flit in and out of Lucy’s open stable window, selecting carefully from her leftovers.  They are not ones to waste or judge, simply being in the present, joyful at their discoveries. 

Unmatched pots house herbs and flowers around the patio windows.  I think they’re French.  The windows, I mean.  Actually, also maybe one of the lavender plants?  Thyme, mint, rosemary and parsley all wait to be called. 

A clump of leggy daffodils attract my attention.  I think of Dorothy, not of William, of her diaries and her lot.  How much the world has changed, and yet how little.  Opium smokers of the late 1700s creating imagery beyond the natural realm, finding new worlds beyond their physical experiences.  Cries, in modern times, for the legalising of hallucinogenics to aid in mental health crises.  Turned down by the controlling classes, a step that is yet to be taken into “A Brave New World”. 

I am so incredibly grateful for dappled sunlight and gentle warmth in nature.

Breathing through my conflicted mind – a privileged position that I have yet to come to terms with. 

It is what it is. 

Accept.

Commit to the future.

Counting Our Chickens…

Millie sighed. Playtime. Again. Rolling her lurchery eyes, and expressing herself through her springy eyebrows, she launched herself at the little tyke.

She had tried every tactic known to Lurcher-kind. Freddie simply refused to accept tiredness. She outran him, taught him to jump, to chase, to race through the woods and the long grasses, and yet… she looked up at Mrs Fox. Mrs Fox did not quite seem to understand how tiring it was for a Lazy Lurcher to entertain a Frantic Freddie… she wasn’t even sure what type of dog he was. She was simply grateful that he slept with Sebastian and Cezar, and not on her Princess-and-the-Pea mattress in the Foxes’ room.

Millie settled down, watching the game unfold, as she had set Freddie on a mission with Sebastian. They were playing “Counting Chickens” again. Too easy, thought Millie to herself, to confuse them both. They both got happily to four, but then struggled …. Millie smirked. Even if they had combined paws, they would not have managed eleven chickens…. Millie knew she was safe for a goodly while now.

Cezar nudged Millie. He had a proposition, he had said. Millie’s eyes widened…

From then on, Cezar joined Millie on the Foxes’ bed in their turret room. Cezar was a mathematician. He has worked out that the “Counting Chickens” game which occupied Freddie and Sebastian so well for Millie’s peace and quiet would be short lived if he added his four Carpathian paws to the mix.

Cezar settled down, luxuriating on the Foxes’ bedspread, and started to snore gently in contentment.

A *Very* Different Time…

Mrs Fox woke, listened, and sighed. She had been half-listening for Mrs Cat’s footsteps on the stairs as she herself had drifted to consciousness, hoping to join her for an early morning walk to the village church, to sit with the dead people. Now, that might sound quite strange to others, but Mrs Fox and Mrs Cat were researching the families in Okeover Village and the connections that were surfacing (not literally, you understand) in the village’s grave yard.

It had been a day or two since Mrs Cat took her family back to the softness of Somerset, and Mrs Fox was missing the lively chatter, the deep connections and the sparkling energy of their creativity. She wasn’t missing the scratching on the stair carpet quite so much, but she understood that the Cat family were used to a more outdoors sort of life than they had enjoyed this week, what with the daily rain and the frequent hail that had nestled them inside Foxes’ Retreat by the snug log burner. A little scratching was needed, to keep a Cat happy and healthy. That was just one tiny part of their charm. Mr and Mrs Fox had odd habits at times too, they were sure…

Mrs Fox had tidied the house, with love put away the notes she had made during the Cat Residence, and now, with a deep smile, from the inside of her heart to the outside of her long fox mouth, she set off with her keyboard. There was much to be done; characters had sprung from her neatly typed pages, and into gladly embraced, heavy responsibilities over those wonderful six days with the Cats and their wonderful New Friend, who haled from a somewhat closer abode, by the way.

The differences perceived by outsiders that were between the Foxes, the Cats and their New Friend dissolved into wonder, as they found a delight in their similarities and their passions within hours of their meeting. A deep respect had flourished between the Six Wondrous Beings; one that Mrs Fox dreamily embraced as one that would last for a delicious period of time. There had been time for tasting, and now there was time for storing, preserving, maturing and then there would be tasting again. Just to check, you understand? Mrs Fox did like a good food metaphor.

Startling herself with the food metaphor, Mrs Fox sat back from her keyboard.

“Ooh!” exclaimed Mrs Fox, “Time for cake!”

[For those of you who are not so familiar with Mrs Fox: Mrs Fox does like a good cake. A good cake baked with delicious things, in her shiny big oven, right here in her kitchen at Foxes’ Retreat]

*Mrs Fox has slid into complicated sentences as her thoughts are racing and tumbling with delight at this time… her playfulness with the removal of -ly words, her knotty parenthesis, and her intrusive narration are all part of the current desire to explore and to break things to make them work with more depth and beauty…

Marmalade Day

Mr Fox climbed stiffly out of his car, stretched his vulpine body and sniffed the air. The usual smells of the yard assailed him - horses, countryside, winter flowering clematis, sniff sniff sniff and was that... marmalade?

He opened the door to the kitchen and two hounds shoved out to greet him, dust sticking to their paws, sniffing and licking and yipping and yapping in excitement. Mr Fox patted the closest one and his hand came away... sticky? On closer inspection, the dogs' fur appeared slightly ... matted. Sniff sniff sniff... marmalade again. At the back of Foxy's mind, alarm bells were beginning to ring.

He pushed the door open fully, and took in the scene. There was a large kettle of marmalade bubbling away on the range. It's delicious, unguent aroma curled up into the ceiling and hung there like a fog sewn through with orange zest. The pot of marmalade, however, seemed to have boiled over at some point as there was liquid marmalade pooled all over the cooker, running down the sides like a titian wash.

As he walked into the room his paws stuck to the floor. Which, yes, did seem to have a certain tackiness to it. The work surfaces seemed to be spattered and dashed with chunks of orange, lemon, honey and sugar. And, yes, unmistakable pools of marmalade.

Looking up, he could see a faint spray of the delicious conserve had made it to the high ceiling, where it clung like a delightfully tasty constellation.

Walking further into the kitchen, he was not entirely surprised to see Mrs Fox sitting on the floor by the dishwasher, a large bowl of marmalade in one paw, a wooden spoon in the other, a lurcher standing to one side patiently waiting for another spoonful, both fox and lurcher covered in a liberal coating of conserve and peel.

"Hello Mr Fox!" Said Mrs Fox, happily, a broad grin on her face, "It's Marmalade Day!"

Chickens Aloft…

Blackie and Amelia Egghart flapped in at dawn.... they had been caught unawares some distance from home, and forced to roost on foreign lands. 

Cramped in the small plane, Blackie clung grimly to the navigation seat.  Egghart wheeled them around to final descent as Mr Fox stepped out into the yard.

"Ah, there you two are!"  He  exclaimed,  not noticing the wreck of their plane to the side of the coop....

Winter Solstice

Mrs Fox stretched and yawned. It had been a short night, she thought, listening to the abrupt alarm sound on Mr Fox’s side of the bed. He mumbled but did not otherwise stir.

Mrs Fox slipped out of bed and into her warm clothes, ready to get on with her morning - it was Winter Solstice, and the sun would wait for no Fox this morning!

Horses whinnying, dogs chasing around in the frosty pitch-black yard, Mrs Fox shovelled away in the stables whilst the four horses munched sleepily on their early breakfast. By the time she was on the the second stable, a tall, sleepy Mr Fox stepped into the barn and began to refill the empty haynets, by now lying on the floor of the barn ready for him.

“Morning, Foxy,” he smiled, from beneath his tall furry ears. She glanced over at him, pleased that he was ready for the Solstice celebration at nearest local stone circle, Arbor Lowe.

A swift breakfast of eggs from the girls, and they set off, well wrapped, to greet the new day. Through the dark they drove, watching the creeping light as it stole closer to the distant horizon.

Arriving at the stone circle, they set off briskly up the path, Millie the lurcher at their side, into the breaking dawn. A few other hardy souls had gathered, and were gently drumming as the time of the sunrise drew closer. Gentle chatter occasionally could be heard across the circle, but generally a sense of the new day, the beginning of the lighter season, was heralded with a respectful quiet from those present.

The sun rose, the drumming stopped, and Millie wildly careered in figures of eight around the stone circle and the burial mound of Arbor Lowe. She knew, thought the Foxes, smiling at each other, she simply knew.

Winter had started.

Mushroom Season

Mrs Fox woke up; chanterelle mushrooms filled her thoughts, oozing deliciousness onto hot toast.  She crept from under the satin-stitched eiderdown, and, pulling a warm dress to her, slid past Mr Fox and down the stairs of Foxes’ Retreat.  Reaching into the tall, steely refrigerator, she took out the delicate stems of chantarelles, and placed them on the wooden chopping board ready for their breakfast.

The horses stamped and whinnied from their stables, hearing Mrs Fox moving in the kitchen.  She slipped through and nuzzled each one before giving them their feed buckets.  Contented munching filled the barn, and Mrs Fox picked up the dogs’ breakfasts on the way back to the kitchen. 

The cherry-red kettle clicked off, filling the corner of the kitchen with the heady aroma of Italian coffee as Mrs Fox prepared Mr Fox a hot drink for whilst his breakfast was prepared….

… the woodland taste mingled with herbs freshly cut from the Foxes’ garden, the egg oozing over the tangle of chantarelles piled on the hot toasts.  A gentle mumuring sound pervaded the kitchen as the Foxes tucked in. 

Mr Fox headed off to do Important Technical Things, and Mrs Fox sat down to consider her day.  The horses, dogs, cats and chickens were fed, and all looked gloomy at the heavy rain.  Mrs Fox had an important meeting this morning, and climbed the steep wooden stairs to her wardrobe room to decide what to wear.  It was difficult, she thought, to choose something for this. 

Business like?  No. 

Bohemian?  No. 

Creative?  Yes, but….. also not too extreme. 

Extreme Creativeness, pondered Mrs Fox.  A thing for the Playa, definitely, but not for an editorial meeting.  Mrs Fox tried on a flirty red dress over a warm black top.  Hm.  No.  Too silly, thought Mrs Fox, pursing her lips.  She wandered back to the rails… ah!  A warm plum woollen dress peeked out at the end of the rail.  That’s it! She thought, and collected a jazzy, colourful jacket to pop over the top. 

Heading out into the heavy rain, Mrs Fox remembered to flatten her ears, with her new purple hat, and to hide her tail inside her jacket.  It would not do, she thought to herself, to be seen as a wild animal.  Not today. 

The venue was closed. 

Mrs Fox sighed, and sent a re-direction message to the Editor.  She drove up the hill to the next café, and settled in with a bowl of hot black coffee.  Firing up her laptop to check communications, Mrs Fox heard a drowning whirr.  The lights dimmed, the tills beeped a final beep, and the café goers fell silent.  The power was off, the room was dim, and Mrs Fox was unable to connect to the world outside the café.  Momentarily, she looked around, feeling that she had had a wasted journey.  But then, realising the delight of not knowing what was happening in the political outside world, she opened a new document. Oh yes, she thought, this was the perfect opportunity to warm up her writing…. Oh, it had been too long, she thought, fingers flicking over the keyboard as she began her story….

Samhain

Mrs Fox had been collecting for quite a while. She had spotted fabrics, cushions, drapes, and finally, just when she felt time pressing against her long furry red neck, she saw it.

A tall, elegant, worn but loved, old pine rocking chair. ‘Perfect!’ thought Mrs Fox, and she immediately set off to collect it, her mud spattered little red car winding its way through the narrow lanes. Mrs Fox hummed to herself. It seemed to her that all was in order, and the celebrations for Samhain were almost complete.

Stiffening her back, she lifted the chair carefully down the steps of the farmhouse that it had spent its first decades in. She gently leaned it against her shoulder, thinking of all the stories that the chair had already heard, been a part of sharing, with so many people already. Mrs Fox made a mental note to consider the stories already held within the chair, once she had settled it in the Samhain bell tent this afternoon.

The chair sat, contemplative, amongst the piles of cushions and blankets that had been stacked ready for the gathering.

A fire globe had been lit, the woodstove in the bell tent was glowing with warmth, the chatter of guests settling down after their warm supper in the Foxes’ kitchen hummed around inside the drapes of the bell tent. Flags made from fabrics that the Foxes had collected over the past months were strung around the walls of the tent, adding to the celebratory atmosphere.

A nod to Hallowe’en, a bowl full of chocolate eyeballs, skeletons and pumpkins sat expectantly on the drilled pie-crust table that surrounded the central pole.

Mrs Fox slid her gaze over the piles of cushions, and her guests lying amongst them. What a wonderful collection of people, she thought, smiling into the eyes of those looking up. How utterly marvellous for us to be able to be here, to share our stories, from such different places in both time and geography.

The drapes around the door hung together, the standard lamp’s dim light hovered over the tall storytelling chair, and our first narrator stepped forwards….

Mrs Fox settled back. "Oh yes,” she thought, “this is good,” and she closed her eyes to listen to the undulating tones of the first story of many that night…