Friday 3 December 2010

Who goes there?





Friend or foe?
I have a sneaking admiration for the urban fox.

Tonight we had less welcome urban visitors.
We were all in the sitting room 
when we heard the front door opening
and footsteps in the hallway.
There was a frozen moment of palpitating puzzlement -
no one else could be coming in with a key
yet this was not a forced entry.
Who could it be?
There were two men in the hall
insisting that this was a hostel and they
were looking for 'Kevin'.
They were even more indignant
than we were.
They argued that the door was open and that
they had been told to come here.
One of them was on his mobile apparently
confirming this fact.
Our vehement denials 
met with aggrieved persistence - 
was Kevin in one of the other rooms?
But as each of us appeared 
they backed off
and finally left as I shouted,
'Get out!' in a voice not my own
and slammed the door in their
still protesting faces.


Incredibly, it felt like a breach of good manners on our part!


(We checked the door.
It seems it is not closing fully even when it appears to be shut.)

12 comments:

  1. Thank goodness nothing happened. This intrusion is a deep fear of most homeowners!

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  2. !!

    Our foxes are much shyer, or, maybe, fewer.

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  3. I'm very glad your boy landed safely, and that he has a home, not a hostel to stay in! Yikes!

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  4. How very alarming, I wouldn't have liked this at all.

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  5. I forgot to say - wonderful photos of the fox. We don't have fox in NZ so the only ones i know are those from childhood story books - so they always seem magic to me.

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  6. Truly scary. The stuff that films and nightmares are made of...
    Please fix the lock - for your reader's peace of mind, if not your own!

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  7. How scary! The intruders, not the fox. We don't have them here, but we do have coyotes. I enjoy them, and think those who complain about their "encroachment" have it backwards.
    I've been enjoying your blog for a few months now, and have just figured out the google commenting system. I think.

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  8. Gosh, that all sounded rather scary!
    Great picture of the fox - we have lots of foxes near us and they are always leaving lots of 'mess' - along with stealing my husbands shoes this week from the front door!

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  9. The story re your unwanted visitors made the hairs go up on the back of my neck! Beautiful pictures of the fox. We have had very little snow, but the tiny bit we had showed that we had been visited by a deer.........

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  10. Goodness, how very alarming! Thank goodness you weren't in on your own. The unwitting intruders must have felt rather aggrieved too!

    A very handsome fox there, BTW...

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  11. Oh my! Glad you weren't on your own. I'm sure you'd give them what for but people are unpredictable. Keep safe.

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  12. What an unsettling experience for you all. I am renegotiating my lacksadaisical attitude to door chains as I type this.

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