In Covid-hit London, it was animals that had a good time
London has opened up lately.
Over a month ago schools let in children again while parents could stretch their hands and legs with sighs of relief. Bars and restaurants that were shut are now filled with boozing folk. Occasionally, you see the old London. Like the other day a group of five women passed by my house singing loudly around midnight. This would have been unthinkable in December when Christmas – the biggest festival in the Western world – was out of bounds.
Oh!
I saw a half-drank bottle of beer left by a team of shouting youths at a square as I ambled to see a friend in a quiet suburb. Covid 19 meant people were mostly indoors and no pubs, no group drinking, no street singing. Singing is taboo around coronavirus as it is believed anything rolling out of our mouths “scatters” the disease.
Coincidentally, who ruled the paths, trenches, ditches and pits were animals and insects. Rats have invaded houses. Usually mice are abundant in London, but, rats? Alongside hyenas , rats are the most disliked creatures on earth. You name something else, please.
The closure of restaurants during two long lockdowns meant rats were missing out on thrown-out leftovers. This is where cats become useful. But stray cats are rare in London.
Domesticated cats are given clean foods from supermarkets, eating rats for dinner is, therefore, out of the question. I have learnt something about animals in different parts of our planet. I saw a snake on a footpath somewhere years ago. The puff adder just stared at me and kept on snoring ( if you believe asps and snakes snore), I walked on. I did not think, bite, kill, danger. I thought what a curiosity seeing a reptile in the middle of London. Snakes here rarely bite. And if they do, (it is said) – like London mosquitoes – they are not poisonous.
Dogs are always on a leash by loving owners, and you will never see them mating. I remember, while travelling around Latin America in the 1990s, there would be dogs having a good time, tongue out, all the time, everywhere. Dogs here are tamed and get “castrated” to stop mating haphazardly.
Same with cats.
Apart from fighting each other, you will hardly witness cats chasing rats like in Africa.
The most famous London animal is thus the fox.
You might have heard the phrase “sly as a fox”?
It is indeed true. I recall the day I heard the sound. Checked through the window curtains. Saw the fox. It was lurking around the front garden, and had just done a Number Two. I opened door to check, and yes it had. This had been ongoing. For weeks. Foxes, being creatures of habit, coming to relieve their faeces under my car. Oh yes. Same spot. I also heard they love eating car tyres. Sucking the juice in the rubber. Foxes. So the fox had left its droppings under the car. I saw it staring at me from the other side of the road. I turned to pick an object. Can’t recall whether it was a stick, stone, probably both. The fox vanished. I crossed the road. Peeped around. Nothing. Where art thou gone, sly creature? Searched along the street. Eyes could not decipher. Hands that had picked the stick let it go. As I stumbled back just realised the fox was studying me from my front door. About to get into my house. Like they say in the scriptures. Heavens! How fast ; how sly.
Sly as a fox.
Foxes are, however, less clever when it comes to making love or, as what we say when referring to animals, mating.
Saturday night last week. Heard eerie sounds. Weird yelling. Thin, sharp screaming.
“Cats ?”
“Not cats,” another seasoned Londoner clarified. “Foxes calling each other...”
The yelping went on and on. Thin, screeching wail. Like an animal in pain. Or insisting on something.
Opened windows to look and explore.
Fifty metres or so away was a small field of green grass separating the building.
Two foxes stood admiring each other. One bigger and with loads of black, white, brown fur. You can see why certain Londoners adore foxes. Beautiful animals. The other was smaller, large brown-red eyes that shone in the semi-darkness. They both moved awkwardly. Foxes do not walk as briskly as dogs. They move gingerly as if afraid to touch the ground. And in seconds the two were mating.
You don’t see dogs doing that in London. Hardly. But foxes? All the time. No one stops them from multiplying. They are still, free range. Allowed to be natural, wild and untamed.
