The Jogging Fox

I am finally home from offshore. Having just come off night shift I am waking up at 4am in the morning with no chance of going back to sleep. This morning it got to about 4.30 before I decided to go for a jog. I left my flat and started off only to be confronted by a fox on the other side of the road about 100m along. He looked at me with an expression of “are you seriously jogging at this time of the morning?” Now I wouldn’t say Wimbledon was a particularly rural area, although there are a number of large parks in the vicinity, but I had seen a couple in the distance late at night.

What happened next amazed my socks off. As I kept jogging the fox crossed the road and came up beside me. It freaked me out a little bit to say the least as I wasn't sure how aggressive these things were considering my only experience with foxes was from Basil Brush. I figured (like all Australian wildlife) that it should of been afraid of me, scampering away and not stalking me as his prey. But no he decided to run along beside me presumably to keep me company.

He probably figured I was a bit of a loon being up so early for some exercise and thought something interesting may happen. Either that or was enjoying the Matt Darey set blaring out of the earphones. Every time I looked down at him he was looking back with a questioning, “What else would I be doing this morning?”

So we jogged on for a rather long way before we hit Wimbledon Common (which has a big park). The distance – 3km (I gmap-pedometered it). Can you believe I had a faithful fox jogging with me for 3km (which probably tells you more about my pace than anything). It was rather impressive and yes, I was making grand plans in my mind for the two of us to jog the London marathon together.

Unfortunately though this is where he decided to depart from me. He caught sight of a grey squirrel (in my defence the squirrel was particularly tasty looking so I took no offence) and bolted. I didn’t see if he actually caught the thing but given the jog he had just been on I wagered he hadn’t.

I now had to turn around and head home solo. I had run a little further than I anticipated (I have only been jogging 5 kms offshore) but the tired muscles were worth it.

I am going to try and get out of bed tomorrow at the same time just in case he is waiting. I might even grab my camera. Failing that (and you all know this is the likely scenario) I shall wait until the weekend and look for him as I stagger home in the wee hours.

UPDATE: I did get up this morning and went for my jog only to be disappointed the critter was nowhere around. I was an hour later so I presume he got sick of waiting around.