An axis to grind

There's a general sense of things being slightly out of kilter.

I send Francis an e-mail with school dates and copy it to my own inbox. It never arrives. I imagine it in cyberspace, redirecting itself to my cyber doppelganger who's a better turned out version of me and is now staring at the uninteresting list of dates and laughing to herself.

Then that evening as we look out into the garden, we see a frightened looking fox running down the path. It is followed by a tabby cat, tail crooked downwards in that 'No kidding, I really mean it," way they do so well. As a staunch believer in those 'urban fox ate my baby and wouldn't pass on the recipe' urban myths, it's unsettling to see one so comprehensively quashed in front of my eyes.

Fox and cat criss-cross the garden, the fox running a little faster each time, the cat looking a little more menacing, then exit into the shadow underneath a hedge.

"Exit, pursued by a cat," I say.

"Our dog would beat the fox," says Deborah.

"It depends what at," I say. "I hear they're very good at Sudoku".

Deborah looks at me. "Muuu-uum," she says.

Later on I call an urban fox myth hotline. Cats have clearly been doing a wonderful propaganda job for years. Foxes are the innocent victims of the feline thugs who, fed up with the pesticide residues in small birds, have embarked on bigger, more exciting prey. Ours is probably running herself up a small pink jacket and mewing, 'Tally ho!' in the garden shed every night.

The world seems to be losing all its certainties. Or perhaps I am being jolted out of my normal complacency, and about time, too.