Patch (1 Viewer)

[Farnboro John]

In the spring of 2020, while humans were locked down and wildlife watchers had to take what sightings they could get, Big Whitey and his vixen Rip produced a litter of cubs. They were born near the end of March, with Rip showing full teats on feeding visits to my front door from 28th. Two males from this litter began attending my front door for chicken in the summer, as their sire and dam (and Big Whitey’s previous mate White Tip) had done in previous years. Initially referred to in my notebook as Cubs 1 and 2, their personalities gradually developed and their attendance became so regular that I awarded them names: Smudge had rather smudgy black face markings while Patch had a slightly bare patch on his upper chest.

Patch and Smudge were unusually friendly with each other for longer than cubs usually hang out together – a partnership in crime I suppose. They almost always turned up literally together, arriving in parallel or trail from the same place (my foxes tend to arrive from all points of the compass generally). Patch always seemed to get into scrapes while Smudge maintained an aloof calm, disdaining petty squabbles within the skulk. During that summer it was not unusual to find Big Whitey lying at ease on the front lawn along with White Tip while the cubs zipped around playing.

In September we were lucky enough to see Rip teaching one of the two cubs, as related on BF at the time:

….Later on Maz, who was outside having a fag, notified me that Rip had arrived and a full-grown cub had trotted past and was sitting at the corner of the nearby green. Rip sat down at the far end of the garden path. That's quite unusual for her, normally she comes closer. So I threw her the last drumstick - I'm quite good at landing them close to the intended recipient and this one stopped almost between her paws. She sniffed it and then, to both my surprise and Marion's, left it, walked halfway up the path towards us and sat down facing us in the manner that normally means "feed me please".

What? You've a perfectly good drumstick there, and in fact I haven't got another one for you! I told her this calmly and she looked at us for a few seconds, then looked deliberately round at the cub and then back at us.

After a pause the cub stood up and walked, then trotted to the end of our path, sniffed the drumstick, mouthed it then picked it up firmly and went away with it.

Rip watched it go then stood up and circled on the spot, finishing by sitting down facing us again. We realised we'd just seen a fox lesson: she'd been teaching the cub to be fed by us but like a good mother had interposed herself between us and its approach. Clever girl!

I fetched her a raw egg, showing it to her from the doorway before advancing slowly to put it on the lawn as I generally do when forced to fall back on this for lack of chicken (in this house its egg after chicken). She maintained a distance of about five yards and once I'd returned to the doorway, came forward, picked the egg up without breaking it and made off through the archway.

In November of 2020 an interloper – a battle-scarred, scallop-eared veteran with a super-abundance of aggression – fought with and over a week drove out Big Whitey despite the latter’s size and muscles. Scally was a natural contraction of the state of his right ear and he gradually made it clear he was now in charge, setting up home with Rip. He did try to push out Patch and Smudge but their partnership held and Scally could not deal with them both at once – they didn’t give him a chance to defeat them separately.

Big Whitey and Rip X 2
My very first picture of Patch -October 2020
Patch with chicken, still keeping his distance - November 2020

 

[Farnboro John]

2021

Whitey hung on in the fringes of the skulk for three months but after that either found another territory too far away for journeys to get chicken or faded out as dispossessed foxes tend to do.

Patch although generally second fiddle to Smudge had his own way of doing things and he certainly became more and more our little friend, liable to turn up mornings as well as evenings, as described on BF here:

…One of our foxes, Patch (he's one of the two male cubs from last year for new readers) has lately been chancing his arm a bit by turning up in the early morning when Maz goes out the front for a smoke, in the hope of a bonus chicken breakfast. Sometimes he's even been still around when I'm heading out....

I don't begrudge him the meal, but I do worry that he's in the morning dog walking zone and I don't want him to have an accident, so a strict no morning feeding regime is now in place. However, the other morning Patch simultaneously made me laugh and nearly broke my resolve.

Maz goes off to work a bit ahead of me: partly this is a result of her being on a strict shift time at the hospital and partly deconfliction of bathroom use by the finely honed machine of our partnership. This particular morning I was behind the drag curve more than usual and had to wave her goodbye from the bedroom window instead of the door. As she went out of the door Patch scuttled from the step, and as she proceeded along the path he retreated to the archway through the terrace. Once she had passed, he emerged again and stood gazing forlornly at her back, ears down and tail sagging to the vertical. As she reached the car parking end of the road, she went to go right and pass a car, realised the gap between it and the next car was narrow and half-turned to the left.

Instantly Patch's ears shot up and his tail rose, indeed his every line stiffened in hope "ooh, she's coming back...." Maz went round the left side of the end car and off to find her own motor. "Oh no she's not" Patch drooped, his ears lowered, his tail fell, and he sagged disappointedly into a sitting position to gaze wistfully at where she had vanished.

In the bedroom I had to clap my hand over my mouth to suppress a huge laugh. But he was so full of pathos I nearly cried as well.

Perhaps it was fortunate that by the time I was dressed and downstairs Patch had decided it was time to get the hell out of the people place.

In March it turned out to be useful that Patch would wait hopefully in the mornings because a bad bout of conjunctivitis knocked his eyesight sideways for a couple of weeks and he was pretty much dependent on our chicken during that time. I photographed his bleary face between passing him drumsticks.

In June Patch had to defend himself against an attack from Scally over feeding rights (which I photographed) but he had acquired sufficient weight to hold his own and the encounter was inconclusive.

L to R: Smudge, Patch, Scally
Patch bleary-eyed with conjunctivitis
Patch front, Smudge background
Scally (left) fighting Patch

 

[Farnboro John]

2021 (Part 2)

And in August of that year some interesting anecdotes:

….Farnborough fox update: this morning Patch (by now the bolder one of last year's male cubs) was around when I headed out to the car and trotted intermittently ahead of me, allowing photos in the end and listening with interest (but not understanding) to me telling him that at 0730 it was far too late for him to be around, threats from dogs being walked etc.....

….Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Patch has progressed to the point where the other night he followed me from the door halfway up the road as I was on my way to the pub, before deciding it was more efficient to wait for me near the front door.

…Hadn't seen Patch for a couple of days but he turned up last night, holding up his left front leg and hopping on the other one: he must have been immobilised and just tending it for the last two days.

Even last night he didn't dare come right in to the step to get fed, though I'm unsure whether that was about me or (I think more likely) about Scally, who I reckon is 99% likely to be responsible for what is almost certainly a badly bitten paw.

Anyway, Patch managed to consume a couple of drumsticks last night, which should keep him going, and I know from experience that foxes are tough little beggars that heal fast given a chance.

And on 1st September:

…Quick update (Fox News? - no forget it!): Patch rocked up or rather hopped up with his girlfriend late last night and his appetite is back if not his mobility. Three drumsticks later he was content to follow her off down the street. Perhaps over the worst of it (do I mean injury or relationship forming....?)

Skip to 20th October and a cautionary tale:

….A fox tale for you all. I think it sheds an interesting light, but make your own minds up....

Yesterday evening I opened the front door to find Smudge sitting with his tail curled over his paws waiting to be fed. So I trotted off to the kitchen and returned with two cooked drumsticks left in the fridge from the previous night. I threw one to Smudge and he came to his feet, walked to it, put his nose down to sniff it, then looked up at me, took a couple of paces away and sat down without touching it. What?

After a minute it was obvious he'd genuinely turned it down so I threw him the other one, which he sniffed, grabbed and retreated to the edge of the lawn with. There he began to flense the flesh from the bone and woof it down.

At this point I saw Smudge's full brother and if I'm honest, my favourite fox of the gang, Patch, loping towards the garden. He too sniffed the abandoned drumstick and turned away from it without touching it. Unheard of! For various reasons we hadn't any more cooked so I fetched a tray of uncooked drumsticks from the fridge and threw one to Patch. He took it without hesitation and began to demolish it with enthusiastic crunching.

Smudge finished his drumstick, again sniffed the other cooked one, again rejected it and came to ask for another, which he got. When he took it some distance away I went out and recovered the rejected item, binned it and washed my hands three times. I was quite prepared to put my faith in the foxes' noses and not prepared to leave the food for another hungrier one to maybe damage itself with.

4th December and a Christmas love story:

…I wish to announce the engagement of Patch, two year old dog fox from Big Whitey and Rip, to Hoppity, vixen of this parish but unknown antecedents. I was privileged to take the engagement photo yesterday evening when the couple turned up for a chicken leg party.

Patch has been tracking Hoppity on and off since early autumn and may well have incurred at least two fairly serious injuries in the course of his wooing (hopefully from competitors and not his intended!) I've seen them hanging out a couple of times but then for long periods they've paid little attention to each other (plus Patch has routinely robbed Hoppity of chicken just as the other dog foxes do).

However, last night Patch was looking at a chicken leg when suddenly his head came up, he stared into the distance and then trotted off down the main drag. A minute or so later he returned with Hoppity and the pair stopped underneath the lamplight.... Hops sat down and Patch stood at her shoulder. I was at the door with a tray of chicken, so I bade them wait while I fetched my camera and to my delight found they were still in the same position on my return. I took a snap and I'll put it up once I've processed it. They then repositioned themselves for normal feeding (Smudge, Patch's brother, had already snaffled the drumstick he'd left behind.)

Hoppity fed quickly and left. I don't think Patch noticed her go, he concentrates completely when he's eating, especially now when his jaw is recovering from a recent fight. However, once he noticed she wasn't there, he immediately, right in front of me, let out a rrow-rrow-rrow contact call, which he repeated twice more before going to where she had fed and tracking her scent off through the archway. I've never had any of my foxes contact call another in front of me before.

Anyway, that's pretty much all the news. I've seen all the current foxes in the last few days so everybody is all right currently.

Patch moments X4
Patch and Hoppity "engagement photo"

 

[Farnboro John]

2022:

8th January: ….The foxes have been more site loyal than they usually are around Christmas. I mentioned upthread that five of the seven have already checked in this year.

However, this being the peak of the mating season, the boys are pretty pumped at the moment, and I noticed on a pic that Patch had had a fight in which he received a bite that left a groove down the left of his face that just missed his eye and looks like a sabre duelling scar. A possible culprit was revealed the night before last when Scally absolutely assaulted Patch, knocking him over backwards and stealing his chicken. Patch however slipped past him and came to me right on the front step, fetching up within about four feet of me and looking appealingly for a refill, which he got and then ate right next to me where he knew Scally wouldn't dare come.

24th January: …Fox news update: the mating season has been pretty hard on the boys this year.

I haven't seen Psycho since the 14th but he can be a bit of an erratic visitor. I hope he's OK.

Even Jitter, who is just a cub in his first winter, has had a couple of days on three legs with his right rear held up, probably bitten as he was running away.

But the three contenders, Scally, Patch and even the mild Smudge, have been taking a battering, whether at each other's jaws or those of neighbouring foxes I don't know.

Smudge has a healing flesh wound on the right side of his muzzle.

Patch has taken a big bite to the left side of his head. I've previously remarked on a toothmark down his face just in front of his eye, but a photo of him eating has now revealed what the opponent's lower mandible did to Patch's chin and it's no wonder he sometimes eats a bit tentatively.

But Scally - battle-scarred and tatty-eared on his right side on arrival a year ago - has now had his left ear ripped apart. The outer edge is hanging down forwards and I shouldn't be surprised if it eventually comes off.

However he remains alert and pugnacious and Maz watched him call his vixen, Rip, to him with a rrow-rrow-rrow outside the front early morning today. They went off together (the two foxes, not Maz.)

It seemed to us that either Patch and Hoppity had split or they had set up a nearby territory and Patch was still coming for food but having to spend time defending his new home. Later in the year a work colleague more or less confirmed this with a tale about a pair of foxes Oak Farm way that were very unusually tolerant of him passing nearby on his way to/from work by bike. I never did see either of them over there and I don’t know if they bred successfully: they might have done, my friend saw cubs in the summer, but if so they never brought the cubs to us, sensibly considering the main road between us and their earth. Hoppity we saw very rarely for much of this year.

Patch’s jaw was never quite the same on the left side: he noticeably adjusted to biting harder on the right side and particularly to using his right jaw to flense meat from drumsticks on occasions when he didn’t feel up to crunching bones. He unquestionably had good periods when he would crack them as any other fox would, though. The other thing he taught himself to do was to put a foot on a drumstick and use his incisors to pull gobbets of meat from it, also saving his jaws which obviously pained him occasionally.

(Written 12th February) …For the second time Patch staggered me as I returned home about 2030 yesterday. I generally talk to myself on the way in to the house from the car (in our courtyard environment that's about fifty yards) as all the foxes know my voice and it leads them to move out of the way but not run off and I can feed them as soon as I get in. Twice now Patch has taken that a stage further.

Our house is just round a corner from the main distance to be travelled so anyone to the right of it viewed from the car park end can't see along that stretch, and Patch's favourite perch is in that position. He heard me coming and trotted to where he could see, then ran towards me and escorted me in from about five yards away, ending up on my front step looking at me while I gently remonstrated that I'm coming in there - as I kept coming he moved aside onto next door's patio. What a guy.

Obviously I fed him at once. We've had no oven for a couple of weeks so they've had raw chicken and been unimpressed - they've eaten it but not without a few "what the hell is this then" looks. With the new oven installed and cooked chicken back on the menu instant devouring has recommenced. Num num num crunch.

28th February: …I got home about 2030 and chatted to Steve as he transferred his gear from my car to his for the last short leg of his journey. As soon as I headed for my own front door I found Patch was sitting waiting for me only a few yards beyond the bollards at the edge of the car parking - he must have heard us chatting and trotted up to make sure I saw him first. I say first because I could see tawny shapes slinking into cover as I followed Patch down to my house, where he walked right up to my front door to make sure I knew where to go (well he must have had some purpose in mind?) before bounding aside to next door so I could actually get in. When I returned with the chicken there were four foxes sitting on the lawn, each in their self-appointed regular spots! Patch was to my left, Scally at the foot of the step, Rip (who is now so huge with pregnancy that one can almost see individual cubs causing strange bulges under her fur in addition to the general rotundity) on the path and Smudge a little back on the right.

4th March: …Patch continues to surprise me. The other night Maz called me out to feed him and as he set about his chicken drumstick he heard next door (right) opening their door. He quickly trotted away to the corner of the terrace by the archway (a popular escape route for the foxes, leading onto the open and wilder refuge of the brook) leaving his drumstick on the lawn. He'd hardly started it. He made several indecisive moves towards the archway and back to his stance, from which he couldn't be seen by the next door neighbour, who continued to look out of their doorway without moving, but he and I could see each other clearly.

Then he looked straight at me for several seconds, and I got the impression he was hoping I could reassure him. So I told him it was all right, he could come and get his chicken. Obviously he doesn't get the words but he's very used to interpreting my tone of voice and he immediately trotted forward onto the lawn, picked up his drumstick and trotted back to exit via the archway.

To me the significant thing here is not his correct interpretation of my communication, but the faith he put in it, relying on me to assure him he would be safe in taking the action he wanted to, despite the presence of the other human whom he was unable to judge.

30th March: …First of all, fox news. Things have been happening.

I mentioned Smudge has moved above Patch in the hierarchy: Smudge is relentlessly collecting food and taking it elsewhere - his communication skills now encompass a look at me of "please give me another drumstick, I can take more than that" and his understanding of a wave of my arm towards the archway where he disappears meaning "no, that's all you're getting, get on with you". I've seen him take four but he considers three an adequate load and will usually be satisfied with two.

Patch suddenly started looking threadbare a week ago. Originally due to the damage being top of tail I thought it was because he is now "scapefox" for the other two dog foxes but then he scratched a hank from his flank down to skin and I thought it could be mange. I have the Fox Society's homeopathic pills for which they reckon great things so I immediately put the all foxes on a prophylactic dose by soaking their chicken. After a week Patch looks at any rate no worse and I've seen how fast a fox can go downhill with mange so I think the stuff must work! It hasn't affected how they eat the stuff which was my initial worry.

The other thing that happened, and all this may be connected, is that the dog foxes took to yammering right on the doorstep from 2330 to 0200 or even later. They may have been trying to drive Patch away completely due to him smelling ill, arguing between themselves (Scally and Smudge) or, since I shut them up the first night with an extra feed and similarly bribed them thereafter, they may have learned that if they call loudly enough, the chicken man comes and feeds them - they are smart animals after all.....

Anyway, after two nights of gritting my teeth ignoring the noise and hoping I wasn't testing the neighbours' patience too far, last night was the return of peace and quiet. Fingers crossed.

Patch holding down chicken with a paw
Patch having scratched out a load of fur on his haunch
A big back-and-forth stretch is wonderful
Patch and Hoppity

 

[Farnboro John]

2022 Part 2

19th May fox update: …In general I've been visited by a core team of four adult foxes (dogs Smudge, Scally and Patch, and vixen Rip) with occasional appearances from Psycho and Hoppity, so entire team present and correct. Smudge tends to arrive, load up with chicken drumsticks (normally four though his record is seven) and then leave propelled by the instruction from me "that's it - off you go" accompanied by a sweep of my arm in his leaving direction. Normally he obeys though sometimes he returns after a few yards "are you sure....?"

Patch also learned to understand “off you go” with a sweep of the arm, when he was picking up multiple drumsticks, though I suspect those were more about his own private stashes than helping to raise cubs. He even understood (I know from his repeated immediate compliance) “No, eat the one you’ve got” when he would try to leave a half-eaten drumstick to be given another one – usually because someone else had just been fed, Patch seemed to have a definite “if they get one I want another one” attitude.

I find both these things extraordinary: Patch is a wild fox, he doesn’t have to bother to understand, and if he does understand he doesn’t have to comply but something makes him think there is benefit to doing what he’s told.

That ****ing cat continues to freak out the dog foxes trying to steal their chicken and Rip the vixen continues to be best and most consistent at chasing it away. Considering she's half their size it's hilarious how much cooler she is.

Meanwhile Patch chewed an area of his left haunch fur off, clearly due to excessive irritation, be that insect bite, fungal itch or other parasitic issue. He then disappeared for three days morning and night and Patch NEVER does that. I was really worried, but then he reappeared having chewed a ragged hole in his haunch. I have a picture, I might appall you with it. I assume he'd nailed the issue as he wasn't still going at it and thankfully his movement was fluid and easy. Hopefully he will keep it clean and heal quickly, he's a tough determined little fella after all.

31st May. I came home from my brother's place on Sunday night and as usual talked to myself on the walk in from the car. Patch absolutely galloped up to me over the thirty yards from near the house to where I'd got to, then skittered around me without understanding how to convey what he was feeling. Foxes don't wag their tails but I think if they did he would have! He led me from a few yards in front, looking over his shoulder to make sure I was following, all the way to the front door, where he glanced at it then at me to make sure I understood that was where I had to go, then trotted aside to give me room to do so. He seems fully fit again.

Meanwhile his full littermate brother Smudge was watching from the archway into which he had retreated, with an unmistakable air of "Patch, what on earth are you doing now?" about him. Unfair because even he has come to meet me once.....

By the time I had my key out and the door open all four regular foxes (Patch, Smudge, Rip and Scally) had closed in behind me awaiting the nightly chicken. So I postponed any actions of my own and fetched their dinner.

We got through most of the rest of 2022 without incident, the foxes tend to be more peaceable as the youngsters grow up.

Patch looking magnificent on a morning visit
Self-treatment for unknown ailment that worried me mightily for some time
A happy Patch yawning at the foot of the step
Cat Whitesocks (workname, don't know his real name) harassing Patch for chicken

 

[Farnboro John]

2023

At the start of 2023 – on the evening of New Year’s Day - Patch fought in front of us with Scally: it was inconclusive but a sign that Patch and Smudge, now fully adult and heavily muscled, might not put up with the interloper much longer. We suspected skirmishing was going on out of sight as well, as Smudge had a limp that could well have come from fighting.

On the 3rd of January, Patch was waiting to be fed and when I opened the front door, he looked me in the eye and gave a “rrow-rrow-rrow” call that I can only assume was directed at me. I do my best to understand fox communication but sadly this was beyond me! He seemed happy with his chicken, anyway. I’ve never been spoken to directly by a fox before or since, albeit they and I have ways of making ourselves understood to each other about several things. I wish I knew what it was all about.

The mating season nightly noise was on the up and fighting was becoming both more frequent and more violent. On 15th January both Patch and Smudge were limping and Smudge, despite traditionally avoiding fox politics, had a face bite as well as a possible bite on his left front paw.

On 30th I rose early and found Patch sleeping on the raised bed by the front step a few feet from me. He woke, yawned, stood up for a huge back and forth dog stretch and was clearly a happy relaxed fox visiting his mate for breakfast. That night was the climacteric of the power struggle. Smudge arrived to be fed with terrible facial injuries including the loss of his right eye and a bad limp on his left fore. We never saw Scally again and I’m certain Smudge killed him outright. Very sadly Smudge paid a terrible price for his victory: he seemed to be slowly healing but then his head took on a twist to one side (neurological issue from the damaged eye?) and he disappeared, last seen 13th March.

This left Patch in charge by default with his long-term partner Hoppity – poor old Rip, whom we’d known for so long and who had always been very confident around us, just faded out – and Spring 2023 settled into regular visits from them and the yearlings Toff and Scruff (from Scally and Rip’s 2022 litter). Before that, on 11 February I came downstairs early to find Patch asleep on next door’s leatherette cushioned garden bench! Waking, he hopped down and crossed to our front step to be fed. Scruff left towards the end of May, hopefully dispersing locally.

On 21st June this year Patch, Hoppity and the yearling Toff arrived as usual to be fed, but for the first time this year a well-grown male cub, tall and rangy, with long black boots and huge ears, also attended the gathering. From Patch and Hoppity’s patient acceptance (and increasing intolerance of Toff by Patch, causing him to keep a further distance) it was apparent this was their offspring. On 12th July two cubs attended simultaneously, the second one being a much smaller and definitely submissive (and more dependent) female. Patch and Hoppity having been fed sat shoulder to shoulder and I saw Patch nuzzle his mate’s neck in a rare public display of affection.

Maz and I were away for a night twitching the Black-winged Kite in Norfolk over 18th-19th July, returning latish evening on the latter date. As we left the car parking area Patch came to meet us and led us all the way back to the front door, hopping on his good front paw up onto the front step and looking from it to us and back to show us where to go. Knowing that it is fundamentally what my Mum would have called “cupboard love” – i.e. he wanted his chicken – didn’t make it any less satisfying that our little friend came confidently up to us while we were moving towards him and then walked ahead of us by only a few yards, communicating with us as best he could.

Throughout late July Patch came to be fed mornings as well as evenings, usually eating three or four chicken legs and then indicating that he would load up, taking usually three more drumsticks to either stash or perhaps to share with his family. On 28th while I was feeding them I saw the female cub come to Patch and successfully beg his drumstick from him. The male cub, more independent, was by now taking his cue from the two adults and coming right up to the front step to be fed.

On 4th August I settled on names for the two cubs: Rusty for the male and Midge for the less confident little female. Part of the choice was that neither sounded anything like the other current names, Patch, Hoppity (I often abbreviate this to “Hops”) and Toff. It was also just in time. On 5th August Patch again allowed Midge to take his drumstick (just started) when she begged for it right under his nose. He was eating lying down, perhaps because hopping on one front foot was gradually wearing him out: but he got up to tell me he would like another one and gave a gruff “Huff” to the troublesome cat Whitesocks who thought briefly about stealing it and decided not to push it.

I last saw Patch on the morning of August 7th 2023. His left paw was still hurting and clearly something major was going on because it had been like that for months: but he seemed well and was certainly well fed. The rest of his family turned up to feed as usual in the evening but there was no sign of Patch. He hasn’t returned and I’ve gradually come to realise my little friend is not coming back this time.

Portrait of Patch on a morning visit
Patch waiting to be fed, evening, with a cat paw smash left jaw
Patch on a morning, left front paw out of action
Patch waiting for me on another morning

 

[Farnboro John]

It's not easy being an urban fox. There’s a lot of pressure on territory holders from dispersing foxes or even from within the skulk as males mature. When the male changes, usually (not always) the vixen does too, so in most cases when a territorial male is displaced, the female loses her livelihood too. Two to three years is usual. One or two breeding attempts are the most one can expect. Death may come from illness, from fighting, from road traffic accidents even away from major roads. Since I started engaging with my local foxes our territory has been held by at least five dog foxes (Blackie, Big Whitey, Scally, very briefly Smudge and most recently Patch) and I’ve had acquaintance with a similar number of breeding vixens and quite a few cubs and yearlings.

None of them has ever been quite like Patch for engagement with me or just for trying and trying and coming back and trying again after every setback. Bites, fights, conjunctivitis, mange: he never ever gave up, just came to us for food and carried on. I’m glad he eventually managed to breed successfully even though he sort of inherited the result of Smudge’s efforts rather than achieving his own victory. But that’s the sort of opportunism that defines fox life.

Little mate, it was an absolute pleasure.

John

 

[Owene]

A lovely read John,

 

[Merlin]

A lovely read John,

John

A treat to read and see,

regards
Merlin

 

[Frank van Drogen]

Thanks for sharing John!

 

[maplekong]

Remember that for the rest of your life. Wonderful story, thank you for helping the family and for sharing this with us.