The fox in the car park

a familiar stranger.

At just before 8 o’clock in the morning, between Monday and Friday, I step out of the door of my flat, walk under the railway bridge, past the hedge, and I look to my right.

There is, without fail, a fox sitting in the car park.

Sometimes it is sitting, sometimes it is lying down. Sometimes it is on the grass, most of the time it is on the concrete.

Here it is.

Image: Thomas Winward

It seems to be quite happy sitting in the sunshine, enjoying the morning warmth before it turns around and disappears into a gap in the hedge behind it.

If I pass before seven thirty, it won’t be there. If I pass after eight, it won’t be there. That half an hour slot seems to be a regular moment of relaxation for the fox. Of contemplation.

Half an hour at the end of a busy night where it is content to just sit and be.

If I’m going to work at the same time as my partner, we’ll look to the right simultaneously and say “fox,” in greeting. I’ll say it even if I’m on my own.

If it sees us, it is never in a particular hurry to scurry away. It might keep half an eye on us while it stretches and finds a more comfortable position.

Last year it let me film it so I could include it in my latest documentary. It sat patiently while I faffed around with my heavy camera kit and lined up the shot.

“The Birdwatchers”, 2024, dir. Thomas Winward

I like this fox.

I have the same relationship with this fox as I do with many of my neighbours on the street. I know it to nod my head and say hello, but I’ve never had it round for dinner. I’ve never shared a love or a fear or a joke or even know what it does for a living. But there’s something reassuring about that fox always sitting in the same place every morning.

It’s as much a part of my life as the woman who cleans the communal areas of the flats every Tuesday. Or the man who always has to jump breathless through the closing doors of the train, never seemingly able to leave the house thirty seconds earlier.

I heard a term for this the other day: ‘familiar strangers’. The people you share your life with without ever really knowing them, like the people who get the same bus as you each morning. You get to know their habits, their wardrobes, their music tastes. Even never having set eyes on the man whose bedroom window is two floors below mine and slightly to the left, I’m very familiar with the coughing fit he has at half past six every morning.

The natural world, for me, is full of moments like that.

Even without knowing the names of the plants and the flowers I can still appreciate them, and know that March is my favourite time to visit my in-laws’ house because all the nice little purple flowers start poking their way through the lawn and I like the way the sun hits them at a certain time of day.

The song of the blackbird or the woodpigeon is as familiar as the feeling of a cool breeze or the shape of the tree outside my childhood bedroom window.

All of these regular moments, these textures that make up the patterns of our lives work together in complex but beautiful ways.

Image: Thomas Winward

When a part of this tapestry disappears, its absence can be disquieting.

When the elderly man no longer sits in his front garden every morning with a cup of tea and a copy of The Times, and a month later there’s a For Sale sign in his place.

When the red-haired lady stops walking her slow, old golden retriever every lunchtime, and when you see her again she’s alone.

When the birds stop singing on a hot day.

In time, other things move in to fill those gaps in the ecosystems of our daily lives. A crying baby is added to the soundscape of the street. A neighbour gives her door a new coat of paint.

Subconsciously, everything interlinks and harmonises, the orchestra with no conductor somehow playing a piece that resonates no matter how melodic or discordant.

And you, too, are part of it. A familiar stranger in someone else’s life, a different impression on everyone. To some you are the Seven AM Work Person, hurrying past on your way to the office. To others you are the Brewing Artisan Coffee On A Sunday Person, and they know you only by the smell from your kitchen.

You slide in and out of other people’s ecosystems, and when you are gone they will notice, and something else will fill your space.

One day I might walk out of my flat, under the railway bridge, past the hedge and look to my right, and the fox won’t be there anymore, and I will be sad.

One day the fox might realise that it hasn’t seen the man who walks past the car park every morning at 8 o’clock, wearing the same shabby jeans, for a while.

But I hope not for a long time yet.

For now, I hope to keep on looking to the right, and locking eyes with that familiar stranger backlit against the golden morning sun, and saying “fox.”