Our Mission in Tower Hamlets today was Stefania’s first, and she’d crossed the battle-lines from up in Redbridge to do it as well, nice one!!

At 85 years old, our sweet Mission host’s mobility is now somewhat limited, so she’s no longer able to attend to her garden. Consequently it had been taken over not only by brambles and buddleia, but by a ruddy FOX! 🐺

As we were let out through the back door we were warned about it, and sure enough there it was waiting for us outside in the sunshine. Naturally it fled immediately, but apparently it had been making our host nervous about being out there, so was keeping her from using the space.

Gardening wise there was rather a lot to do for one day, so we prioritised – sort-out the patio area nearest the back door, and make the garden a less appealing habitat for the fox. There was a range of different planters and hanging baskets there, everything in them now dead so we cleared them up to the main area of the garden and swept and sorted the patio area. Something else that had been a particular problem for our host was a large buddleia that had grown from a tiny crack up in the brickwork – gladly the fantastic set of loppers that she had cut through it like a hot knife through budd-er (hahaha!!)

With the garden bags already filling-up, we turned our attention to evicting the vulpine interloper. He/she had dug under the decking at the back of the garden creating access points at either end. Given there were so many pots of soil dotted around, we resolved to backfill these two holes with the soil, and so block access to the cavity under the decking.

The first hole was shielded by a Rapunzel-sized bramble which we had to surgically remove and bag-up without lacerating ourselves too badly (the thing snaked right off across the garden for about 20 feet.) The second entrance contained what looked like the fox’s ‘toys’ – a piece of Tyvek and a very heavily chewed white trainer. 👟 In each case once we’d exposed the burrows, we filled them in with soil from the pots, stamped it down, and then put some huge ceramic pots on top to prevent the fox re-digging it’s old holes.

The hope is that the fox will sort itself a new place to live (perhaps from ‘Fox’-tons hahaha!!), and so our host will be able to sit out in the sun and have a cup of tea, knowing it now has no cause to return...