NOISES IN THE NIGHT

We were fortunate last night as the aeroplanes with often thunder overhead on their way to Heathrow were using another flightpath and when I turned in for the night all was quiet,but not for long!
Shortly after midnight a Little Owl which roosts on a tree at the side of the house decided to engage in a hooting contest with another of its kind who resides in a large cedar in the old graveyard behind our house. These little birds, the smallest of the British owl species have a very loud hoot and further more at the end of each hoot they emit a loud blood-curdling screech. For over an hour I have the full benefit of their choral practice as one of the trees is but a few feet from my bedroom window and the other no more than twenty feet away. I did not mind too much as I never sleep well at the best of times but by one O clock I was feeling drowsy and was glad when one of the protagonists gave up and flapped off in to the darkness.
I cuddled down into the bed covers and sighed with relief, too soon as it turned out for five minutes later just as I had finally nodded of an ear splitting shriek came from the front garden flowed by a cacophony of barks and growls.....foxes!

I got up at once and looked out of the window, there on the front lawn were a pair of dog foxes engaged in a mighty skirmish presumably over the female who stood a little to one side and paying scant attention to the battle which raged before her. The y rolled about in the borders demolishing along the way a young rosemary bush and knocking over a number of flowerpots. Fifteen minutes later the battle still raged and I noticed that lights were on in the house across the road and I could hear activity in the house next door.
The female,bored to death by the whole thing got up and walked off through the gate and across the road and still the two males fought. I had thought that by now the foxes had already paired but these boys seem to have left things a little late.
Just as I was about to give up and make a cup of tea our resident dog fox, a fine big hansom fellow strolled down the garden path and in a few seconds and with very little resistance saw off the interlopers, chasing them off the premises and down the lane.

Thankfully I returned to bed rather chilly and by now very sleepy. My luck was out again! As I drifted off to sleep a thought I could hear singing...surely not, it was almost two in the morning. Unfortunately I was not imagining things, the singing got louder and louder until I could make out the rather rude song being tortured to death by a pair of drunks on their way home from a pub lock in. They passed the bottom of the garden and suddenly stopped in mid carouse,for a moment their was silence and them the unmistakable sound of a punch up. This proved too much for my neighbours and as I discovered this morning the police were called, so now we had sirens howling down the lane,followed by an ambulance, Oh help!

At last the lane was empty, the garden was quiet again and at three thirty I climbed wearily into bed again, curled up and went straight to sleep. Fifteen minutes later a large cargo plane screamed overhead, the noise made louder by the fact that I had forgotten to close the window after fox watching, so I got out of bed again and closed the window tight shut.
I slept at last. At seven thirty my son arrived home,he woke me......bless him with a cup of coffee.
The sounds of night creatures going about their lawful occasions I can cope with, as for the rest I am philosophical. I am told that I am going deaf, a hereditary problem, after last night I begin to think it might not be so bad after all......I jest of course.