Country diary 1968: a meeting with the bracken-red fox

8 January 1968 The fox was completely absorbed in its own affairs and very catlike in its stance, it stood motionless and its sharp nose pointed at a tuft of winter-pale grassKESWICK: The first week of the new year often brings strange weather as if it is undecided as to which season it belongs to and one milder morning lately, with soft clouds resting on the snowy fells, there was a smell of growing things in the air. It was an indefinable smell – not the flowering witch hazel, the swelli