Rags and the Adventure with Mrs Fox

Rags is blossoming into a charming character who simply adores the company of people. He’s always eager to greet anyone he encounters with a joyful ‘hello’. On one memorable occasion, Rags approached a man by his garden gate, eager to make a new friend. The man, touched by Rags’ friendly gesture, gratefully expressed, ‘Thank you for being in the world.’ If Rags could talk, he’d surely have responded, ‘You’re welcome’.

Rags still likes to find things on his walks. Rags shows me things that capture his interest. Amazingly, it is usually things that I would never have noticed and then I find them interesting too. I have learned that Rags has a special bark when he is on the trail of a fox. I think he really wants me to know how clever he is to have picked up the scent.

This story about the adventure with Mrs Fox is true. Rags did search out the fox in his garden. We did find Mrs Fox in the woods watching us as we watched her. On another day, we really did find the baby foxes playing ‘catch’ in the woods. The scene with the chicken, well that was also true. Mrs Fox had to feed her babies and as the story shows, she was very good at that.

A. M. Houston trained as a nurse and midwife and then focused on public health by training as a health visitor. She worked in the National Health Service in the UK for many years. A.M. Houston became interested in health research and left frontline practice to concentrate on community and family health and completed her PhD at King’s College London.

Dr. A.M. Houston returned to frontline community service and developed a special interest in child development, early learning, developing practice and most of all helping families with their pre-school children. Throughout her early years’ work, A. M. Houston passionately believed in the importance of reading to pre-school children as a valuable initial part of a child’s progress into education.