Butcher

 With a title like that, this could so easily be a monologue on Putin, the Gorse Fox will, however, resist. Whatever polemic he can produce will be of no value and have no impact on the situation.

It was a leisurely start to the morning for the Gorse Fox. The Silver Vixen, however, seems to have been the subject of multiple "interventions" from Jasper throughout the night. She was not amused.

The morning started with a walk around to the butcher's truck. He is there every Saturday morning and delivers some wonderful meat. The Gorse Fox wanted to get some of his bacon and some Lincolnshire sausages. For a change, there was a very short queue. Several kilos of bacon and sausages later, the Gorse Fox stumbled home to restock the larder.

The morning was occupied with the cousins' call and some chores. The cousins' call was fun. Comrade Cousin, who lives in the Midlands (far North) is a bit of a champagne socialist. The Gorse Fox tends to tease hime about how much better it is in the South. Comrade Cousin's opening gambit today was that he had only just got out of bed. The Gorse Fox's response was that he had been up for hours as we had a busy day ahead. It was, after all, the first day of the year on which we would take our yacht out. There was a bit of spluttering from the other end. "Are you just pottering around in the harbour, or going further afield?" The Gorse Fox explained that as it was the first outing of the season, we would stay in and around the harbour/marina. It was just a bit of a shake-down to check everything had survived the winter, after all! Comrade Cousin then asked how big the yacht was. The Gorse Fox had to admit that it was only 8-berth, but it suited us. The other cousins on the Zoom call kept quiet. The other cousins had been briefed that this was a wind-up. There were knowing smiles, but nobody gave it away.

Later in the morning the Gorse Fox wrote to Comrade Cousin

I thought you might like to see some photos of my yacht….

Then I remembered that you may not approve…
…and then I remembered I don’t actually have a yacht and it was a wind-up (your sisters knew).

After that bit of fun the Gorse Fox returned to the Canadian/Polish side of the family tree. This occupied the rest of the day. It revealed that Agent Mulder has far more cousins that he thought he may have and also that Candian online research is pathetically supported. To research within the last 100 year in Canada really limits you to Newspaper and Church archives. Fortunately, Agent Mulder also had some documents and certificates that he forwarded on. The most interest was a page of recollections from his Great-grandfather both his own life, starting in the Russian part of Poland, migration to England, then a few years later migrating on to Canada. Riveting stuff.