A few days ago, after a weekend of partying at Mardi Gras, I was in my garden at 2am in the quiet night air, trying to recover enough to be able to walk upstairs and get into bed. I was minding my own business when out of the deep silence I heard a strange scurrying, and I looked up just in time to see a big fluffy tail shoot past. For a moment I thought I’d partied too hard and was hallucinating, but then I decided it was probably one of the large neighbourhood cats who cruelly ignore me no matter how casually I pss pss at them.

Then I heard more notably freaky noises, and noticed the suspicious shaking of some of our greenery. Turns out it was a huge possum, mistaking a tallish houseplant in the back yard of an inner Sydney terrace for a big safe tree in which to hide from a normal human woman. I went closer and spoke in what I considered to be a helpful voice, informing the possum that it had come to a dead end, and it might want to come down.

It did, by jumping out and running directly at me. Luckily I was swaying on my feet anyway and it missed me and raced out of the garden. After realising this was real life, I was delighted by the interaction. I don’t get many encounters with wildlife living in the inner city. I felt a........

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