The problem with cats is they are so chilled. You can get swept up in it.
I’ve been sitting on this sofa for hours, in this quiet quiet home, and Carlos has been breathing into me as I sit. Behind me there’s an owl hooting, Lou has been sleeping for a few hours now, Rajah is out hunting again, and somehow I’ve allowed myself to be pulled into a purry little vortex of time. I can’t believe it’s suddenly past midnight, but it is. Time to write.
This is Carlos.
Carlos was sleeping all day under the duvet. Now he’s sleeping on me. He prefers warmth over breathing, it seems, and often pushes his face down into the cushions. He only eats wet food and he’s a total whore for strokes. He doesn’t care a bit about snacks.
This is Rajah.
“All ginger cats are mad,” says Frank on WhatsApp. I think he’s right in this regard. Rajah lives in the woods. He’s domesticated feral. This morning, Lou was up before me and discovered a mouse head, eyes wide open, and viscera spread artfully on that carpet – just outside the bedroom door. She was barefoot but lucky. I’ve stepped on such things before. The rain must be making for good hunting – flushing the poor things out of their flooded holes. This evening he came in with another one, small and pale, hopefully dead in his mouth. We were still awake this time and he fled back outside with his prize. I think he likes to get his meal out of the rain first. He only eats dry food, but it seems he’s eating the spoils of his hunting. I hope he doesn’t like birds too as I put a load of fatballs into the feeder. February is a bad month for naturally occurring bird food. That owl outside though is likely enjoying the flushed out mice as much as Rajah. It’s worth going out in the rain when it is as waterlogged as it is right now, so long as you eat mice.
There’s an Airbnb across the way, currently occupied but often empty. If we hadn’t gone shopping they would have been the only other people we were aware of. Who knows how the guy got planning permission for these two homes, but they aren’t on mains water properly as they are deep enough into the woods. You can drive to a Jempsons in five minutes so it’s not like I’m Joseph Campbell here. But it feels thrust away. I like it. And I’m very much enjoying the energies of the cat on my lap, the very vocal hunting owl, quietly sleeping Lou beside whom I will shortly be trying not to snore, and Rajah the ginger hunter. The log fire is dying, it’s late. I think I’ll put the kettle on for a chamomile tea.
AlBarclay 