Christmas is for cats

Loki (top) and Otto, with shiny paper and a few balls.

‘Christmas is really for the children,’ or so many people claim.

In which case, do cats count too?

It’s certainly been an eventful festive season for our little pride, starting when Loki got herself lost.

She’d successfully chased the considerably larger Reggie out of the carpark behind our flat, and was rather obviously feeling chuffed with herself.

But by the time I’d returned from the shops, The Other Half was back inside, the door was still open, but she was nowhere to be seen.

Cue much calling and rattling of food tins. No sign.

After about half an hour of hunting – and increasing panic – The Other Half went upstairs on a communal staircase and opened a window to peer out from above.

Next door to our small block is an old pub that’s been converted into flats. He thought he spotted her on the metal stairs leading to the upper floors.

He sped out one way and I went the other, food tin and fork in hand.

There she was, underneath the metal stairs, hiding in a corner, bravado gone, now just thoroughly frightened.

Eventually he coaxed her out and through the gate, picking her up and pushing her back into the carpark, where she ran past me as I beat a tattoo on the tin and called her.

Past me, indeed, into the garden, straight into the flat and absolutely straight to the food bowl, where she started to gobble food.

“She’s going to bring that all back up,” I mused to The Other Half a few minutes later, as she continued to empty the bowl. But remarkably, she didn’t. Presumably, being frightened and lost gets the appetite going.

She’d also managed to get mud all over her paws and belly, so we toweled as much off as possible. I was wondering if we’d have to experience the joys of bathing a cat, but fortunately she completed the job excellently all by herself.

And then it was a case of flopping next to The Other Half on the sofa and not moving for the rest of the day. And the day after that.

But Christmas Day brought with it reasons to be active again.

The cats have had a few balls to play with for some time – light, ping pong balls are perfect. But they lose them rapidly beneath the furniture and then demand we get them out again.

Solution? A Christmas present of a bag of 150 orange ping pong balls.

Which we emptied onto the wooden floor all at once, to enormous feline confusion. Confusion, however, that was followed by gleeful play.

Boudicca isn’t entirely convinced, but The Kittens – who arrived at Christmas three years ago, so aren’t really kittens any more – love them.

It’s a sort of combination of dribbling skills and pinball. Although Otto has added a format to the game that’s entirely of her own making.

Having worked out that she can carry a ball around, she picks one up (using her front paws to lift it to her mouth) and then carries it to the mat inside the door to the garden.

Then she puts it down and waits until it either rolls away, before she charges after it, or until she decides to bat it away, and then charge after it.

But then, after a while of pinging it around, it will be brought back to the mat to start again. In the last week or so, the mat has changed to a piece of shiny wrapping paper, which is near the mat.

Wrapping paper is obviously another seasonal pleasure, to be dived on (this year’s new wooden floor means you can pretty much surf on it), torn at – and made into little tents to hide in.

Not that this is Otto’s only version of a formalised game.

Having realised, last Christmas, that she particularly loves ribbon, I bought a spool so we can cut lengths off for play.

And the ribbons ended up on the bed, which has a blanket box at the end of it.

The game, as it has evolved, means that when I’m sitting in bed with a book, Otto will sit on the blanket box and wait.

I’m supposed to take the longest piece of red ribbon and flick it towards her and then draw it slowly up the bed.

Sometimes she pounces quickly – sometimes she waits. And waits.

But she always returns to the blanket box to start the next round.

Cats have habits – they’ll patrol exactly the same area in exactly the same way, for instance – but neither The Other Half nor I have ever seen anything quite like this. It’s fascinating.

Mind, she will also sit and watch television (or a computer) for longer than any cat I’ve known either.

Boudi continues to be the household’s big clumsy girl. Presumably because she was so young when we got her (six and a half weeks) and because she moved into a household with two elderly cats, her social skills are not what they might be.

She gets her verbal signals all confused, growling and hissing when she’s actually playing. It still bemuses The Kittens, although they generally seem to regard her behaviour in a sort of ‘oh, it’s just Boudi’ way. They’d probably shrug if they could.

Mind, that’s when they’re not teasing her – karma, Boudi, given how you baited Trickie when you were a tiny thing?

Trickie, our Battersea rescue cat, who had spent most of her life with an elderly man who clearly liked a very hot home; who thought that she wasn’t a cat, but a small, elderly and rather genteel lady in a fur coat.

Trickie, who was nearly about to set records for the longest stay at the home; who beat her ‘cabin’ door when she saw us coming, drooled over the top of it at us, and faked the cat test, which is supposed to reveal whether a cat can get along with other cats.

Trickie, who was so grateful to be rescued from Stalag Luft Battersea, and who was then twice attacked in our garden by some hulking stranger cat, who was chased off by Boudi, paws a-whir as she hurtled after it, claws glistening in the morning light.

All of them leave you with stories and memories.

Not that our anthropological observations this last couple of weeks have been limited to the cats.

When we finally managed to get out for a walk yesterday, we discovered that squirrels make nests. Okay, I knew that they nested in hollow bits of trees, but had never realised that they actually make nests in the branches too.

We were in the park and there were squirrels everywhere – including the fattest one either of us have ever seen; sitting beneath a tree and munching its way through a whole pile of nuts, beady eye keeping a watch on anyone who got too close.

But not far away, there were squirrels running up and down the naked trees, carrying leaves to a big nest.

Since there was another rather large squirrel watching, we surmised that there’s a spot of Sciuridae pregnancy in the air.

And with a scattering of pink blossom on a tree further on, and crocuses already well on the way in our own little garden, it would seem that the seasons are well and truly in chaos.

No wonder it hasn’t felt much like Christmas anywhere but completely hidden away from the outside world.

The fur (almost) flies as the days lengthen

The season has changed. We’ve reached a tipping point and it’s winter no longer.

It's been pleasant all week – and gorgeous today – but it was on Monday night, after dusk had fallen, that I knew. Standing in the garden briefly, I could feel it – smell it. It was a clear sky and chilly – well, not “chilly”; not chill-you-to-your-bones cold, but fresh: different.

And not only has the air changed, the light has changed too. As my bus passed the park this morning, the first crocuses, purple and white, were visible in the early frost.

Spring might not fully have sprung, but it’s on the way. It doesn’t mean that the bad weather is over – apart from anything else, the domestic cricket season hasn’t started yet and we always get snow around then, as if the weather is making some sort of a sarcastic comment on the sport itself.

But there is a difference and it's almost beyond welcome.

For the kittens, of course, it's a first – as are many things at present.

The mornings seem to have lightened considerably – and almost overnight. So of course the furry alarm clocks are starting their morning ministrations earlier with every passing day.

Loki likes to come up on the bed and attempt to suckle our ears. Otto comes up to me for pillow cuddles and fuss. You could be forgiven for thinking that the latter is the biggest softy in our household, but while he's as soft as the proverbial with me, there are signs of a rather tougher and more calculating feline beneath the fur. For instance, while Loki gets batted regularly by Boudi for running into her accidently or similar such infringements (like being in her presence), Otto has now taken to sitting quite deliberately in situations where he is above the Queen B. And then looking down at her.

This is an offence to Her Majesty, who eventually flips and tries to smack him. He remains completely unperturbed – and does it again. This is teasing par excellence – and way beyond that traditional kitten trick (which Boudi herself used to do to poor old Trickie – karma, eh?) of standing on your back paws and waving your front paws at a bigger cat – trying to look bigger and scarier yourself.

Bismarck would be proud – and Boudi's going to have her paws full before long, if she doesn't feel that already.

Born right at the end of last October, they haven't felt a lot of sun on their bodies before – and now that there are moments when we can start to feel it, they must be able to feel it too.

They're enjoying being occasionally let into our tiny garden now – only under supervision – although Boudicca is less than impressed at yet another part of her realm no longer being safe from kittenish invasion. The other week, on one of their first such spells outside, we had a visit from neighbouring moggy Basil.

Basil (left) is bonkers. He lives in the small block of flats next to ours, with a woman who, frankly, hasn't a clue. She thinks that he's better spending time outside – but half the time, he clearly wants to be inside, warm and comfortable. Instead, he sits in our gated carpark and mewls for attention.

And he gets it from many of the residents. In the summer, if someone has a barbeque outside in the carpark, he'll always be guaranteed titbits. Even Lisa, a neighbour who says that she hates cats, bought a box of something called 'cat gravy' for him once. It's not the best diet, though, and he's really rather large.

He's convinced, though, that however she may react, Boudi would really like to be his special friend. Before the arrival of Otto and Loki, she'd dive into the garden and attempt to reach under the fence to bat Boris if he was near enough. He must have a strange idea of friendship.

It was clearly something of a shock to him the other day to discover that the fence that he stands on the other side of, moaning, now has extra cats behind it. Loki hissed at him through a knothole. But never let it be said that such things put Basil off in his quest for feline companionship.

A few mornings ago, he hauled his fat furry body over the fence and into our garden, going to sit in front of the patio doors and mewl.

Boudi went predicatably mad, scrabbling at the door to be let out so that she could chase him off; even though she's physically smaller, it's an unfair match: she's chased him right up the fence before now, all four paws spinning like some sort of cartoon cat on speed.

Loki stood in front of the window, head on one side, watching curiously. I was taking the day off and was still sitting in bed, sipping camomile tea, looking at cookery books and planning the weekend food with Otto's help – he wasn't remotely interested in the stranger outside.

I went through to the living room and rattled the door handle, which sent Basil off as fast as he could go, scrabbling madly to get back over the fence. Far kinder than letting Boudi at him.

Who knows whether he's tried his luck since when we've been at work. I've told Boudi not to let him in. There are no obvious signs that she's ignored me or that she's had the chance to give him a serious seeing-to.

I'm looking forward to seeing how the kittens react when it gets really warm. There would always be a day, in years now past, when Mack would emerge into the garden, as though from hibernation, and roll in the sun-warmed dust of the patio. Like crocuses and roadworks and lengthening days, it was a sign that spring was on the way. And it never ceased to warm the cockles of my heart.

'You're going to pay for bringing kittens in here'

Boudicca has decided that we owe her. Big time. And she has now decided just how she is going to collect.

We will play with her. With her fish-on-a-stick toy. And we will do so far more often than ever before.

Boudicca came to us five years ago last November – the fifth, to be precise. It was a Saturday and she was utterly unconcerned by fireworks going off. She didn't even seem particularly worried by cars passing as I walked home with her in a basket.

She was a tiny ball of fluff with a lot of attitude: only six weeks old – although we didn't realise quite how young she was at the time.

We already had two cats at the time – Mack and Trickie. Mack had been with us for around 13 years. His sister, Mabel (yes, they were named after the Broadway show) had died suddenly a few years earlier and, convinced that he was lonely, we'd adopted Trickie from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, within a couple of months of Mabel's death.

Trick was a soppy thing of around 10. She'd lived with an old man until his death, when his son took her to live with his family. But she didn't get on with the children or the dogs and they'd had to make the decision to take her for rehoming. She'd been at Battersea for almost five weeks – close to a record – and as we walked between the 'kitty cabins', she leapt up and drooled over the top of the door in a desperate attempt to get our attention.

She passed the 'cat test' (to check whether cats get on with other felines), although I strongly suspect that she deliberately faked it as part of her plan to escape from Stalug Luft Battersea. That, and her obvious instant affection for The Other Half did the trick, and Trickie came home with us, even though we'd set out with the intention of getting a much younger cat.

Mack was appalled. He threw hissing fits – but never anything more – retired to the bedroom to sulk for days and went through a stage of what the books call 'inappropriate urinating'. This was one pissed-off cat being pissy.

We had followed the Battersea advice on introducing a new cat to a household: shut them in one room for a a couple days while they get used to that. Trick loved the kitchen, while Mack resented not being able to go in there.

He got over it and they learnt to rub along. And then, just over two years later, I was in my local pub just as the landlady had agreed to take a kitten from one of her regulars. There were further kittens left in the litter. I told The Other Half later – we'd always felt a bit cheated with Mack and Mabel, since the colleague who gave them to us kept them until they were 12 weeks old (even though we'd booked them well before they were born). We never really felt that we'd had that tiny kittenhood experience. This seemed like a good opportunity.

We sat down, discussed whether we could cope with three cats in our flat and also whether we could cope financially. We concluded that we could – and I got in touch with the kittens' owner to say we'd take one.

We actually took Boudi on approval – not that there was ever much risk of us changing our minds. She leapt out of the basket and straight into a bookcase, hiding behind a few books, emitting little kitten hisses when either of us tried to coax her out. Some hours later, I managed to encourage her a bit, using a finger dipped in cat food.

Over the coming days, she gradually came further and further out of hiding. On the second afternoon, she was creeping around the corner of the sofa, when she spotted Trickie, sitting nonchalantly in the basket, which we'd left out in case our newcomer wanted to use it as a sort of den while she got used to the place. She sped towards the basket – possibly thinking it was her mother – and then ground to a halt just in front of it, spitting and hissing, before running away.

To say that Trick wasn't impressed would be an understatement. It set the tenor for their relationship. Trickie, despite being full grown, was constantly irritated by the bouncing kitten that would leap up in front her doing the 'look at how big I am' pose. With Mack, she was an a bit of awe, as though he were a worshipped big brother – and he never seemed remotely bothered by her arrival.

In the meantime, Trickie would land on The Other Half's should, wrap herself around him and complain that she was being made to spend time with cats. I'm convinced that she was telling him that she wasn't really one of them – but a small person in a fur coat.

So that was Boudi's introduction to the household. And one has a certain sense of karma that after teasing Trick, she's finding herself bemused by miniature furballs. Loki simply cannot resist following her: earlier today she went to sit in a window. So Loki followed – clearly convinced that it would be A Good Thing to join her. Much hissing and growling, plus a clump or two, followed. He's also intrigued by her tail too.

Otto doesn't seem as determined to wind her up – but when she's decided to clump him, he falls into classic cat submission position – and then gives a little hiss back. It's like telling her that she's not really scary – and he's going to get bigger and bigger as the days go by.

So, we are starting to pay. Her choice of payment is being made clear by greatly increased attempts to open the draw containing her favourite toy. And then sitting and staring long and hard at whichever of her servants is around at the time.

The Queen B is working hard to reassert her authority.

A case of 'enlightened self-interest'

It's not clear that having kittens is supposed to produce any philosophical reflection.

But in the last couple of days, my mind has drifted to Jeremy Bentham and his comments on the rights of animals.

The day may come when the rest of animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny.

The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why human beings should be adandoned with redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may be one day recognised that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate.

What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the facility to reason, or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old.

But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? But Can they suffer?



Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789)

The central point here is that we do not grant a concept of human rights on the basis of certain abilities – primarily, the ability to think, so why do we exclude animals from any idea of rights on the basis of a lack of sentience, for instance? It's not logical.

Otto and Loki were 10 weeks old just two days ago. It's extraordinary to think of that incredibly short timespan (from a human perspective at least) when you see just how much of their world they already understand and know how to deal with. And how they're learning every day.

Loki, for instance, already knows how to open doors. He's too small and light to do it yet, but he knows the basic idea and jumps up to try.

One of his predecessors, Mack, could do it most adroitly. If we had guests staying overnight, we'd warn them to put a stack of big books against the door if they didn't want a feline visitor in the night. New guests would generally laugh in the way that you do when you're trying to humour overly-indulgent parents who are raving about the fantastic abilities of their child. So then they'd go in the spare room and shut the door.

We took to standing nearby to watch what unfolded. Mack had a deep belief that internal doors in the house should be open. All the time. So he'd saunter up to this offense to his sensibilities, stand against it, reach up and pull down the leaver handle while pushing. It was always most gratifying to watch people's reactions to this.

I've also seen him do things like sit in front of the old stereo – a mass of knobs and buttons and sliding things – and move them around. Now I doubt if he was actually trying to correct the balance for Bach's Brandenburg Concerti, but he'd seen that such things could be moved – he'd seen and understood what door handles were for – and he could do the same. On other occasions, he'd quite deliberately plop his paw down on the button on the telephone that would finish a call.

So never mind Bentham's dogs and horses: the same applies to cats – even kittens are way more developed intellectually than infants, so if we say that a new-born baby has human rights, it isn't on the basis of an ability to reason.

And then there's emotion: more than once it's been asked as to whether animals have emotions. I'm not sure that I've ever known such an absurd question. It could only ever be asked by someone who hasn't actually lived with a non-human animal.

A week or so ago I described how, when I was in my youth at home, our new family dog (who'd have been just over one at the time) went into a corner, ears back, as we were getting Christmas presents – only to go utterly potty when she got something at the end. Now I know anthropomorphism is a danger, but it's not rocket science to interpret that as emotional responses.

And right now Boudicca is going through a range of emotions over having the kittens in the house: fascination and downright irritation are but two that are blindingly obviously. We're having to make especially sure that she doesn't feel ignored.

Of course, it gets a bit complex – and cats make it even more so. If you say that cats have rights, on the basis of Bentham's analysis, then what about their food? Cats are obligate omnivores: they need meat. Humans – and dogs – are omnivores: they can get by healthily enough with no meat in their diet (although I always feel sorry for the vegetarian bloodhound in Shirley Valentine).

It would be one thing for me to say: 'oh, I think animals have rights – and I won't eat meat'. But it's downright wrong to try to make an obligate carnivore abide by such a moral position. But to accept nature and allow them to eat meat, also means that you accept at least the possibility of suffering by the animals that constitute their food.

Back in the 1980s, I was a vegetarian. There – that's an admission over and done with.

It started as a financial thing – I had little money – but I stuck with it after finding that I seemed to have more energy.

My vegetarianism lasted for close to a decade, but died a death one day in east London when, on the way to work one morning, the smell of a bacon butty being served in a deli bar was just too much.

It was still a long time before I learned to really love meat. But then, it was a long time before I really learned to love food in general. What has subsequently developed is an appreciation that the meat that is worth eating is the meat that has come from animals that have been treated in the best way possible; that have not been crammed into factory sheds or fed on the boiled down remains of other animals that they, as vegetarians, would never naturally consume.

Chicken is a perfect case in point. The battery farmed birds that you can buy for little more than pennies in supermarkets are pretty dreadful in terms of flavour. It's no wonder that cookery books and shows are full of dishes that make the use of loads of spices and sauces with such meat almost obligatory. They've little or no flavour otherwise. And dieting means that most people want breast meat rather than anything else – even though it has less flavour yet. If I'm buying only portions of a chicken, then I'll get the thighs – they're tastier and far cheaper, since they're so much less in demand.

Bacon is another case worth noting. The pigs that are reared in appallingly inhumane conditions in mass factories produce pretty dire meat. As an example, I could nip around the corner to a little shop and buy a pack of six slices of factory bacon for around £1.99. But when it hits the pan, white gunk will start to spew out (water that has been pumped into the flesh to make it seem better), it'll shrink to half its size and the rind will never crisp up. I'd rather pay double, less often, and get far more for my money. And the pig will have got a far better deal out of it too.

Of course it doesn't come cheap. Which is rather where the Mediterranean approach of eating meat – but not every day – comes in.

So I think it's still perfectly possible to believe in a concept such as animal rights – and be a meat eater. The key is how we treat our food animals (and the animals we use for leather etc). And after all, most of them wouldn't even exist at all were it not for our food needs.

And the better we look after them – the better life we give them – the better the steak on our plate at the end of that life.

And taste isn't the only issue: BSE – or 'mad cow disease' as it became popularly known – was the result of farmers feeding cattle (vegetarians) with the boiled down remains of other animals (although at a reduced temperature, to cut costs – which was the prime cause of the disease spreading in the first place). And it's no coincidence that swine flu broke out in humans right next to one of those whopping big pig factories.

So I'm going to quote Babylon 5 again to conclude: let's apply G'Kar's philosophy to this – let's make it a case of "enlightened self-interest".

Animal crackers

Vague thoughts had crossed my mind before heading off to Berlin that we might potter along to the city’s zoo (the one in the west, that is) at some point – not least so that one could say that one had said ‘hello’ to Knut, the world famous polar bear who is now two years old.

It was Tuesday and the weather forecast was not brilliant. We’d made the most of the morning with a boat trip on the Spree, before ducking into a café-bar, Berliner Republik, to escape the inevitable shower.

Musing over the rest of the afternoon ahead, The Other Half suggested the Zoologischer Garten. On first consideration, time in the open on a day of inclement weather didn’t appeal massively. But then the reasoning occurred that such weather might reduce the number of coach parties wandering around the place. So off we set from Friedrichstraße Bahnhof.

With the largest number of species in the world, it also offered a chance to photograph some exotic animals – something I’d never tried before.

Well, it was certainly quiet. We saw some elephants waiting to get into their ‘house’. And then a lovely sight of two young giraffes and two adults.

The big cats all seemed to be inside too: as we ambled into their quarters, a male lion was roaring, sending goosebumps up and down the spine. The cats themselves are magnificent – and a particularly insouciant leopard posed very nicely for a shot.

The carnivore house also houses the meerkats and the dwarf mongooses, which seem to be a competition in who could out-cute who. The meerkats do all the things you’ve seen on documentaries – including having one standing guard even though there’s no predatory threat.

And the mongooses spend a lot energy trying to all curl around a single branch together to sleep.

That produced technical issues – getting close enough to the glass to avoid it messing up pictures. But the results were very pleasing.

Our fellow apes were suitably ape-like and didn’t engage me anywhere near as much as I’d expected, some of the monkeys were far more fun – one little one dropped a rope while we were watching. Deeply distressed by this, it was comforted by a fellow monkey. It's difficult not to anthropomorphisise at such moments

And then there was a panda. Who was asleep. As pandas are most likely to be.

We grabbed a lunch from the café, where the food had been sitting beneath lamps for some time, given the lack of crowds, then hit the trail again, catching the pacing brown bear and finally, Knut. Who was lying down and doing not a lot, until he hauled himself up and ambled into his own indoor quarters.

It was the right idea. A few moments later, it started to rain. I managed to get under cover long enough to get my camera into it’s nice, waterproof bag, but got absolutely drenched as we headed back, as quickly as possible to the Elephant Gate.

It didn’t take much to decide to visit again. And we spent the best part of the Saturday there, in better weather and with bigger crowds.

The photography was challenging, fun and very rewarding.

But what made these visits so enjoyable was seeing the animals up close, in some cases, interacting.

Cats, for instance: it doesn’t matter how big they are, I now realise that they all eat grass, all patrol and all like to sleep on shelves. Which brought to mind the sight of The Queen Bee dozing on a bookshelf. Although I won’t be telling her that she’s got a lot in common with lions and leopards – she’s got more than enough grand ideas as it is.

Amazingly, on the Saturday, Bau Bau the panda was awake, while taking an extra lens with me enable me to get some corking shots of some of the birds, including while being eyeballed by a bloody big king vulture, which seemed to be echoing Robert de Niro and asking: "You looking at me?".

Berlin is doing valuable work in terms of conservation, but what seeing so many animals in the flesh, as opposed to via the TV screen, does is to usefully remind you of just how beautiful – and awesome – the rest of the this planets inhabitants are, and how much they need protecting.

I last saw a zoo – a tiny, private one – in KwaZulu Natal about 11 years ago (run by a certain famous circus family) and it was dreadful – very, very upsetting, with cages that were far, far too small for big cats and neurotic apes that were alone and with sod all to distract them.

Berlin is what zoos can be. And I won’t be waiting as long to pay a call to a zoo again.

The Queen B finds cause to fret

A lovely story cropped up the other day about Santino, a male chimp in a Swedish zoo that has been collecting stones and stashing them away, so that he could later use them to throw at visitors.

Researchers have said that it’s evidence of non-human animals planning for future events – precious little of which had been found previously.

But I’m sure many pet owners see amazing behaviour on a regular basis.

The Other Half and I got home rather late yesterday evening – to find that the Queen B had decided to break with her usual habit and not come to greet us.

The routine is that we have to go into the bedroom, where she jumps on the bed and we all say ‘hello’.

We walked into the bedroom, sans the cat, to find that there was debris all over the floor. A little glass lampshade that we’d bought years ago, put on top of a bookshelf and then forgotten, had crashed to the ground and shattered into smithereens.

Boudicca likes getting on top of that particular bookshelf, so it seems reasonable to conclude, in true Holmesian fashion, that she had been up there while we were out and had knocked it down.

But what is fascinating is that, on the basis of her out-of-character reluctance to engage in our usual greeting ritual (and cats love routine), it seems that she realised that she’d caused it to fall down and was worried in some way about it – possibly even worried what would happen when we got home.

We had to go into the living room, where she was crouched down watching us from behind a chair, to tell her that everything was alright before she came out to get her usual ‘welcome home’ fuss.

The idea that non-human animals are not really sentient has been taking knocks for some years now. Although anecdotes don’t count as scientific evidence of anything, personally witnessing such behaviour is absolutely fascinating.