Places for cats

Finding friends in unusal places

Anywhere you go in the world, you see creatures in corners, on stairs, between fences and high up on ledges – mostly places that have good exit strategies. Dogs appear to be top of the pecking order in most places I’ve been to. Certainly, in India they dominate the streets (along with cows). When I travel, I see locals of all kinds – dogs mainly, birds, bats, cows, crickets, beetles, camels, lizards, butterflies, goats, monkeys – and, of course, cats.

In Italy, I saw equal parts dog and cat, but in Morocco cats rule. Most animals just get on with life eating their body weight in grain or worms or whatever but cats have another mission in mind – presenting a haughty air of ownership. Which they flaunt. But, as in most places, nobody really owns them. They are just strays wandering the neighbourhoods, sauntering by hoping to be fed or watered by kind neighbours or unsuspecting strangers. Some have homes but they prefer to share the love; they spread themselves around.

They have interesting personalities – seemingly indicative of the places in which they live. In Maiori on the Path of the Lemons walk to Minori (on the Italian Amalfi Coast) and the Path of the Gods walk, the cats sometimes walk with you. These are cats with attitude. They are astonishingly arrogant, I have to say. The guy with the red flag was adept at this and if he had fingers, I think I would have seen the middle one pointing north. The lady leaning on the yellow wall wouldn’t move from that spot for anything or anyone.

The cats I remember in Morocco were mainly in Chefchaouen, the Blue Pearl, that beautiful blue city on the edge of the mountains. Cats here are more intrepid, but hidden in the shadows, lurking near shops to grab a tasty leftover, or valiantly fighting for territory.

The cats I met in India are the leftovers of the cat society. They hang by corners in the bustling chaos of a place filled with all kinds of humanity, existing on the edges of a city. They still enjoy life, catching rays on a cobblestone street, but they don’t appear to get much affection.

It’s part of what makes travelling exciting – meeting the locals and noticing how their personalities seem to match the places they inhabit. It’s something you can really only appreciate while you travel slowly.

I created this composite cat picture to inspire me to complete my next project about a lost cat set in Chefchaouen, Morocco. This story started life as a novella but it might be developing into more of an illustrated children’s book. We’ll see.

I think that little black-and-white boy in the middle of the picture might just turn out to be an important character in the story; not the main one, but an important companion to our little lost cat, Sasha.