More than one way

Rachel's cats reminded me of Widdy. Here he is sitting on a bit of stone I was carving about 20 years ago.

He adopted me and lived in my workshop. I cut a hole in the door so he could come and go as he pleased, but he never seemed to spend the night in the cosy box I made for him, preferring to go high up in a loft amongst a pile of wood. One day I found out why.

I went to the workshop to feed him one Sunday with H.I. and as I opened the door, there he seemed to be, standing in the middle of the room and looking very panicked.

"That is not Widdy," I said to H.I. who remained convinced it was until the cat rushed for the door and ran out, bouncing against her legs as it went.

This must have been Widdy's identical twin brother - including the little tuft of white on the chest - and he must have been the cat which terrified Widdy so much that he would not go into the workshop unless I was there.

Shortly after this, they both disappeared forever and I never saw him again. The rumour was that there was a cat-thief at large who made expensive gloves from good pelts, but I didn't believe that. An elderly woman warned me about the thief and told me that she had ruined her cat's fur with a paint spray to make it valueless.

This 'cat-thief' sounded too much like a dastardly Disney villain to be true, and I cannot imagine there is much of a living to be made from skinning cats to make gloves. The woman said that the thief was rumoured to be a foreigner - well, he would have to be, wouldn't he? No Englishman would do such a thing!