This is a real cat

I may have given the impression here that I am exclusively a dog man. This is no more true than the suggestion that I am a (belly dancer's) belly man. It is just that I find cats incommunicative other than when scrounging. However, this is a cat that did get through to me. It was a feral cat in Bahrain. I imagine that being a free-spirit cat is hard at the best of times but in Bahrain it must be something like Superman. The heat is terrible and the locals are handy with heaving bricks at things.

This based itself near our office bungalow. In time, it got used to most of us but no one could get within ten feet of it. We used to throw food to her but she would refuse it all the while we remained in sight. Once we retreated, she would dash in and devour whatever we left - even quite fierce chicken curry. In appearance, she was exactly like the sort of cats one sees in ancient Egyptian manuscripts. A long neck with small head carried high.

She was obviously not totally feral as we saw her shape change and realised she was pregnant. We threw out odds and ends of woolen items and uprated the food. She had the one kitten - wth her above. She did not mature with any maternal instinct but the kitten did not have any inborn fear of humans. It would happily come into the office and the greatest game was to attack the keys of the typewriter when one was trying to write reports. She also enjoyed ataking the paper screwed up into a ball when she  distrated the typist. Mum would come just to outside the door and just put her head round the corner with loud moaning. I don't know what hapened to her as she was still there when I left but I often think back to her spirit of independence in making her own way.