(This post is 600 words, a five-minute read)

I loved the image… I’d credit its creator if I knew where it came from; but there it was in my in-tray. The cool black cat with the importantly steaming mug of coffee, and an engrossing book with covers in my favourite colour… all of it pushing back the awfulness of an English February.

There’s a certain involved-detachment about the cat. I’ve always been a sucker for cats – and that attitude. We have one: a beautiful rag-doll that emerged from a large bush and followed my mother and her dog home one day, then refused to leave. It turned out that the cat was close to starving and had been living in the bush for who knows how long, just a few streets from where my mother lives… lived.

Taking…