Run for the hills... or the sea.

I've sadly neglected my blog this month, for which I'm sorry. Sickness, and troubles at work were all to blame, but so was pleasure and happinesses with lovely people, so I shall ac-cent-chu-ate the positive. Not rocket science.

Recently, we went for an end-of-winter break (please say it is the end of winter) in the East Neuk of Fife.

Most of the time it pelted us with rain, but this was a good excuse for reading in bed and drinking wine by the fire - no complaints there.

In the glimpses between the clouds we were lucky to see oystercatchers, ringed plovers, red shank, and curlew. Things tend to fall into perspective when you see a wader in their wellies.

We also filled up on fish and chips (fantastic at Anstruther) and on whisky and raclette cheese. All to the sound of a gaggle of squawky cockerels, strutting around generally being pompous Chantecleers.

Although they terrified my lovely companion out of his skin, they actually shot past with no harm at all.

And they were responsible for the most yellowy, goodness-filled eggs we've had in years.

Sunny Side Up.

A cat's worldview. Or is it?

Over the last 10 days or so, I have been reading Erica Fudge's book, pets (part of The Art of Living Series, Acumen Publishing, 2008). I can't tell you how much I have enjoyed it. Well, not just enjoyed it. Appreciated it, in all the meanings of that word.

 *1

In this book, Fudge argues that 'our capacity for compassion and ability to live alongside others is evident in our relationships with our pets'. The important word here is 'evident'. This is not one of those books that says that you have to be a cat lover to be worthy, or that those who own pets are the ones who are compassionate. No, this is about looking at relationships between people and their pets and seeing in them an illustration of what it is to live alongside others. It's a vital source of evidence. It is possible to take from this book that the 'other' might be your partner, or child, or friend, or colleague, or - as is an interest of mine - the natural world. So while this book is called pets, it's actually about (as the author says) companionship.

And that's where it gets ethical... It's a brilliant book, in my view, because it is clear, and it is sensible. I felt completely in safe hands throughout. Fudge deals with some pretty mind-bending concepts, but her commitment to the real (this is important) helps us to understand better, I think, our lived experiences. So she looks at real situations between dogs and people, or cats and people. She chooses to follow Montaigne and ask questions about reality not from a philosophical mountain, but from the scene of playing with your cat.

 *2

And that seems to me to be much the best way. This book really made sense to me as someone who grew up in a family that frankly took cats very. seriously. indeed. I'm gratified to see someone with such supple intelligence do this too. It's not that I learnt things that I didn't know - it was more that Fudge made realise what I had always known. And that was thoroughly, and importantly, enriching.

For various reasons, it is the case that I don't currently live with an animal (or at least, not that I know of - I guess there are lots of little beasties living here really). This sometimes makes me a bit sad, but it's also right for me at the moment. Perhaps it's because of this though - the fact that animals are currently to me an act of the imagination and (of course!) craft - that I loved this book so much. I knitted these faceless cats to illustrate my current experience, but also - vitally - to evoke my other experiences of pet care (they aren't sad - they're delightful!). To hand over to Erica Fudge:

"Thus pet ownership, like compassion, requires imagination. To bring an animal into one's home, to live with it as a member of the family, is not simply to ignore difference; it is to engage in an ongoing process of translation" (p. 68). .... And that's what is so clear-sighted about this book - it knows that to live with an animal is to make a daily commitment to the fact that we simply do not 'know it all'.

 *3

How engaging. 

1. Image: William Martin.

2. Pattern for the cats here (although its distressingly foul-mouthed): Knitted Kitty

3. I gave in eventually, put a face on the white one and gifted it to the new baby. She seemed to like it.