The Old Stomping Ground

  A true friend and an unique character, my tribute to Socs who shared our lives for 16 years...

    
Where are you now, my friend
Since our sixteen years together have come to an end?
Have you returned to the old neighbourhood?
And the gateway at which you once stood?

Do the people there catch sight
Of the cat from number three, silhouetted in the moonlight?
Chide their foolishness and turn inside
As you slink into the shadows and hide?

Do you now lie under the privet hedge?
Bask in the sun on the window ledge?
Along the pavements do you still walk?
Pounce on leaves that you joyfully stalk?

Do you sleep in the plant pot under the stars?
Stretch out on the bonnets of neighbours’ parked cars?
When your wild spirit broke free did it soar?
Back to the old place, there to be, forever more?

  We relocated our new home,
But the gardens and fields you never did roam.
The hearth and fire were all you sought
As you clung to life and bravely fought.

Tired and worn, you still followed me around,
But now you moved without a sound.
I watched as your wildness and life ebbed away,
As my wild tiger became a kitten again with each passing day.

They say animals are the truest friends,
And that a broken heart soon mends.
But Socs, my old pal, I miss you in spades,
And the memories and love never fades

I hope you have returned to our old home,
Strong and young again, able to roam.
I will forever hold open the door and see,
You walking through with a 'meow' just for me.
      

Socs was brought to my house by a friend who, knowing how upset I was at the loss of a previous cat, thoughtfully got him for me.   Two weeks earlier, I had attended a party with her and had encountered him there for the first time. Seeing how smitten I was with him and knowing he needed a home, she had hatched the plan of uniting us.  However, arriving on my door-step she didn’t receive the reception she had expected, as my initial reaction was a firm “thank you for the thought but I don’t want any more pets.”  I brought her in for a coffee and the kitten was let out of the carrier to bound around the room.  Of course, before the kettle had boiled he was firmly in my arms, all thoughts of the pain of loss gone, and our lives together had begun.

What a character!  For the first five or six years he was a very independent cat with something of a wild streak.  His mother had been rescued, and on being taken to the vet was found to be both pregnant and terminally ill.  The decision was made to allow her to have the kittens as the birth was imminent, and she received some treatment.  It was believed that she had lived wild for a time and the  father was probably feral.  This may account in part for Socs' personality and behaviour in those early years.  

We often hear it said of someone that he/she was 'here before.'  This was the case with the tiny kitten and so he was named Socrates because of the pensive way he sat and reflected for long stretches at a time.   Once out of kittenhood, he became very much his own cat.  Occasionally he sought cuddles but mostly he behaved in an aloof, majestic manner reminding us daily of his kinship with the king of the jungle.  His body language, his walk, his whole demeanour, his day-to-day behaviour was that of being removed from the crowd.  He ruled the road with a blood-stained claw and woe-be-tide any cat that peeped around the corner, let alone was brave enough or daft enough to place a paw onto his territory.  They say a neutered cat quietens down and if this is true, then I dread to think how many more skirmishes he would have fought had he not had the procedure carried out. 
 
In his sixth year, he mellowed and his behaviour changed. He sought out soft beds, cushions and warm laps.  He allowed himself to be stroked and cuddled and in time, this extended to everyone; neighbours and passers-by.  There were frequent reports of surprise visits to neighbour's sofas and beds for which I apologised with some embarrassment, but everyone seemed to enjoy these casual visits from the unexpected guest.  Over the years, his social life and invitations were greater than my own and neighbours enquired after him as naturally as they did about the rest of the family. People could not pass without giving him some attention.  It was as though having realised the joy to be had from being stroked and cuddled, he sought to catch up on the many he missed in the previous years of self-imposed aloofness.  But the outdoor life continued in the main, and on mild nights he slept under the hedge or in the plant pots, used the privet canopy to watch the world go by or the rain dance on the pavement. And still, he vigilantly patrolled his territory.

The years went by and awareness of the passage of time spurred us on to pursue the dream of relocating to a rural area.  We joked about Socs retiring to the country where he would wander over his estate and be lord of all he surveyed.   Fate however had other plans and four weeks before the move, he fell ill and never fully recovered.  He moved into his country home where he lived as an invalid, pottering about the house and stepping just outside to lie in the sun.  There were to be no great adventures, no long strolls or marking out his new domain.  All of that was now in the past.  He slept most of the day, his whispers and toes twitching in his sleep as he stalked his foe and walked old roads in his dreams.  His new found pleasure was the wood-burner in front of which he lay prostrate or sat upright peering into the flames, like an ancient Egyptian paying homage to the god, Ra.

Socs has gone but his spirit is around me, memories of him are etched in my mind and my love for him is buried deep in my heart.  One small animal brought and taught so much in his time with us.

In memory and thanks to Socs.

Water, water, everywhere

The recent floods here in the north of England have reminded me of the immense power of nature, and that the belief we are in control is merely an illusion that can be shattered all too suddenly.  To stand and watch the waters rising over bridges, submerging roads and fields while man and animal seek out dry land and shelter is both frightening and humbling.  

For several days over the Christmas holiday, I and many other people were drawn to the waters edge, then to stand awe-struck at the expanse in front us.  The river, so gentle-flowing on a summer's day, its murmur whispering an invitation to sit on its peaceful banks and watch the sunlight glistening in its water, was now, a deep menacing sea moving over the fields devouring all in its path, pushing trees, gates, everything out of its way.

Turkey, presents, and sales were all forgotten as people stood on the road with water lapping at the tips of their wellingtons, looking helplessly at the abandoned cars filled with water.  Standing on higher ground with five or six other people, the only sound was the wind in the trees and the now constant noise of gushing water, running to meet its tributaries, swelling its ranks like an army advancing in power as it progressed.  Indoors, those of us mercifully escaping the trauma of having our houses flooded, listened to the strains of 'The Sound of Music' while outside, even from the garden gate, the river's chorus resonated across the landscape.

For several days, I was struck by the absence of man's noise - the sound of traffic, machinery, human voices, people going about their work and lives.  But it was not total silence, for the wind blew, gale-force, making the trees creak and snap their branches, gates rattled and there was the now constant background noise of the raging river.  Nature's voice rang out across the fields and hills, powerful, dominant, in control while man fell silent, subdued.  People waited, hoped, feared, helped each other, did what they could, powerless against these natural forces.  This was what our fore-fathers experienced, understood, respected. 

"For the most appalling quality of water is its strength.  I love its flash and gleam, its music, its pliancy and grace, its slap against my body; but I fear its strength.  I fear it as my ancient ancestors feared the natural forces that they worshipped.  All the mysteries are in its movement.  It slips out of holes in the earth like the ancient snake.  I have seen its birth; and the more I gaze at that sure and unremitting surge of water at the very top of the mountain, the more I am baffled.  We make it all so easy, any child in school can understand it – water rises in the hills, it flows and finds its own level, and man can’t live without it.  But I don’t understand it.  I cannot fathom its power."

(Nan Shepherd) 

New Year Thoughts

"A new year begins, as we say. And the latent bud on the branch doesn't stir one whit, the blossom in the bulb sleeps undisturbed in the frozen ground. The woodchuck's hibernating pulse doesn't quicken one beat, and the deer in the thicket is just as hungry as he was yesterday. Man is the only animal to whom this new year is important. All the others live by day and the season.

 The old year dies and we face the new year as though it were an entity, new as a newborn babe. A new calendar with twelve leaves, one for each month. Something in us, some need for the specific, the orderly, the mathematical exactitude, calls for such demarcation. Yet any year, regardless of arbitrary time, is like a circle; you can start at any point upon it and, following the circle, you come back to that point. Our year, our circle, happens to be a cycle of the seasons, planting, growing, reaping, resting; and thus it is a part of the earth, the soil and the flowing waters as well as of the stars by which it is gauged.... And year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us."

 (Hal Borland)