Catblogger

I am aware that October is here and soon we will be embracing the idea of halloween - the night before All Hallows the day when spirits of the dead are forgiven as they walk in our world.  The images of black cats, broomsticks, flying witches and other goulish and supernatural entities abound and in the USA and Canada there is a tradition of 'Trick or Treat' where children dress up in odd costumes and visit homes. 

In England this idea is fast catching on and it is with mixed feelings that I see its coming. 

Now, I have a black cat.

Ah, you might say, there in lies a tale.  Or tail if you feel like it.  What is this man doing with a black cat.  Are they lucky or or are they a kin of the devil and witchcraft?

From my observations of them I reckon they are different, odd to say the least and peculiar when it comes to their relationship with people.  My small, elegant, green eyed feline is a friendly, soft, purring twit with the occasional need to assert herself with a display of sharp claws and teeth that will shred my hands if I let her. 

But she is a pussy-cat compared to my last moggie who could shred my flesh to the bone in play and still purr happily as she did it.  If any cat was a witches familiar this was her.  Toots was not evil but she was a one person cat - the political correctness is deliberate - Toots cared not a jot for PC and attacked both males and females with equal vigor.

And the one before her was strange to say the least .  Frodo didn't walk around puddles but through them, liked to attack small waves on the beach, loved to ride on my shoulders and seemed to choose the full moon to go crazy. 

As for Sophie, my present puss, she tends to be more active during the full moon than at other times.  I am beginning to wonder if black cats are familiars and as a consequence I am now quite worried about what I may be. 

Maybe this Halloween I might find out.

Thinks: must get that birch broom stick...

Dateline: 13th September two days before the full moon. 
Location: The RSPB reserve on Elmley Marshes on the Isle of Sheppey.
Purpose: To read the results of a workshop on Haiku poems to  a gathered audience consisting of the mayor of Swale, the artist, Stephen Taylor, whose vigil for 28 days taking pictures of the moon and observing the activities of birds and animals in the reserve was the focus of the evening entertainment. 

We saw children's paintings, shapes of animals and birds constructed of wire and white cloth, moonscapes and images of the birds and animals (mostly birds) that inhabited the Elmley marsh. 

My part in it was to read Haiku that I had written for the occasion.

The surprise was that not only were the local press in evidence but so too was the local telly.  I rose to the occassion and fortified by some bubbly and a familiarity with reading and performing poems in public I and Stephen Taylor read Haiku and Beat Poet's versions of Haiku's to a receptive crowd. 

The night was clear and as I drove to the venue across the marshes on the winding farm road I was overwhelmed by the rising moon and the wonderful sunset.  Tonight, I thought, was a moon howling night and I would finish my performance with a poem that would do just that. 

Yes people, in front of the telly, the press and the mayor we had the people howling at the moon!

And don't you just want to do that?

First, just in case you are not familiar with Haiku I will elucidate. 

Haiku is a Japanese poetic form that traditionally was spontaneous and highly competitive and still is in some places that in our language takes the form of three lines.  The three lines contain no more than seventeen syllables with  line one of five, line two of seven and line three of five .  The form usually relates to the season or time of year and has a climax in line three.  It is simple and written about yuor observations - what you see - with no poetic devices or contrivances. 

The Haiku looks easy but it is not.

It gets easier whan you have a Haiku to reply to - hence the competition.  Zen helps.

I have a couple here - all the poems you read are written by me - and these are based on traditional form.  The first inspired by the project when I heard about it and the second on the day. 

She cat slits her eyes,
Hunting unwary creatures;
In bright August moon.

Sunlight breaks the gloom
September sun paints golden -
The wind blows Autumn songs.

The Friday night - the 5th of September was cloudy with rain squalls - there was no moon showing.  The clear night on Saturday was a boon.  The Beat Poets of the late fifties and sixties changed Haiku to suit themselves and so we followed their lead  and below I give you the final poem, Haiku style which should be read at full moon, outside with everybody joining in with the last verse. 

This was written on the death of Allen Ginsberg who wrote the poem Howl.

Lunantic!

Lunantic 1  Do you not    Howl the Moon   When   Wolf bitten   Madmen  Scream

Unwritten  Ancient   Tongues.

Lunantic 2 
When
Wolf bitten
Madmen
Howl
The
Moon
Scream
Unwritten
Tongues!

Lunantic 3
Scream
when wolf bitten
madmen
howl the moon
in ancient unwritten tongues.

Lunantic 4
In ancient tongues
you howl the moon.

Lunantic 5
Wolf bitten
Howl

Lunantic 6
Howl!

The last line you do together and as we reached the end of the performance this is just what we did.  I think it's a bloke thing. 

I tried hard to fit in with the terracotta walls, gold woodwork in the bedroom, reddish brown in the hallway and the lounge.  I honestly tried to come to terms with the white wall with the red polka dots, and the large black circle with the bamboo attached in the bedroom.  The chinese style motifs got to me as did the large design in gold, black and red on the back of the bedroom door.  On top of that I had to face a Noddy style red and yellow kitchen. 

As the inhabitants of Douglas Adams' planet Krikkit remarked when they saw the Universe 'It will have to go'.

We though it would be cheaper to do it ourselves so I consulted with my cat, Sophie, and we decided that it was best to go for neutrality and contrast. We chose Ivory, a pleasant off white emulsion for the walls and replaced the red woodwork for a brown that looked as much like dark coffee as possible and to go with it Pearl Ivory, a soft cream color for the doors. 

Like in the song, we did one wall at a time, shifting the furniture, removing shelves, filling holes and sanding, painting the woodwork and then the walls.  The hard work was shifting my goods and chattels to different locations to allow room to work but the lounge ended up painted with the furniture in a better position.  A shelf that was along one wall disappeared so that I could use the space. 

I started on the bedroom and again I shifted goods and chattels.  Sophie hid in the newly painted lounge looking bemused as each day I shifted my bedding and mattress into her room as I worked.  The area above the picture rail was covered with bamboo matting stapled a la changing rooms and that, along with bamboo runners, small creatures and dirt, came down.  The large black circle, the motifs, the decoration of the door had to be sanded down as did the gold painted woodwork, before I could start painting. 

The bedroom took six days - very biblical - and on the seventh day I rested (went out for a drink) and I had another room sorted.  Sophie cat began to look interested. 

The next task was to paint the hallway for which I had run out of Ivory so I bought a can of a similar shade and used two coats of that, again painting the woodwork brown and the door to match the others which were reasonably good. 

Now, I don't about you but as an artist I have a lot of framed paintingsthat needed a home.  I bought the entire stock of S shaped picture hooks from my local hardware store and my paintings are now dangling from the picture rails.  Very pretty.

Last but not least I attacked the kitchen.  There was a hole in the wall big enough to put a fist in above a shelf - the kitchen is small and the previous tenant made an excellent job of replacing the cupboards with wide shelves that allow light in and storage space.  However, thay are red above red tiles and the bright, Noddy style yellow was too much.  We changed it for a softer yellow - Gold Rush - that looks better and reflects the outside daylight. 

Sophie cat being black with green eyes looks pretty cool against the red tiles and manages a certain feline elegance posing in the windows and against the Ivory walls. 

Of course I didn't go anywhere or do much as one week was spent working at summer school and in between the model T Ford (a Fiesta) insisted on breaking down. 

Still, the advantage was that in between periods of hard work I did quite a lot of cat cuddling, and that, if nothing else is alays part of an ideal holiday. 

In 1986 I met Toots; this was after losing my all black tom cat Frodo who was a strange cat and seemed to be attached to me from the beginning.  Frodo was the only cat I have ever met who would rather walk across a puddle than go around it.  He liked attacking the sea, providing it wasn't raging surf, and although he didn't like rain and getting wet he was always the last to come in during showers. 

Toots was a stray who more or less introduced herself by snarling at me whislt devouring a fish head scavanged from a neighbor's bin.   It took me a little over two months to tame her down enough to confidently handle her which was how she got her name.  She came in one morning with a fish hook through her lower lip, demanded breakfast and allowed me to examine the wound.  I needed three hands to deal with her so it was off to the vet.  Up to that point she was called 'the Cat' but a dragon-like vetinary nurse demanded a name so I gave her the first one that came to my head.  So Toots she was. 
She had kittens and I helped her with the birth, acted as kitten sitter, and generally became part of the feline family.  The treat was having her spread on my lap with her four kittens happily and busily suckling. 

Toots, like Frodo was attached to me and would go out of her way to avoid other would be fondlers and petters to get to me.  Wherever I went in the garden or around the house Toots was there, we more or less ate and slept together. 

We moved house more times than any sane person other than a nomad ought to and each time she sat in our room with all the familiar trappings around us and accepted the place as hers.  To prove it, until she got old - with one exception; a huge tom cat who knew he was king - she fought herself into the area. 

What with Frodo as my boon companion and Toots as close as a witch'es familar I was getting the idea. 

Black cats are special.

Sophie, who replaced Toots, is black and she shadows me wherever I go. 

I like that.

I have come to the conclusion having observed the behavior of other black cats owned by my friends that there is something different about them.  Being the wrong gender for the traditional broomstick and the cackling that goes with it I am still worried by the signs.  Are black cats truly familiars, and should I take care to examine my armpits regularly for teats and steer clear of stakes and piles of dry faggots?

I have a cat; a black cat with green eyes and a few faint white marks who appears to be devoted to comfort. She also seems to like my company and follows me around in the house, and when we were able to, outside as well. My friends remarked that she was my shadow - my personal stalker. I am not famous enough to have a regular human stalker which is a relief - I like the idea of being safe.

This month should normally be a holiday time with trips out and perhaps a visit to friends or family. Instead I at home decorating the flat to get rid of the previous tenant's unusual taste. If you can live with a terracotta and brown decor with two white wals, one of which sports some red circles, and a predominance of red, then good luck. I cannot.

Which brings me to the title.

As most people know, decorating can be hard work fit only for tradesmen (or women) and DIY experts. I am neither but having done a lot of painting and decorating during my Uni years I am saving on labour by doing it myself.

In the meantime my cat Sophie looks on with bemused contempt and occasionally inspects progress the way cats do. As if to remind me that I am working too hard whenever I take a tea break she ensconces herself on my lap and settles down for a comfortable snooze. Being a totally soppy cat owner I cannot simply chuck her off which makes the tea breaks longer and the working time shorter. Result: I am relaxed and not tired out at the end of the day yet I have achieved enough to keep me happy.

I deduce from this observation that the cat is trying to tell me something.

Back to people. Many people rush around full of energy doing things, often doing great things and end up tired and grumpy in front of telly knowing they have to start the same thing the next day and the day after.

My cat? She has the ability to loaf around doing nothing all day, snoozing, washing herself, eating and the normal cat things with the occasional rush to attack and murder unsuspecting small creatures, but mostly lazing around. And here's the rub: she can do nothing all day and still look tired out at the end of it without any twinges of remorse or guilt at spending yet another wasted day.

But then, by taking on a part-time job, studying the laziness of cats, and combining all of it with Zen I have in fact discovered that I can do more and relax more.

Fun, isn't it?

One of the great things about children is that when given free rein to explore after they have first been given an idea is that do it with enthusiasm. These boys and girls are year six pupils going into year seven - eleven year olds. Full of energy and the need to find out what is going on these children will surprise you. Summer school offered Numeracy and Literacy classes designed to challenge their ability and to find out who needs what in September.

The challenge in Literacy was to advance their reading and writing skills and gain confidence in expressing ideas using the written word. Yes, there was poetry, and stories but there was also understanding of grammar and how punctuation works.

In numeracy the challenge was to use mathematics to design and construct a working parachute that would safely drop a chocolate egg from a height of ten to twelve metres. They were shown how a parachute works, shown shapes and sizes; given lessons on area and perimeter, measurement of weights and let loose with materials and the means to make parachutes.

Now, here is the kernel of the exercise.

The egg dropping project relied on teamwork. Each team had to experiment and come up with the best design they could and together 'tweak' it on the final day of the drops to get it right.

Competition was fierce, noisy and mostly well directed by the children themselves. We had no tears from the losers and no crowing from the winners. The reason? There were enough rewards to go round and those who won the contests were seen to deserve their prizes.

That is the second stage of teamwork.

What of the rest?

In the afternoons the children were given recreational but educational tasks to do, again in teams and on the last afternoon the four groups took part in a rounders tournament. Again, and by now not surprisingly, although some were getting distracted, the teamwork showed through.

Note: Eleven year olds doing Podcasting is hilarious.

Children are competitive. If there is one thing a child likes is being recognised by their peers as the leader, the cool kid, the one the others listen to. The task of teachers, teaching assistants and others involved in education and sport is to use that egotistical energy to build a working team.

So, at the school where I volunteered my services for the summer school this is put into practice.  These are enthusiastic year six kids who will be the new year sevens and they have differing abilities, which are sorted out into groups to enable them to get the right level of learning and fun out of the week. 

In the maths classes - named as Numeracy - each group builds working parachutes in teams of four, five or six.  The object being to drop a fragile chocolate egg from a height of some 15 to 20 metres without breaking.  This is done with the usual ego battles and noise until they realise that the only way they get to win is by being part of a team. 

This day we had a treasure hunt in the afternoon.  This is part of geography with the children learning map references, drawing and plotting a treasure island and using map references to locate their partner's 'here there be treasure' cross.  They are then divided into two groups to navigate around the school grounds to find a bag of treasure - sweets - and collect clues. 

They are given a map of the school, shown how to orientate it for North South East and West and told 'You must work together as a team', which of course they ignore and go rushing off like mad things. 

Team One ran like maniacs.
Team Two ran like maniacs - except for one boy who had a gammy leg and couldn't run. 

Result: team one dashed around and doubled up in a bickering group.
Team two suddenly found one member was missing. 

Time for the 'you must work togehter lecture'

So yours truly brought the blighters together after they had found their prize and talked about the weakest link, and how the weakest link is the strength of the whole team.  I added that this weakest link had a chance to think things out and come up with the right answer.   True, there was one other team member who worked the solution out, but this lad had the time to think it through. 

Back in the class room when team two was asked to 'put their hands up'  they did it straightway and when asked what they had learned from the exercise they answered more or less in unison "Teamwork".

Maybe they didn't get it at first but by the end of the afternoon they were aware that they have to work together to succeed - maybe tomorrow they will do even better? Who knows?

Back on line again after a move from one flat to another. An absence of a month and in the meantime our beloved leader has been given a belly blow in Glasgow East. I see also that he has decided to take his holiday in the UK, how sweet.

On the sporting front I note the English Cricket Eleven are struggling - perhaps they are an extension of the Labour Party. A bonus is that the Olympics committee are about to spawn giant screens in our city squares. Maybe those of us who will be starving and on the streets by then because of the coming recession can be comforted by the fact that at least something will be free.

Am I turning into a grumpy old man? Your comments please. At least my cat still loves me.

For those of you who may not be familiar with the area around Maidstone in Kent the village of Hollingbourne is one of those ancient villages that nestle below the North Downs close to the river Medway.  Once the seat of a district council today Hollingbourne is a village set in farmlands on the edge of the M20 and the Eurostar Rail line. 

Hi!

I am an unashamed cat lover. I live in Sheerness with my black cat Sophie. We moved here from New Zealand to be close to my family - she was born there whilst I emigrated some years ago and lived mostly in Auckland with a three year excursion to Australia.

I like to walk, visit local villages and eat at pubs. My visiting includes gardens, stately homes, seaside and clifftop walks, castles and the woodlands of Kent and Sussex.

For my sins I have decided to share these experiences with others and hopefully get some comments back in return. Below is a picture of me and the BMW R65 somewhere in New Zealand.

Yes, I am also a motorcyclist although currently I do not own a bike. Instead I content myself with walking and thinking about riding the roads of New Zealand and Australia. Dream on.