Puss

I think I have a special cat radar. When I'm out walking and there's a cat about, I get a tingly sort of feeling in a certain part of my spine, which sets me on the look-out for feline activity. Because of this, I've met a lot of cats. Here's one of them.

This is Puss. Puss lives on my route home from the train station, or at least I think he does. I'm not actually sure that he really lives at the house where I often find him, just like I'm not sure that he's a he at all. I am sure of Puss's name, though, as I met a human that knew it, but that's about all I know of his Cat Stats. I do know, however, that Puss is crazy affectionate; he is a veritable sooky mclovecat*. (And he has a bell shaped like Nemo round his neck, which you can just barely see in the photo.)

In March, almost every time I passed that way, Puss used to bound out to greet me, rub himself around my legs, snoof** everything in sight (including the mud? very strange), and then follow me a little way down the street. After March I didn't see him for months and months, but he turned up yesterday!

I was on the other side of the street when my cat senses started tingling, and I saw a feline silhouette in the distance. I saw it dart through the fence as I approached, and because of this behaviour I thought it was a cat I'd never met before. But as I got closer, it started to take the familiar shape of Puss, though he was stalking through the yard and behaving in a most un-Puss-like manner. So I said "Puss!" in surprise, and he looked at me for a moment, then loped up to me, and proceeded to snoof me and my bag like there was no tomorrow:



* Sooky Mclovecat (noun): A big old softie cat that's feeling complain-y and whingey, and is needy and affectionate because of it.

**Snoof (verb, trans. intrans.): to kiss like a cat, i.e. to affectionately headbutt or rub the side of your mouth against someone or something.