Some people think of our house as one of a terrace. This is not the case. Ours and the next door neighbour’s are semi-detached. Then, beyond an alleyway, known around here as a ginnel, there are another five houses which might be a terrace but in fact work their way round the corner. Altogether this creates a sort of community with communal gardens. Ours and the immediate neighbours have one joint garden area. The other houses, sightly raised up from ours have another, slightly larger communal garden.
For as long as I can remember Phil has cut the grass in our bit of garden, and the next-door-but-one neighbours has cut the grass in the other garden. She has recently been diagnosed with some kind of heart problems and has been told to ‘take it easy’. Consequently she has been badgering her immediate neighbours to do their bit as regards keeping their grass under control. Meanwhile, our immediate next-door neighbour has acknowledged that he, or perhaps his grown-up son, could cut our grass.
For a while a kind of war of nerves took place, waiting to see who would give in and cut the grass! Eventually the next-door neighbour capitulated and cut our grass - maybe not quite up to Phil’s meticulous standards but at least it no longer looked as if we needed to buy a goat! And the higher bit of garden was trimmed by one of the round-the-corner neighbours. But that was a couple of weeks ago now and this morning our next-door-but-one neighbour gave in and got her mower out … against doctors’ orders perhaps but she decided to get on with it. Bits of silliness in communal living - well, communal gardening!
Another bit of silliness in the modern world is the concept of cat cafes. I was reading about them. In Norwich they have The Cat House. According to what I read it’s their only cat cafe. From Wednesday to Sunday, for a cover charge of £10, punters can spend 60 minutes (or £13 for 90 minutes) enjoying feline company over a beverage and a snack. This strikes me as rather expensive but then, I am known to be rather unenthusiastic about furry animals. Others in our immediate family get more excited than I do at the idea of going to a cat cafe.
There’s a bit of controversy there though. The RSPCA is concerned that the cats are not in their best surroundings, even in cafes that regard themselves as rescue centres as well as cafes. Apparently the big concern is the potential for stress from the confined environment, exacerbated by the presence of other cats as well as customers. “Cats are just not built to live in cafes … There’s only so much space and freedom they can give.” The Cat House, mentioned above, has as many as twenty cats!
Cat cafes often draw in punters with exotic breeds, photogenic backdrops – and the promise of a photo op. “While the majority of those who own, work in or visit cat cafes undoubtedly care for the animals, the sad reality is these spaces could be putting people’s enjoyment before the welfare of the cats,” says Elizabeth Mullineaux, president of the British Veterinary Association, which supports regulation. And the argument goes on and on.
It seems that the first cat cafe opened in 1998 in Taipei, Taiwan, with just five street cats. I am reminded of people I saw in Spain taking cans of cat food to ramshackle parts of town where feral cats loved and bred like … well, like feral cats! In the early years of this century the idea spread to Japan where young professionals prevented by small apartments and strict leases from having pets of their own took to the idea of visiting a cafe to pet cats - all the joy of cat ownership without the responsibility! 79 cat cafes opened across Japan from 2005 to 2010. Wow! And, of course, social media has promoted the idea as well. Now almost everywhere has a cat cafe.
It seems to me that it’s all part of a modern trend to regard contact with animals as being good for your mental health. Amazingly I seem to have survived all my life without it. But then, I am known for my lack of sentimentality about such things.
There are more important things to worry about in the modern world. Here’s a link to an article about a young man who lost a leg in an airstrike on Gaza back on 2014. This despite the fact that we are sometimes led to believe such airstrikes have only been going on since October 7th! He was killed in another airstrike this week. His paracyclist team, The Sunbirds, by the way, has distributed $450,000 (£336,000) worth of aid across the Gaza Strip in the past 16 months.
Small amounts of aid are trickling into Gaza, but still not enough and much of it is sitting just inside Gaza but not being distributed to the people who need it.
People are more important than cats!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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