The year of the Cheshire Cat

This stamp is one of a set of 10 issued by Royal Mail
to mark the 150th anniversary

The world-famous grinning cat turned 150 years old in 2015. Not bad for a literary creature that was originally imagined simply to amuse a small girl named Alice (daughter of Henry Liddell, the Vice-chancellor of Oxford University and friend of author Lewis Carroll). Since its publication in 1865, Carroll’s masterly tale Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has never been out of print and, in the subsequent 150 years, the work has been translated into more than a hundred languages.

Carroll, born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson on 27 January 1832, spent his early years in the village of Daresbury, in Cheshire, where his father Charles Dodgson was the vicar (from 1827 to 1843) of the local church, All Saints’.

Not surprisingly, Daresbury is proud of its famous son. In the church, Carroll is commemorated in a special stained glass window. As well as a Nativity scene, the window also depicts scenes from Carroll’s life: the Cheshire Wheatsheaf, representing the country where he was born; the shields of Rugby School and Christ Church, Oxford, where he was educated; and a pair of compasses and the Lamp of Learning, symbolising his considerable skills in mathematics. And, at the bottom of the window appear some of Carroll’s unforgettable fictional characters, including the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts, the mad March Hare, the Mock Turtle, the Dormouse sitting in a teapot and, of course, the inimitable Cheshire Cat. (Unfortunately, I haven’t yet been to Daresbury but you can see the window here.)   

I’m sure it will also come as no surprise that the whole of Cheshire celebrates its name being associated with the famous grinning cat. There are Cheshire Cat public houses in Christleton and in Nantwich (its signs appear in the photograph below), a company of that name provides themed parties and events, and you can enjoy tea and cake in the Dormouse Tea Rooms in Daresbury.

The inspiration for the fictional Cheshire Cat character is claimed by several places. There is a 16th-century sandstone carving of a grinning cat on the west face of St Wilfrid's Church tower in Grappenhall, a village very close to Daresbury, but there is also a cat carving in Croft church, where Carroll’s father was rector for 25 years, and a cat gargoyle in St Nicholas Church in Cranleigh, where Carroll used to visit.

The origin of the Cheshire Cat, though now largely associated with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, does, in fact, predate the book and it seems Lewis Carroll merely elaborated on the idea of a grinning cat when concocting the mischievous character for his tale.

During the six months I lived in Cheshire earlier this year, I searched for the famous grinning cat but never found him. The cats I encountered never displayed that famous grin and were, on the whole, rather taciturn. Certainly, none shared any pearls of wisdom similar to those uttered by the fictional Cheshire Cat, which are what I love most about the character. I’ll leave you with some of my favourite quotations:

‘I myself don't need a weathervane to tell which way the wind blows.’

‘Every adventure requires a first step. Trite, but true, even here.’

‘Those who say there's nothing like a nice cup of tea for calming the nerves never had real tea. It's like a syringe of adrenaline straight to the heart!’

‘Only a few find the way, some don't recognize it when they do – some ... don't ever want to.’

‘If you don’t know where you want to go, then it doesn’t matter which path you take.’

And, my particular favourite, ‘I’m not crazy – my reality is just different from yours.’

Morocco days 12 & 13: Essaouira

The day started with a cold splash – no hot water in the gite at Aroumd, followed by breakfast at 7.30, then the half-hour hike zigzagging across the river and down a mule track to Imlil, where we retrieved our luggage and climbed back into our trusty van for another day on the road. We retraced our route through the winding gorge to the main road, then continued on mostly long, smooth roads from there to the coast.

After stopping briefly for drinks and a toilet break in an area where pink-flowering oleander bushes were growing wild along the riverbanks, we headed on to the outskirts of Marrakech, to a large supermarket to buy supplies for a picnic lunch. Olives, gherkins, camembert, bread, potato chips, tomatoes and nectarines – more than enough for 3 people – cost about US$8.50. The fresh food was particularly cheap and so tasty – it didn’t have the flavour bred out of it, as so much food in the West seems to these days.

Our lunchtime picnic stop was about 30 minutes outside Marrakech, at a roadside restaurant that allowed us to use a long table on the grass under their shady trees. The setting seemed almost Mediterranean, the ubiquitous cat appeared about a minute after we sat down, and chickens grazed in the grass for any crumbs we let fall.

Onwards once again, with another stop about 20 minutes before we reached the coast, to visit a women’s co-operative where they produce oil from the seeds of the argan tree, labouring hard to remove the nut from its hard shell and crush it by hand in stone grinders to make the various cooking, hair and beauty products they then offer for sale. It was very labour intensive but the women work shifts, just a few hours at a time, and rotate the various tasks so each takes a turn at the more strenuous and onerous. The light wasn’t good for photos, sadly, as the women had amazing faces – maybe that’s the argan oil at work!

Next stop, Essaouira! 

I fell in love with this place – being near the sea with refreshing sea breezes to lower the temperatures but still with plenty of sunshine; the hustle and bustle of the port in the mornings when the fishing boats come in with their catches; the freshest possible seafood, bought in one section of the fish market, cleaned in the next section, cooked and eaten at a tiny restaurant in the corner – SO delicious!

There is a long sandy beach stretching off south of the old city and, along the seaward side of the old city, a Portuguese-constructed bastion, with impressive towers and canon dating back to 1700s. The medina had been planned around a basic grid of several, relatively wide main streets but still includes a maze of narrow, winding alleyways, with beautiful carved wooden doors or blue-painted window shutters around every corner. The shops were full of tempting produce, from fresh fruit and pyramids of spice to colourful clothing and gorgeous paintings. The people were friendly, welcoming, always smiling and they all love cats. Indeed, the whole town seems dedicated to feeding and caring for the thousands of local cats – I saw a young guy patiently feeding tiny sardines to a sad-looking stray at the port, and we saw a box of abandoned kittens with a carton of milk and a syringe next to it so people could feed them.

On our first afternoon, our tour leader took us on an orientation walk, then we sipped cocktails while watching the sun set over the Atlantic Ocean before enjoying a delicious, if expensive dinner at a local restaurant, while being entertained by local musicians singing hauntingly beautiful tunes in Arabic.

Our second day started with a walking tour around the old city with a friendly local guide. I always find it difficult to remember afterwards all the fascinating things these guides tell us but here are a few: Orson Welles shot the movie Othello here in the 1950s so there are hotels/restaurants/places named after him and the movie. The Jewish quarter of the medina can be identified by the Stars of David carved above the doorways. The buildings are no more than 4 or 5 storeys high as they’re not allowed to build taller than the tower on the mosque. The Portuguese had a trading and military settlement here in the 15th century but the Phoenicians were here as early as the 3rd century BC and the Romans came in the 1st century BC to harvest murex, a mollusc from whose shell they produced the purple dye used to colour the clothing of their imperial families.

We ended our tour at the artisan’s workshop for the local woodworkers – some beautiful marquetry and inlay work and intriguing puzzle boxes – and the silversmiths, where we were dazzled by the almost overwhelming array of silver jewellery. Time to shop!

Before and after!

For lunch, our leader Issam took a bunch of us to the local fish market to enjoy some of the wide range of local seafood. Finger-licking good! And then we each headed off to explore the city further, alone or in small groups. My cousin Julie and I lost ourselves in the alleyways of the medina, she got a traditional Berber design hennaed onto her hand, we shopped a little, we enjoyed ice creams at a café alongside the main square. Later, we joined a few others for more sunset cocktails and another delicious dinner.

The next day our bus to Marrakech wasn’t till 2.30pm so a few of us went down early to the port and spent a couple of hours there, taking photos of the fishing boats coming in. The place was buzzing – fishermen were unloading their catches and tending to their boats and nets, then sitting around chewing the fat with their comrades, and the air was alive with seagulls, looking for an easy feed. It was a vibrant scene, full of sounds and smells and the vitality of daily life. I didn’t want to leave that place. I didn’t want to leave Essaouira – it was definitely my favourite of all the places we visited in Morocco.

Cambodia's Cats

I am a cat person and I miss not having cats in my life. It’s one of the very few negatives of an itinerant lifestyle.

On the positive side, there are lots of cats here in Cambodia so, although I don’t have one of my own, I do get to talk to them and pat them and photograph them.

Apparently, there are no breeds of cat peculiar to Cambodia, though many of the cats here have no tails, short tails, or kinked broken tails. At first I thought either the cats here were very accident-prone or the subject of cruel acts.

I consulted Professor Google for an answer, which produced some bizarre results. One writer mentioned the people of Indonesia breaking the tails of cats so the cats wouldn’t be allowed into heaven when they died, thus leaving more places available for humans. Another reported a legend in which a cat did something to annoy a god and was punished with a broken tail. One more sensible explanation was that a calcium deficiency in the mother cat caused a malformed tail in its kittens – but why only in the tail?

The truth, in this case, is indeed stranger than fiction, as the misshapen tails are the result of a very odd genetic mutation, common throughout Asia, and they were, in fact, noted by that famous evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin. There’s a good factual report of various cat tail mutations here. 

Apart from this oddity, the cats here are really no different to any other cats around the world, except perhaps for being a little skinnier. In a poverty-stricken country, there’s not always enough food for pets.

So, here’s a pictorial tribute to some of the cats I’ve met and a few of my favourite cat quotes.

Charles Dickens: What greater gift than the love of a cat.

Robert Byrne: To err is human, to purr is feline.

Robert Heinlein: If you would know a man, observe how he treats a cat.

Sigmund Freud: Time spent with cats is never wasted.

Robert Southey: A kitten is in the animal world what a rosebud is in the garden.

Ernest Hemingway: A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another, may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.

Jules Renard: The idea of calm exists in a sitting cat.

Are you triskaidekaphobic?

Peruvians certainly aren’t. Instead of Friday 13th, Peruvians are afraid of the dates Tuesday 13th and Sunday 7th. I have no idea why and locals I’ve asked haven’t been able to explain it.

They may not be afraid of Friday 13th, but Peruvians definitely are a superstitious people and here is just a sampling of the things they’re superstitious about:

Just as in many other countries, Peruvians won´t walk under ladders. This idea has always struck me as just plain sensible, rather than superstitious.

The idea of touching wood or knocking on wood is just the same.

Most shops and market stalls, many buses and various other places of business will have a bunch of the yellow-

flowering plant ruda (we know it as rue) in a vase (or, in the buses, in a cut-off plastic bottle, taped to the window near the driver). This is supposed to ensure that your business will prosper and you’ll make lots of money. At markets in the country towns, you often see stallholders holding the rue in their hands and tapping or touching their produce with the plant – for the same reason.

In a country of black-haired people, it is good luck for a child to have white hairs in amongst the black.

If they break a mirror, they do believe bad things will happen in the future, but not for 7 years.

There are variations on what happens if you see a black cat. Some people think this is good luck, others think it’s bad luck. Those who believe it’s bad luck will turn around 3 times to ward off the bad vibes that come their way when they see a black cat. Oh, and cats here are considered to have 7 lives, not 9 - something I only discovered recently when I saw this poster stuck to a lamp post.

If, when you leave the house in the morning, the first person you see is a man, you will have good luck that day. If the first person you see is a woman, you will have bad luck all day.

If you accidently spill salt, you have to pour water on the salt, otherwise you will cry very soon. This actually happened when I was at a cafe with a friend – the salt spilled, she poured water on it, and the waiter looked very pleased and relieved that she did so!

There are two solutions to the bad vibes associated with having a nightmare. The most simple is to turn over your pillow. The more complicated is to wear a piece of clothing inside out to counteract the bad omens of the dream.

When you receive presents, you must destroy the wrapping paper (e.g. burn it or, at least, throw it in the rubbish), then you’ll soon receive more presents. No recycling here!

Peruvians also believe in the good luck brought by horse-shoes, which must surely be something the Spanish introduced here, as Peru has no native horses. You can find horseshoes - usually one facing in each direction - on the floor at the entrance to restaurants, shops and buses.