Niffy's Day Out

Well, I'm sure that you've all been wondering what's been going on with NIffy since last week. Truth be told, so have we - he was nowhere to be seen for a few days, and we were beginning to get worried. Turns out he was in the tumble dryer. It wasn't switched on, you understand, and even if it was it wouldn't have mattered, cos it's broken - but Niffy says he'd been out one night and got a bit moist in the rain, so he'd grabbed half a dozen bags of cat treats and a carton of milk, and climbed in there to get dry. "After all", he says, "it claims to be a dryer". And, to be fair, he did get dry in there. He just hadn't expected it to take five days...

After his little ordeal, he decided to accompany me on a trip across to the Yorkshire coast for a meeting. I'd told him we'd be going by way of Guisborough and Fylingdales, which seemed to excite him. He reckons I promised that he'd see some cows (Niffy likes cows, they do milk). I tried to tell him that I didn't mean those kind of moo-ers, but he woudn't listen.

We had a lovely time in Scarborough (well, near Scarborough really, but you know...) - I went and had my meeting, which involved eating a lovely lunch and talking with lovely people, while Niffy went off for a prowl. (It was a walk really, but Niffy reckons he sounds a bit more magnificent if I say it was a prowl). He went round to the church nearby to have a look at the work that was going on. He says there was a big trench right across the path, and it was all blocked off. There were cones sticking up from the trench, so Niffy reckons they've been burying witches. He did also say, that as they have a holey path, perhaps they could make it into a bit of a shrine and get pilgrims to come. Then they could sell indulgences to the pilgrims to pay for the works. No flies on our Niffy!

On the way home, we went past Whitby. Niffy was very excited about that because he was good friends with a cat called Whitby - until Whitby decided to move to Oxford and insisted they made his human the bishop - and he wanted to see his friend's namesake. Even if it was a town. Niffy was going on and on about having a fish from Whitby, but I said there wasn't time, and anyway there was salmon waiting at home. Niffy was very keen on that idea, and agreed that we should bypass Whitby and get back home for the salmon. (I didn't tell him it was paste!)

Meeting Niffy

I have made a friend! Yes, I realise that you'll all think this is a new experience for me, but it does happen.

My new friend is not human, he's feline. A cat to be precise. Not just an ordinary housecat, felix domesticus - no, he's a church cat - felix ecclesiasticus - and a well-travelled one at that. Like many cats, he can't be herded or really controlled at all. He wanders where he will - in and out of places, wherever and whenever he wants to. He does, being a church cat, have a special affinity for things ecclesiastical, and he's often to be found in churches, or church meetings and events. He's very clever at getting in without being seen, and finding a place where he can observe everything that's going on without people ever being aware that he's there. He's a bit of a ninja cat in that way, I suppose. And while I've never seen him in my car, or on a train or bus, he does seem to go to the same places I go and tell me things about what he's seen. I think perhaps he has a secret compartment in my backpack about which I know nothing - but which he can use for transport on his endless quest to experience the church and try to make some sense of it.

I was talking to Niffy this morning (that's really a nickname by the way - his full name is Magniffy Cat, but he thinks that sound a bit grand for an ordinary church cat like him, so he prefers Niffy) and he was asking me why I'd done a little blog for Travelling Sweep when he went on holiday to Cornwall recently but had never done a blog for him? (By the way, while we were in Cornwall, Niffy had gone off on his own trip to Egypt to see some relatives of his). I hadn't realised Niffy would like a blog, but of course I said I'd do him one, provided he told me what he wanted to share with you all. He was very excited about that. So excited in fact, that he allowed me to feed him.

So, tune in for news and stories about what Niffy has been up to - I'm sure he'll have some very interesting things to share with us!