The world of cats: If you can’t be with the ones you love…love the one you’re with

My name is Jim and I’m addicted to cats, an obsession I share with millions of people… No, I have no desire to be cured or to forfeit my membership of CatAnon.

My devotion to the feline masters and mistresses of the universe goes back to the early 1960s – soon after I arrived in South Africa – when I undertook my first trek from the Eastern Cape to visit my paternal grandfather in what was then Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). Grandpa Bill ran an inn on the banks of the newly flooded Kariba and it was the first time I slept in a double bed.

Cats. Picture: Jim Freeman

The deal was, though, that I had to share it with his two pet cheetah, it being quite acceptable in colonial times to have certain species of habituated beasties underfoot around the house and homestead. Grandpa Bill also had a hippo he hand-reared from calfdom and fed lucerne every evening.

There are so many endearing things about cheetah, not least their squeaky calls and purring. Imagine being five years old and having a “wild” animal purring whenever you wrap your arms around its neck in the middle of the night.

The downside of our relationship was that you can’t get a squirmy pink foot (me) and two adult male cheetah on a double bed, so it was a nightly battle who got the mattress and who copped the rug.

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I’ve maintained my adoration for this highly endangered species and today, as a conservationist, wouldn’t dream of petting them as I did when I was wee.

The closest I’ve come to physical human-cheetah interaction was when I was shooting pictures at the Ashia conservation project in Paarl on a very hot day. A male came up to me and started licking the sweat off my arm.

Cats. Picture: Jim Freeman

It took all the restraint I possess not to respond. Fortunately, the owner of the facility was on hand to take one of my cameras and record the moment with one of my most prized pictures.

There is, however, no holding back when I hit the road on my travels and encounter cats at the hotels, lodges and guesthouses I visit. I am a kitty-slut but luckily my two at home have come to tolerate my infidelities. My black-and-white nonetheless grumbles and sulks for a few days if I return with foreign fur on my clothes.

A hotel isn’t a proper hotel (as far as I’m concerned) if it doesn’t have a resident mowzer; it’s merely a place to sleep, shower and change clothes.

The other evening as I was climbing the stairs to my room, I met Coco the elderly Maine Coon who’s queen of the Montagu Country Hotel. I bent down to pet her and she immediately started purring and “talking” in little breathy mews.

Cats. Picture: Jim Freeman

It was love at first sight for both of us. Later, as she lay kneading my pillow, I realised that hotel cats make me feel at home but, at the same time, make me miss home quite fiercely.

Isn’t that what a good travel experience should be … an adventure that leaves you with memories to cherish when you return home? Because, surely, the reason one travels is to return home and appreciate what you have – perhaps even take for granted?

How many times have you  said to yourself, even at the most spectacular of destinations: “I can’t wait to get back to my own bed”?

If you don’t miss home while  you’re on the road, then you’re not a traveller but a wanderer; lost even when you know where you  are. As they say in Scotland: east, west, hame’s best!

In the meantime, if you can’t be with the ones you love … love the  ones you’re with. Merci, Coco!