Cat in Winter

I live in the tropics, but late December is relatively cool, windy, wet — just as it is in most of the Northern Hemisphere. And the cat, the cat doesn't like it so much.

Today I sat with him. He paced around. The sky was a bright pale grey-blue, like ice. Grey wisps of cloud scudded around. The wind blew dying flowers and leaves into the patio. The cat chased some of them, sniffed suspiciously at others.

His golden fur, bright and brazen in the full summer sun, looked brown and irritable. He was a tarnished copper cat today, not the golden glory he prefers to be. He obviously felt brown and irritable too. He looked out over the garden, tail slowly twitching from side to side, as if to say, "I know you're out there somewhere, whatever you are. Bad day! Bad day!"

Once in a while, he'd run back to me, and bang his forehead against my shin. I have no clear idea of what that means to a cat, but it seems to be partly reassurance based on solidity (or solidarity) and partly head-banging from being irritated with something.

Ah, the cat, the cat in winter. "In winter's tedious night, sit by the fire / With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales / Of woeful ages long ago betide." So said the bard, but the cat still twitches.