The Great Railway Bazaar by Paul Theroux

While pondering which book to read next, my gaze swept across the bookshelf in the front room; one book seemed to be just slightly sticking out. "Why not read me?" it asked. So I pulled it out. The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), by Paul Theroux. I don't remember actually reading it... I bought it a long time ago (from an Ealing charity shop). Pulling it from the shelf, I opened the book at the double-page map that preceded Chapter One. On the map was Warsaw. Between Moscow and Berlin. A good enough reason to read it, I thought...

The book traces the author's journey (mostly) by train from London to Tokyo and back via the USSR on the Trans-Siberian Express. The journey took place between September and December 1973; the book was published in 1975. More than half the book – 17 of its 30 chapters – is spent travelling through territories that, barely a generation earlier, had formed part of Britain's Asian empire: from the Khyber Pass to Singapore via Bombay, Madras, Ceylon, Calcutta, Mandalay, Rangoon and Kuala Lumpur. Theroux passes through Vietnam – after the departure of the US military, but before the collapse of the South. On his way he stops to deliver lectures on the American novel, arranged for him by various cultural attachés along his route. How he could keep to the schedule, given delayed trains and missed connections, is never quite explained.

Also not explained are the practicalities. What luggage did Theroux take? What camera? What other equipment? Clothing? The Great Railway Bazaar is not a guide book. The author offers no travel tips – like, none. Theroux seems completely uninterested in helping anyone reproduce his journey. Which, in retrospect, makes sense. Written well before online booking, downloadable timetables and low-cost flights, and long before one could ascertain the availability of seats and sleeper berths from a phone, the informational and organisational effort involved in making such an international rail journey must have been immense. "Just turn up at the station and buy your ticket!" But which station? Which ticket window? Which ticket? When will the train actually leave? Does anyone here speak English? Whom do I bribe to get a better berth?

Theroux's book makes no pretence at objectivity. It is Eurasia seen from a train by one pair of Western eyes. He is often contemptuous of what he sees; "Iranians babbling in Farsi", Indians defecating by the trackside ('the turd world'), drunken Russian train crews, fellow passengers he finds intolerably boring (and then spends the next two pages telling the reader just how boring), attendants touting for bribes. The world he sees is shocking to the modern reader – child brothels, drug addicts, hunger. Compare the cities Theroux describes with their appearance today using Google Maps Street View. The transformation is extraordinary. Behind that change lies one of the great economic facts of the past half-century: billions of people, particularly in Asia, have escaped the extreme poverty that Theroux encountered almost everywhere. [The most recent World Bank data shows 8.5% of the world's population living in "extreme poverty", with two-thirds of that being in sub-Saharan Africa. When the World Bank started tracking this metric in 1981, the figure was 42%.]

The Great Railway Bazaar describes a world that has since changed significantly. Countries have disappeared – the USSR, South Vietnam – or have changed their name – Myanmar, Sri Lanka. Some countries are all but out of bounds for Western travellers today – Iran, Afghanistan, Russia. The Orient Express (Paris-Istanbul) was at its very nadir; a shadow of its former glory, and nothing remotely like the luxury experience of today. There was no dining car attached!

Theroux does not hide the mechanics of turning the journey into a book. He frequently mentions his notebooks, by the end of the journey there were four of them. He is also constantly checking in to see what condition his condition is in. He drinks inordinate amounts of beer, wine and spirits – the latter while crossing Russia.

What makes the book worth reading half a century later is its lack of retrospective correction. Theroux does not know what is going to happen next – in particular in Vietnam, Iran or the Soviet Union. The world he is passing through is about to slip into history – of this he seems unaware. His prejudices can grate with the sensibilities of the modern reader, but they too belong to the historical document. Theroux can be arrogant, entitled, unfair and sometimes obnoxious, but it is precisely because he does not sanitise either himself or what he sees, that the book remains an vivid and highly readable time capsule.

As it happens, I read the book during last week's heatwave, much of it in the late evening in bed, sweltering under a thin sheet, with Céleste and her kittens confined to the house. A suitably third-world ambience was thus achieved, nicely according with what I was reading.

And what did Theroux write about Poland? On page 346, an American couple he met on the Trans-Siberian Express tell him: "We're celebrating by going around the world. We're on our way to Poland..." to which Theroux replied drily: "So you're really living it up." This was still some way before Irkutsk. But his actual impressions of Poland? On the book's penultimate page, one reads: "I slept through Warsaw, glared at Berlin and entered Holland with a stone in my stomach." So much for Poland.

This time last year:
A walk in the sun

This time five years ago
Accounting for coincidence
[Henry Cow – Piekut]

This time six years ago:
Działka food

This time seven years ago:
Proper summer in Warsaw

This time eight years ago:
Poland's trains failing in the heat

This time nine years ago:
"Learn from your mystics is my only advice"

This time ten years ago:
Out where the pines grow wild and tall

This time 13 years ago:
Behold and See (part V) - short story

This time 14 years ago:
Syrenki in Warsaw

This time 15 years ago:
What's the Polish for 'impostor'?

This time 16 years ago:
Running with the storm on the road to Mamrotowo

This time 18 years ago:
St Pancras Station – new gateway to London

This time 19 years ago:
Mountains or sea? North Wales has them both

Confined.

Here we are, Tuesday morning; Day Four of Céleste's recuperation indoors. I remember why Wenusia's post-sterilisation time was so difficult. Céleste is sitting on the windowsill; she is looking me in the eyes, miaowing most plaintively. "Please let me out!" she is trying to say... It was so much easier when I had her brothers castrated. Kept inside overnight and they were allowed out the very next morning.

I have decided to keep Céleste's five kittens inside as well. Unlike Arcturus, Czester, Pacyfik, Scrapper and indeed Céleste, all of whom I allowed out albeit sparingly while Wenusia was in recovery mode, the current brood is a full six weeks younger and currently less demanding of the outdoor life. So they play, sleep and eat exclusively indoors, offering emotional support and solidarity to their incarcerated mother.

As ever, ChatGPT is really useful with explanations and tips in this situation. It warns against early release, saying that an ill-judged leap could tear internal wounds that have not fully healed, and suggests "leaving treats hidden around the house" to keep Céleste amused.

********

Comparing Wiktor, Dorian, Fisia, Mars and Kwincia with their uncles' generation, I see one big difference – toilet training. This lot are far worse. There are regular poos left in the cat baskets, behind the sofa, under my bed or on the bathroom floor. Somehow Wenusia proved to be far more rigorous in teaching her kittens where they can and where they can't defecate. Yesterday, I picked up my rucksack before going out and it smelled of cat wee. A quick spray of sandalwood-scented air freshener did the trick.

Having all the kittens in the house all the time with mum means I can observe the rhythm of their daily lives; the three modes, and how they toggle between them. There's a beautiful time when the manic activity of play – chasing, fighting, knocking things over – settles into a period of serene rest. One by one, they find somewhere to crash and switch off. Eventually, the house becomes quiet. Mum (below) has settled down on the sofa, giving pause to her pleas for early release.

Kwińcia finds a spot by my laptop (below). A safe place to nap.

Below: Wiktor (I currently call him 'Wiktol', as my children would have called him before they could pronounce their 'r's properly) cleaning his toes prior to dropping off on the windowsill.

Adult cats are far more careful and tend not to knock things over; I have to a great extent kitten-proofed the house, but now and then, things fall. Nothing serious; a tin of cat food from the top of the fridge, a dustpan-and-brush from the windowsill in the sień.

Having Céleste and her five kittens in all the time means serving out a whole lot more cat food. They are joined at mealtimes by their elders; first thing this morning I had all 12 cats and kittens gathered around the bowls all chomping away, quite something. I have become a zookeeper; feeding time in the small-cat enclosure. To keep costs down, I have downloaded the Biedronka app and started going there, to play off one retail chain (Lidl) against the other (Biedronka). I check out the cat-food offers in both shops. Buy-one-get-one-free deals get me through one door rather than the other. The savings can be immense. For the cats it means greater access to the premium stuff that I'd not be buying at regular prices.

Once Céleste has recovered, I hope she will be through with vets for a long, long time. Her daughters will (sadly) need to be sterilised; their only hope of procreation is if someone reaches out to me wanting a healthy, whole young female or two to produced a litter of darling kittens. (If you do, let me know! Kwincia and Fisia are up for adoption to anyone wanting to experience the joy of being surrounded by kittens. Easily beats exotic holidays!)

Interesting to read this post from October of last year for the contrast between the postoperative days for Wenusia and Céleste...

This time last year:
Consciously, mindfully, averting misfortune

This time two years ago:
Warsaw's progress to normality

This time five years ago:
Summer winding down

This time nine years ago:
My Mazovian roots

This time ten years ago:
My father revisits his battleground

This time 12 years ago:
Over the hill at Harrow

This time 13 years ago:
Behold and See – the Miracle of Lublin – Pt 1.

This time 15 years ago:
Quiet afternoon in the bazaar

This time 15 years ago:
The politics of the symbol

Godzina W in the centre of Warsaw

Four four years from 2016 to 2019, I spent the moment of Godzina W ('W'-hour) with my father in the quarter of the Powązki Military Cemetery reserved for Batalion Odwet, the Home Army unit in which he served. While this is where the official commemorations occur, the mass event that draws the real crowds is held at crossroads of ulica Marszałkowska and Aleje Jerozolimskie (Rondo Dmowskiego). I have never been before, so I was curious to see how this would compare.

I arrived at twenty past four, so 40 minutes before the sirens would traditionally start to wail.  A public-address system had been set up; someone announced that before the ceremony begins, that a decade of the Rosary would recited (one Lord's Prayer followed by ten Hail Marys). On cue, 20 or 30 powerful motorbikes arrived at the roundabout, revving up their engines and drowning out the prayers.

At half past four, the police closed both thoroughfares to traffic, a signal for people to start streaming in from behind the pedestrian barriers, moving right up to the roundabout and filling the road space from one end to the other. The minutes ticked down. Every higher vantage point – bus stop, kiosk roof, Metro ventilation shaft – was soon topped by young men, some of whom were holding flares. A half-hearted appeal from the organisers for people to get down went unheeded. At a couple of seconds to five, the flares went off. And then, on the dot of five, the sirens began to wail. This was it. Scores of flares filled the streets with flames and smoke. 

Viscerally emotional. I was still in tears from hearing the last song played over the public address system – a song I associate with this day, and with my father – Warszawskie Dzieci. 

The two-minute silence ended and Cześć i chwała bohaterom ('Honour and glory to the heroes') was chanted repeatedly by the crowd. The chanting eventually lost its vigour and fizzled out. A voice at the microphone started speaking in nationalist tones and the crowd began turning away, making for the Metro station or bus stops. "The Germans only pretend to be our friends..." Whatever. Time to leave.

Somehow, I much prefer Godzina W at Powązki. My father would have done so too. But one can't be in two places at one time. A time for quiet contemplation, wandering along tree-lined avenues lined with graves of the fallen.

This time seven years ago:
W-hour on the big day
[My father's last visit to Warsaw. He promised to return for the 75th anniversary. He made it. Three months later, he died.]

This time eight years ago:
My father at the 74th anniversary of the Uprising

This time nine years ago:
73rd anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising with my father

This time ten years ago:
Godzina W remembered with my father – a day of emotions

This time 13 years ago:
Godzina W commemorated in a more civilised way

Godzina W 14 years ago (2012)

Godzina W 15  years ago (2011)

Godzina W ten years ago (2009)

Céleste is sterilised

Another inevitable heartbreaking moment. I called the vet on Monday and arranged to drop off Céleste on Friday morning for sterilisation. Nearly ten weeks after she gave birth, the risk of her falling pregnant again was growing by the day. Unfamiliar tomcats have started showing up; Céleste has been asking to be let out at night in no uncertain way. 

All week I had this feeling that the cats were expecting that some big bad event will happen. When and to whom they did not know. They all paced around in a state of rare unease. Céleste would often look up at me with a questioning expression on her face.

Wednesday and Thursday saw Céleste still busily feeding her brood. All five kittens clustered round her, chugging away noisily.

The cat carrying box was made ready last night; I slept in as late as I could, getting out of bed at half-past seven, quickly got dressed, popped Céleste into the box and put her in the car. Then I returned to feed all the other cats (vets operate on cats with empty digestive tracts, so Céleste got no breakfast). Then I returned to the car and drove the short distance to the vets, arriving at ten to eight. Outside there was already one patient (a Yorkie) with its owner waiting; a minute I arrived another car pulled in with a cat and its owners. It's a busy time for the vets.

The vet called me around one pm, I drove over to collect Céleste. As with Wenusia's op, this one went smoothly.  Below: Céleste has just woken up from the anaesthetic. The kaftan is on. I asked the vet to put it on, as I was completely unable to do this for Wenus on my own.

She was soon at home, surrounded by her kittens. Céleste was in better shape, not shivering and shaking as Wenusia was on return from the vets. She now needs to spend the whole of next week in the house, wearing a kaftan. This was a real problem with Wenusia, who during the last days of her involuntary confinement sought to take every chance to escape outdoors. Below: Céleste has just woken up from the anaesthetic. She is groggy and confused by the unfamiliar surroundings. 

Below: back home, Céleste lay down on the doormat, surrounded by kittens Wiktor, Kwińcia and Dorian.

Neither Wenus nor Céleste will be bringing any more kittens into the world, lovely and sweet though kittens are. I keep telling myself that it's for the best, as it was for her mum. The girls have already fulfilled their maternal purpose. Wenusia's character changed after the operation; she became aloof and started hissing at her offspring and and swiping at them with her paw; today spends most of her time outdoors, calling into the house twice or three times a day for a feed ("You treat my house as a diner!"). Her castrated sons might spend the night outdoors, but once they've eaten breakfast, they usually go out for a poo and then return to my front room for an all-day snooze, punctuated by leisurely walks to the kitchen for the regular openings of tins or sachets of cat food. My front room has become a feline gentleman's club. 

Wenusia had her op 16 weeks after giving birth; Céleste a full six weeks earlier. I would recommend not leaving it. This is a good time. The sooner the better, the quicker the recovery.

Right now, Friday evening, she's in the kitchen sitting on her haunches, her gaze fixed on the floor. She's been like that for the past hour. I wonder what thoughts are going through her head? Is she aware of what the humans have done to her? Would she regret not being able to give birth again? Or does she feel relief that she will never have to repeat that experience?

In the meantime, my current priority is to survive to next Friday morning, when I can finally remove the kaftan and let Céleste out into the garden. She needs fattening up too. Having spent two months on her side breastfeeding, and losing hair, Céleste is stick-thin, resembling a weasel. So her calls to be let out will be answered with cat food and milk (and plain Greek-style yogurt).

Will Céleste's character change? I hope not. I know that her long hair will grow back (the vet confirmed this too) and she will regain her grace and beauty.

Kittens bring great joy, especially between the second and fourth month of their development. All that scampering, play and softness. However, I know that neither my budget nor the size of my house can accommodate another litter. If I can find a new home for Memphis and Kwintesencja, on the basis that their new owner(s) want whole females that will one day deliver kittens, then they will go. If not, I will have them sterilised and hold my cat count at twelve.

[In other feline news: yesterday evening, having come back from my walk, I noticed that the internet wasn't working. A kitten had chewed through the power cable for the router. This is my second kitten-related cable loss, the first being the charger for my phone. Fortunately, I found a 220V-in/10V-out cable with the same connector in the attic from an old router, this cable being about three times thicker than the chewed one. I had to buy a replacement phone-charger cable (59 zł); again I bought the thickest one in the shop.]  

Update, Saturday 1 August: in the cat tower, the kittens cluster around their mum, who spent a comfortable night. From the left (looking down) is Memphis ('Fisia'), then Mars, centrally positioned is Wiktor, then looking down is Dorian ('Łobler'), Céleste, one eye opened, one eye closed, and above her, Kwintesencja ('Kwińcia').

This time last year:
Late-July photo round-up

This time three years ago:
Late-July photo round-up

This time five years ago:
Stewardship of the Land, Jakubowizna

This time six years ago:
The cost of Covid complacency

This time seven years ago:

Uprising commemoration – Day Three

This time eight years ago:
Ahead of the Big Day

This time ten years ago:
Once in a blue moon

This time 12 years ago:
A return to Snowdon – Wales' highest peak

This time 13 years ago:
On the eve of Warsaw's Veturillo revolution

This time 15 years ago:
Getting ready for the 'W'-hour flypast

This time 16 years ago:
A century of Polish scouting

Imaging future qualia

It’s just gone ten, but outside it is already 25°C. The kittens are back from playing outside. Kwińcia is asleep on my kitchen table next to my laptop (below). 

Wiktor, Dorian and Memphis are asleep in the cat tower, and Mars is asleep on the windowsill. The sun shines; I feel its power. A fly buzzes around the kitchen.

Kittenhood passes all too quickly. Within a few months, the five kittens will have lost their intrinsic kittenish cuteness and will rapidly be turning into normal adult cats. And sadly, for reasons of feline management, I will have to get the two girls sterilised, as dealing with 12 cats plus another ten kittens this time next year would be beyond my abilities and would stretch the budget.

So this is the last summer during which I can rejoice in the presence of kittens – like, ever. The last summer in which I can stretch out my hand and stroke the innocent softness of kittens as they sleep.

Summer will pass. Right now, the front door is open, the windows are all ajar, the trees are beautifully green and the sky is blue. But πάντα ῥεῖ – panta rhei: everything flows. By December – or, who knows, January? – there will be snow, lots of it, covering bare trees and dead vegetation. But there will also be those blue-sky days, with hard frosts and the stark beauty of winter. There may be fewer sunny days in midwinter, but they will happen.

Can I imagine the forthcoming winter? By then, my five kittens will have become adolescent cats, the same size as last year’s litter, who by winter were already larger than their mother. Both Wenus and Céleste are petite for adult cats. How will the kittens’ faces have changed? Can I imagine that transition?

Autumn will come: shorter days, more grey skies, leaves changing colour and then falling, leaving skeletal trees through which the horizon becomes visible. I cannot yet feel its approach; the late-summer heatwaves are bound to come. But I can imagine the first intimations of autumn, especially those clear mornings: dew-flecked spiders’ webs in the garden, wet shoes, chilly air, golden leaves, apple trees and grapevines full of maturing fruit. All of this, less than six weeks away.

I have this blog, now in its twentieth year, so I can go back in time and see my emotional responses to the changing seasons: but always looking backwards rather than forwards. We can project ourselves into the future on the basis of past experience, but the qualia will never be exactly the same twice. I ask myself whether we can dream into the future. [For me, these are exceedingly rare.]

Not only does the Earth spin on its axis and orbit the Sun, but the entire Solar System proceeds around the Galaxy at about 7.32 billion kilometres a year. The Earth circles the moving Sun somewhat like a point on an obliquely mounted propeller (although the geometry is not quite as neat as this analogy suggests).

In six months, the Solar System will have travelled about 3.66 billion kilometres farther along its roughly 227-million-year orbit around the galactic centre. During the same period, the Earth will have travelled about 470 million kilometres around the Sun — half its annual orbital journey of 940 million kilometres. For every kilometre the Earth travels along its solar orbit, the Sun carries the Solar System nearly eight kilometres along its galactic orbit.

Relative to the Galaxy, the Earth will therefore be about 73.2 billion kilometres farther along its path in ten years. Time travellers returning to the coordinates they occupied ten years earlier would materialise somewhere out in interstellar space rather than back on Earth.

Nothing remains where it was. At the cosmic scale, worlds and stars are ceaselessly in motion; at the quantum scale, position itself is not definite. From the quantum to the cosmic, nothing is ever simply where it once was.

But qualia memories – consciousness taps into something intangible, something for which physics has no formula. Intangible yet instantly familiar. From another time – and a very, very distant place.

This time last year: 
Aesthetics of New Asphalt

This time five years ago:
Samsung Galaxy phone camera vs. Nikon D3500

This time eight years ago:
Karczunkowska viaduct takes shape

This time nine years ago:
My father's return to Warsaw, 2017

This time ten years ago:
My father's first visit to Warsaw in 40 years

This time 11 years ago:
What's worse – unemployment, or a badly-paid job?

This time 12 years ago:
A return to Liverpool

This time 14 years ago:
Too good to last (anyone remember OLT Express airline?)

This time 15 years ago:
Poland's Baltic coast as a holiday destination

This time 17 years ago:
The Warsaw they fought and died for?

This time 19 years ago:
Floods, rainbows and hope

Rolling Rock flashbacks

I remember when I first caught sight of a bottle of Rolling Rock beer, imported from the USA, in a Perivale off-licence. It was probably some time in the early 1990s. This was a powerful exomnesia moment, a sense of nostalgia for something I knew I couldn't have normally remembered from this life.

The label was printed in white paint onto the green bottle; the pony's head, the cross-hatched plinth, above all the green, the exact shade of green, contrasting with the white and the blue. The typeface. Everything. An absolute guaranteed purchase.

But the taste? Did the taste summon immediate 'PAFF!' moment qualia flashbacks? Well, nothing memorable. Nothing as memorable as my first swing of Jever Pilsener, Worthington's White Shield (sadly killed off by the corporate bastards that owned it in 2023 after 194 years) or AleBrowar's King of Hop, for example. And yet, look at it. So familiar. Somehow this summer, I have been getting flashbacks to Rolling Rock beer. Yesterday, three. Is it the green of the forest that I see from my kitchen window at this time of year? Is it the green of the landscape through which I stroll?

Rolling Rock (which features in three of my flashback-dream accounts and short stories) was brewed between 1939 and 2006 in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. After that, Anheuser-Busch shifted production to Newark. But before that, in 1987, Canadian brewery, Labatt, bought the Rolling Rock brand from the Sundor Group, which had bought it from the founding family two years earlier. Labatt in turn was swallowed up in several more corporate mergers, each diluting the meaning, the relevance and the uniqueness of what originally made the brand what it was. Labatt introduced Rolling Rock to the UK market, around the time that it rebranded the Hammersmith Odeon rock venue as Labatt's Apollo.

So by the time I first tasted Rolling Rock, the visual branding might have been familiar, but the taste had drifted. Taste is a powerful memory jogger. I remember my first taste of coriander (cilantro), chorizo, pesto, and feeling instant familiarity. But not here. Early postwar Americana was not on the tip of my tongue. Today's Rolling Rock is brewed elsewhere; corporate owners no longer insisting that the bottled beer is brewed in glass tanks.

But how did Rolling Rock once taste? I prompted Google Gemini to come up with a recipe that would conjure up the precise qualia sensation of sipping a Rolling Rock back in the 1940s. The answer was surprising. Mixing Asahi Super Dry and bottled Heineken. Rolling Rock was unusual in that it was brewed not only from malted barley and hops, but also with adjuncts of maize ('corn') and... rice. Bottled Heineken would offer the "light, fruity, tang of dimethyl sulphide".  Served not too cold, either. So... "Mixing Heineken (bottle) with Asahi Super Dry creates a blend that effectively engineers-out the parts of both beers you don't want, while combining the traits needed to mimic mid-century Rolling Rock". 

ChatGPT is more specific: "I would expect the optimal blend to contain considerably more Asahi than Heineken. Heineken supplies some characteristics that Asahi lacks: a fuller malt centre, light fruity fermentation character and a grassy, slightly herbal bitterness. Asahi supplies the leaner body, pale colour, adjunct character and very dry finish. Heineken is an all-malt lager, while the current European-market Asahi Super Dry uses barley malt and maize starch. Try two parts Asahi to one part Heineken. That should soften Asahi’s rather severe, carbonic dryness, introduce a little rounded malt and herbal hop character and remain lighter and less distinctly European-tasting than a 50:50 blend. There is one important limitation. Neither beer provides the maize-and-rice combination of classic Rolling Rock. Asahi contributes maize starch but not enough rice in the current UK/European formulation; Heineken contributes no adjunct grain at all. The mixture might therefore approximate the weight, attenuation and bitterness, but not precisely the old beer’s faint mixture of corn sweetness and rice-derived lightness."

So there we have it! I shall have to try it out; Heineken is universally available in Poland (the corporation owns Grupa Żywiec), and Asahi Super Dry can be sourced in Warsaw if I look hard enough.

I shall let you know if any metaphysical magic takes me back to Kentucky or Ohio of 1950.

This time four years ago:
Sunset mysticism

This time seven years ago:
You've either got or you haven't got style

This time eight years ago:
Total eclipse of the moon, Warsaw

This time ten years ago:
'Others' vs. 'Our others'

This time 11 year:
Reducing inequality in Polish society

This time 13 years ago:
Llanbedrog beach

This time 15 years ago:
The Accursed Soldiers - a short story

This time 16 years ago:
Driving impressions of the Toyota Yaris
[Son still driving it to this day!]

This time 18 years ago:
Poland's dry summer

This time 19 years ago:
The UK's wettest summer ever

The kittens at two months

Peak kitten cuteness? Between six and ten weeks. They are playful and scamper about, they are now going outside, watched over by their mother and Hipek (who feels that he can play a useful role in his adopted colony). The kittens still breastfeed, though less regularly and have started going over to solids, in particular the paté type. Fresh water is always on hand as is 0.5% ultra-low-fat milk. 

Dorian, the stumpy-tailed wobbly kitten, and his twin Wiktor (who is just slightly wobbly and has a normal tail), are fine, accepted by their  mother and their siblings as part of the group. Dorian will not let his disability hold him back. Is he aware of his difficulties in coordinating the movement of his legs? How does his cerebellar hypoplasia affect his experience of life? Am I just imagining it, projecting it onto him, but is there a stoic, almost cheerful acceptance in his feline mind? He can climb up into the cat tower without difficulty. He plays, play-fights, grooms and chases the others (and they him) without any changes to the rules. I am, however, wary of these Dorian and Wiktor going astray outdoors, especially when I catch sight of a buzzard overhead. Below: Dorian play-fighting with Mars.

The other three are developing ideally. Mars and Kwintesencja, tabby twins, are distinguishable only by sex and tail length (Mars is a stumpy-tailed male, Kwincia is a normal-tailed female); both are explorers eager to push the envelope of how far they can roam. Memphis (Fisia) is a female tabby, and displays white fur on her throat, neck and undersides; she has a mid-length tail with just one kinked bone. 

Below: the five tend to all sleep together. Céleste no longer fits with them all present, so breastfeeding is done on the floor. We see here Kwincia (left) and Wiktor, the rest are all uh, down there somewhere.

Below: time for some fresh air – Mars (centre) leads Dorian (left) and Wiktor (right) towards the open kitchen door. Notice the focused expression on Mars's face. 

Meanwhile, mum Céleste has been losing fur at an alarming rate. Her face is familiar but her head seems to have shrunk (below).

This hair loss is both hormonal and seasonal. During pregnancy, elevated hormone levels hold hair follicles in an extended growth phase. Around six to eight weeks after giving birth, those hormone levels plummet. At the same time, peak milk production has placed immense metabolic demand on her body, which today is as thin as a weasel's. This shift forces a large percentage of her hair follicles into a resting phase simultaneously ('telogen effluvium'). The result is a dramatic, synchronised blow-out of her undercoat and long guard-hairs, making her head look noticeably smaller. [Here she is, La Contessa, in midwinter, coat by Courrèges.] All this was going on during last month's heatwave. Long-haired cats naturally drop their dense thermal undercoat during summer. In temperatures over 25°C, dropping fur is Céleste's body's natural defense against heat-stroke while trapped under a pile of warm kittens.

Lying on her side for hours on end creates warmth, humidity and constant mechanical friction against Céleste's flanks. Combined with loose shedding fur that hasn't been brushed out (frequent brushing was put on hold during the breastfeeding weeks), dense dreadlocks quickly formed. This mass of matted hair had to be removed, gently, with minimal use of scissors, aided by Céleste herself who'd be gnawing on the base of the locks. The whole lot finally came off as one large piece, looking somewhat like a false beard.

The internet assures me that Céleste's fur – the undercoat and long guard-hairs – will all have grown back by the winter. The internet also warns me to arrange an appointment with the vet to sterilise Céleste as soon as possible. Sterilisation will, sadly, be the fate of Fisia and Kwincia; the prospect of looking after 22 cats by the end of 2027 is too much. I'm already close to the point where my monthly cat-food bill is approaching the amount I spend on feeding myself.  Céleste is eating seven or eight times a day; she is stick-thin after two months of nursing the little ones, so whenever she calls for food she gets food.

The two female kittens are destined not to experience the joy and pain of motherhood... unless someone wants to take them as whole females with the intention of letting them breed (an outdoor lifestyle has to be provided for them). The joy of kittens is extraordinarily special.

And let's not forget grandmother, Wenusia. She comes by in the morning for breakfast and pops in a few times during the day. Once fed, she will put her paw on the side of my leg, which means "lift me up and stroke me, don't forget that once I was your one and only cat." I do so, she wanders off, contented, I hope.

This time four years ago:
Automatic writing: to where (and when) will the muse take me?

This time five years ago:
New phone, new laptop, Part II

This time six years ago:
Two images from my early childhood

This time seven years ago:
How PKP PLK's planners should treat pedestrian station users.

This time eight years ago:
Foreign exchange: don't get diddled!
[for the saps who pay £250 for €200 at the airport]

This time ten years ago:
Defining my Sublime Aesthetic

This time 13 years ago:
Porth Ceiriad on the Llyn Peninsula

This time 14 years ago:
Jeziorki sunset, late July

This time 15 years ago:
Jeziorki sunset, after the storm

This time 18 years ago:
Rural suburbias: the ideal place to live?

Get On Down

"Expect the unexpected". I always taught the children that when they were small. This morning, having fed the cats and partaken of my coffee, I set off for a short pre-breakfast walk, accompanied by Scrapper. It had occurred to me that Pacyfik (Pacio) was missing from the early roll-call, but nothing unusual there – a late return from a long night out, I reckoned.

I got to the end of the drive, turned left, and heard a miaowing. "Who's that?" I thought... "It's most probably Pacio. I looked around, but couldn't see any movement in the undergrowth. Then it occurred to me – the sound is not coming from the depths of the next-door forest, but above me. I moved out onto the lane to scan the treetops. Scrapper joined me. We watched – we listened. We could hear miaowing high up in the branches. Finally, I caught sight of Pacyfik.

He was about ten metres (33 feet) off the ground, high up in the canopy of a tall pine tree (see photo, left. Click on it, then right-click the expanded image to witness it in bigger scale). Pacio was calling down to me, evidently in much distress. Having assessed the situation, I returned home with Scrapper for some breakfast and to consult ChatGPT. Which advised me to clear ground under the tree, and leave out some cat food to lure down the cat. In the worst case, it gave me the phone number for the local volunteer fire brigade and text (in Polish) to explain the situation to the call-handler (useful!).

After a filling my stomach with large bowl of porridge, I returned to the forest with lopper and secateurs and cleared a path from the lane to the base of the tree. Then I removed saplings and dead vegetation from around the area, so should Pacyfik fall, he will not become impaled on anything. Soon I was joined by Czester and Hipek, outside since after breakfast, who had been alerted by Pacyfik's miaowing.

And here's where it gets interesting. At some point, Czester, who had been watching all this keenly, and clearly understood the situation, began to scale the same tree, heading up towards his brother. He climbed about two thirds of the way up then stopped. Pacyfik, seeing this, made his way successfully to the next branch down, and then paused, unsure of what to do next. Czester then started to show Pacyfik how to reverse down the trunk, tail-first. Pacyfik was still scared and unwilling to make the next move. Once again Czester moved up, stopped, and then started to reverse. Once on a lower branch, he descended to ground level without difficulty. Below: ARF (Arboreal Rescue Feline) 1st Class Czester in action. Motto: Firmipes in altis – 'Surefooted at Altitude'. Pacyfik's stumpy tail, a genetic defect, makes it harder for him to balance than regular-tailed cats.

Pacyfik (who has a short, stumpy tail unlike Czester's normal one) finally latched on, and copying Czester's moves, proceeded cautiously along the smooth and branch-free section of the trunk until he got to a branch from another tree. 

He zigged down that, zagged down another, and soon he was about half a metre from my outstretched arms. I was standing short distance off the ground in the fork between two saplings. A bit of movement from either ends and I had Pacyfik safely in my grasp. As I cuddled him, much relieved, I could smell the pine-resin in his fur. And then a triumphant procession home, with Pacio in the company of Czester and Hipek.

A slap-up feast was laid on, rich in fishy goodness, during which Pacyfik somewhat disgraced himself by hissing and growling at Hipek, who had shown such steadfast solidarity with him while he was stuck up the tree. Each cat is as different as we humans are all different.

Soundtrack to the rescue operation: Get Down by Gene Chandler (played by MJDJ on last Friday's Yours Sinsouly show on West Wilts Radio)

This time last year:
Letters to an Imaginary Grandson (VII)

This time last two years ago:
Łódź for the weekend

This time three years ago:
Wes Anderson's Asteroid City

This time four years ago: 
Quarter of a century in Poland

This time seven years ago:
22 years on the 22nd

This time seven years ago:
A tale of two orchards

This time nine years ago:
My 20 years in Poland

This time ten years ago:
PiS, Brexit, Trump and cognitive bias

This time 13 years ago:
Portmeirion, revisited, again
[My last summer holiday - not had one since!]

This time 14 years ago:
Beach day, Llŷn Peninsula

This time 15 years ago:
Down with cars in city centres!

This time 16 years ago:
8am and it's 26C already