For years, one question kept nagging at me: how do homeless cats know which door they can knock on, and which there is no point in trying. My door, for instance, is hidden from the street by a tall, solid fence. The neighbours have a rickety picket fence. They come to me in an endless stream, and never even try their luck with the neighbours. And this despite the huge, scary dog Tosha running around my garden, catching every cat she comes across. Not to eat them, but to lick them clean. But she doesn’t have that written on her.
And how many times has a new cat turned up to replace one who has just gone to the rainbow. Literally falls on your head out of nowhere. You bring him into the house, and it’s as though he’s lived here for a hundred years. He knows every nook and cranny, sleeps in the departed one’s favourite spot. As though your own dear one has come back. And there is no rational explanation for it. You start believing in reincarnation and other mystical things.