Big cats about
It's summer, it's the silly season - it's time for the annual big cat sighting.
Actually, that's rather unfair. There are big cat sightings all year round and, although he doesn't want to give his name, the peson who saw the Arlecdon cat last Monday morning seems a very reliable witness. The journalist in me struggles to understand the enthusiasm my colleagues show for this type of story. There's a touch of mystery about it I suppose but at the end of the day, if an overgrown moggie is living rough why should we worry? But the psychic researcher in me, is rather more interested. In the 19th century, such a sighting would definitely have been classed as a 'boggle' by the good folk of Cumbria and treated with much interest and a great deal of respect. Today, 'boggle' tends to be kept for the ghosts of people but in the 19th century boggles could be cattle, rabbits, foxes, hares - even apparitions of fires or walls. It's the way these big cats seem to slip in and out of reality that captures the attention of the psychic researcher, although why they should be cats and not little green men is puzzling. Is there a parallel dimension of cats that is just nudging alongside ours? And if so, why don't humans slip in and out of it, as much as the cats come visiting us? To the sharp-eyed researcher, there are more than a couple of intersting points about this sighting and I suspect this big cat 'has legs' and will run for a few days yet.
Talking of miraculous events... one of the lamp-posts outside my house has at last been repaired. Followers of this column will know I first reported this to Cumbria County Council on February 4. That still leaves the other one not working but I'm tempted to rest on my laurels. If it takes another six months to get that light repaired I really will have lost the will to live.
Published: July 28, 2010
Have your say
I have no problem with the concept of parallel universes, but in this case Alan, I'd go for the mundane - an escapee from somewhere ages ago that has been forgotten about, or perhaps even the offspring of escapees.
Having said that, some years ago, west of Penrith, I saw a smaller animal that I first thought was a regular large domestic cat, but the body structure and the way it moved was all wrong. It certainly wasn't like any sort of local animal that I knew, so I just thought of it as an exotic escapee from a zoo somewhere. But your mention of parallel dimensions has made me think - and this critter was SO strange that the hairs on my neck were prickling when I saw it.. Hmmm.Posted by Expat Marra on 29 July 2010 at 18:37