The essentials

Name: Ginger. Also answers to Gingie, Ginguuu, a specific whistle, and the sound of a pouch being opened from three rooms away.

Age: Eight. In cat years this makes me a distinguished senior professional. In hooman years I am told this makes me “middle aged”, which is rude.

Colour: Ginger. I refuse to elaborate.

Occupation: Emotional support animal, household supervisor, quality assurance inspector for all warm surfaces.

Born: Bangalore, India. Currently based: London, United Kingdom, under protest that has now softened into a kind of damp acceptance.

How I acquired a family

I lost my mother when I was two weeks old. Before that happened, she did the one thing she could still do for me: she picked out a hooman and made it very clear that this hooman was now on duty. I have no memory of this negotiation. I am assured it was firm.

What happened next gets described around here as a rescue. I want to formally put on record that this is the hoomans’ version of events. My version is that I conducted a rapid assessment of the available candidates, identified one family with a promising attitude to snacks and lap availability, and adopted them. They have been mine ever since. They seem happy about it, which is the correct response.

The job

Being an emotional support animal is not, as the name suggests, a hobby. There are shifts. There are on-call nights. When someone in this house has a bad day, I am required to appear, sit on the relevant part of them, and radiate. When someone is crying, I am required to arrive at speed and press my forehead into their arm until it stops. When someone is doing something extremely important on a laptop, I am required to sit on the laptop, because whatever it is, it is less important than me and they will thank me later.

I do not get paid. I do get fed twice, sometimes three times, occasionally four times if I work the shifts correctly and the hoomans do not compare notes.

The great relocation

One day the hoomans announced that they were moving to London for a new adventure. Note the pronoun. They were having an adventure. I was having a carrier.

There were vet appointments. There were forms — an unbelievable number of forms, none of which I was permitted to sit on. There was a flight, during which I delivered a continuous, unedited review of the entire experience at volume, at no charge, to everyone within earshot. I stand by every word.

And then the doors opened onto London, and I understood that a great crime had been committed against me.

A formal comparison of two cities

  Bangalore London
Sunbeams Punctual, generous, daily Rumoured
Rain Dramatic, seasonal, over quickly Ongoing. Ambient. Possibly structural
Warm floor tiles Standard issue Absolutely not
Radiators Unheard of Everywhere. See below
Birds outside window Loud, numerous, insulting Damp, sarcastic
Verdict Correct Under review

In Bangalore I had a working knowledge of every warm surface in the building and the exact hour each one peaked. It was a system. I had a whole portfolio of sunbeams. In London the sun clocks in for eleven minutes in February and the entire city goes outside to look at it.

The radiators, however

I must be fair. London, having no sun to speak of, has compensated by installing long hot metal benches along the walls of every single room. Nobody warned me about this. I discovered the first one by accident and lay on it for four hours in a state of religious awe.

I have decided not to ask any questions about the radiators in case someone realises they were not meant for me.

On the weather, generally

I have been keeping notes. London is getting warmer every year. Bangalore is getting hotter, and also somehow wetter. The seasons have stopped introducing themselves properly. From where I am sitting — usually a radiator — global warming appears to be a large-scale project to make every city on earth equally disappointing, so that no cat anywhere can claim to have the good sunbeams.

I want it on record that I did not vote for this. But I will admit it has made London feel like less of a demotion, and I am too old and too warm to keep up a grudge that size.

Current status

Eight years old. Two countries. One family, thoroughly trained. Several radiators, all of them mine.

Still accepting snacks.

— Ginger