I’ve donned my journalism hat once again – and this time interviewed my faraway feline friends Otis, Georgia and Dixie, writer-cats to the author of our fabulous Mates, Dates and Cinnamon Girl series, Cathy Hopkins! I was a bit nervous, truth be told, as they’re not just cats, they’re Norwegian Forest Cats – eek!
A setting to compete with Piccadilly's offices in terms of opulence
The four friends, Lucy, Nesta, Izzie and TJ, in the Mates, Dates series are all very different – who do you think Cathy is most like?
Hello Toffee. We’ve had an after-supper chat between us and would say that most definitely, she is most like Izzie. They are both Aquarians, slightly mad, very restless (she’s always getting up just when we’ve settled on her knee) and always trying something new – even cat foods, mind you, we do like to try new recipes too.
Have you exotic felines got a mention in any of Cathy’s books? Good question! So far none! Or so we thought. We were very upset about this because in her new series, there is a black and white cat called Davev who doesn’t resemble any of us. Who the heck is he? We were all quite jealous. Anyway, one night, we all got together to confront her, Dixie even sat on her head to make sure she got the point, and she told us that she’s written an outline for whole book about cats with us all in. It’s called The Cat Whiskerer and is about a guardian angel type cat – probably based on me as I do look out for the others. So for the time being, we’re happy. Otis has read it and says it’s very good and we all have purrfect parts in it.
I hear you have recently moved from London to Bath (what a terrifying name for a town). What do you miss most about London? And what do you like best about Bath? Honestly, we don’t miss London. We did at first and we really didn’t like it when Cathy put us in a cattery for one night when the move took place. Otis was well freaked out because he thought he was going to be left there forever. I didn’t, but then I am a far more intelligent cat and knew that Cathy would come and get us. Don’t tell Otis I wrote that as he’s a bit sensitive about his lack in the brain department. It was weird too when we got to the new house because in London we lived on one floor but here in Bath, we have four floors. Freaky, I can tell you, looking down on birds instead of up at them. Otis had to go and have a good lie down for three days to get over the shock. We’ve got used to it now though and we all love nothing better than sitting on a windowsill and looking out. What do we like best about Bath? More room to roam, though it took a while to get used to the badger in the garden. He leaves a terrible pong everywhere and is a grumpy old thing but we’ve learnt to leave him be and he leaves us alone. There’s a dog too at the other end of the crescent where we live. We soon saw him off and now he knows who’s boss. Dixie can jump right over him. It’s hilarious.
And lastly, my favourite question for authors’ cats – in what way do you assist Cathy with her writing? D’er. Where do you think she gets her best ideas from? We have long conversations about plot points and story structure. Quite often when she’s gone for a cup of tea, we have a look at what she’s written and delete parts of it and write our own bits in. I have to say she is not as appreciative of this as she should be and has been known to say a rude word when she’s sees that one of us has been on the computer and deleted something. But then that’s humans for you. They can be an ungrateful lot.
Well said, I say, well said.
