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Around the House
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The Around the House icon.

The Cat and Cartography

Ice cream, not.
In all fairness to cat Muesli, his supply of 'Little Grey Cells'(™H.Poirot) is not zero. He understands that the milk he craves comes from the plastic bottles I pull out of the freezer. What he does not compute is that several hours must pass before the contents defrost sufficiently for him to sample them.

What, you wonder, does this have to do with cartography? The answer lies on the other side of the A23 to Muesli, a little north of Reigate Hill, on a chalk downland slope. It may be seen on maps drawn up from, say, the 1890s until 1976. These depicted a diminutive area of woodland in close proximity to the Gatton Estate. By my estimate, it accounted for no more than 1/50 square kilometre, or 5 acres. Realizing this, whoever put this arboricultural dwarf on the map thought carefully about its name. What is the smallest item of which one can conceive? How should this teeny-weeny wood be envisaged? His solution was cartographical genius: Catsbrain Shaw.

Alas, it was not to last. In 1976 the M25 motorway lobotomised the southern half of this mapping marvel. So diminished is it now that the name is no longer recorded by the OS. Sic transit gloria mundi.


Cat Rocky 2007-2023

Pesky seeds. Must clean them off.
The previous owner of Rocky gave him this name. He showed his gratitude by deserting his first home for mine, two doors along. 'Six Dinner Sid' might have been a better name. There was never any trouble feeding him; quantity, not quality, was his only criterion. Farewell, old pal. You enjoy the tuna wherever you are now.