The World According to Bob

The traffic on Islington High Street was heavy and, as usual, at a virtual standstill. So I walked the bike along the pavement for a while, towards Islington Memorial Green. We passed a couple of police officers who gave me a curious look, but said nothing. There was no law against riding a bike with a cat on your shoulders. Well, as far as I was aware there wasn’t. I guess if they’d wanted to pull me over they could have done. They obviously had better things to do with their afternoon, thank God.

I didn’t want to cycle along the High Street so I wheeled the bike across a pedestrian crossing. We drew more than our fair share of glances; the looks on people’s faces ranged from astonishment to hilarity. More than one person stopped in their tracks, pointing at us as if we were visitors from another planet.

We didn’t linger and cut across the corner of the Green, past the Waterstones bookshop, and turned into the main road to north London, Essex Road.

‘OK, here we go, Bob,’ I said, bracing myself to enter the heavy traffic. We were soon weaving our way through the buses, vans, cars and lorries.

Bob and I soon got the hang of it. As I focussed on staying upright, I could feel him re-adjusting himself. Rather than standing he decided, sensibly, to drape himself across my neck, with his head down low and pointing forward. He clearly wanted to settle down and enjoy the ride.

It was mid-afternoon and a lot of children were heading home from school. All along Essex Road groups of kids in uniforms would stop and wave at us. I tried waving back at one point but lost my balance a little bit, sending Bob sliding down my shoulder.

‘Oops, sorry, mate. Won’t do that again,’ I said, as we both regained our equilibrium.

Progress was steady but a little slow at times. If we had to stop because of traffic we were instantly shouted at by someone asking for a photo. At one point, two teenage schoolgirls jumped out into the road to snap themselves with us.

‘Oh my God, this is so cute,’ one of them said, leaning into us so heavily as she posed for her photo that she almost knocked us over.

I hadn’t ridden a bicycle for a few years and I wasn’t exactly in prime physical condition. So I took a little breather every now and again, attracting a posse of onlookers each time I did so. Most smiled their approval but a couple shook their heads disapprovingly.

‘Stupid idiot,’ I heard one middle-aged guy in a suit say as he strode past us.

It didn’t feel stupid at all. In fact, it felt rather fun. And I could tell Bob was having a good time too. His head was right next to mine and I could feel him purring contentedly in my ear.

We travelled all the way down to Newington Green and from there towards Kingsland Road where the road headed down towards Seven Sisters. I had been looking forward to this section. For most of the journey, apart from a couple of little inclines here and there, the road had been fairly flat. At that point, however, I knew that it dropped downhill for a mile or so. I’d be able to freewheel down it quite easily.

To my delight, I saw there was a dedicated bike lane, which was completely empty. Bob and I were soon flying down the hill, the warm summer air blowing through our hair. ‘Woohoo. Isn’t this great Bob?,’ I said at one point. I felt a bit like Elliott in E.T. — not that I expected us to take off and fly our way back across the north London rooftops at any point, obviously, but we must have been clocking close to 20 miles per hour at one point.

The traffic in the main lane to our right was gridlocked, and people were winding down their windows to let in some air. Some of the expressions on their faces as we whizzed past them were priceless.

A couple of children stuck their heads out of the sun roofs of their cars and shouted at us. A few people just looked on in utter disbelief. It was understandable, I supposed. You don’t see a ginger cat whizzing down a hill on a bike very often.

It only took me about half an hour to get home, which was pretty impressive considering we’d had so many unplanned stops.

As we pulled up in the communal area outside the flats, Bob just hopped off my shoulders as if he was disembarking the bus. This was typical of his laid-back attitude to life. He had taken it all in his stride; just another routine day in London.

Back in the flat, I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening tinkering with the bike. I’d soon fixed the front brakes and given it a general tuning up.

‘There you go,’ I said to Bob, as I stood back to admire my handiwork. ‘I think we’ve got ourselves a Bobmobile.’

I couldn’t be sure, but I was pretty sure that the look he gave me signalled his approval.

People often ask me how Bob and I communicate with each other so well.

‘It’s simple,’ I usually answer. ‘He has his own language, and I’ve learned to understand it.’

It might sound far-fetched, but it’s true.