Raki , convinced as always that he’s indispensable, was determined to be of assistance whilst I was trying to photograph these hats, gifts for friends’ children. I love knitting what I call my Happy Hats which brighten up wintry days with cheerful colours, but Raki also has a thing for knitting and it’s difficult to keep him away.

Any knitter who has cats (or do the cats have us?) is familiar with the routine of cat grabs yarn, cat runs off with yarn, cat likes to sleep on knitting in progress, but Raki has taken this to a whole other level.

Raki is a Turkish Van cat; his ancestral homelands are the area around Lake Van in Eastern Turkey, a region inhabited and criss-crossed since earliest antiquity by peoples who wove intricate carpets, and created exquisitely coloured felted wool rugs, tents, hangings, articles of clothing and horse trappings.

Somewhere in Raki’s DNA is an understanding of yarn, of textiles, of wool, which of course explains his keen interest in deconstructing my efforts and obviously has nothing to do with his highly developed ability to destroy whatever takes his fancy.