Time is a strange commodity. Sometimes it drags, sometimes it flies, sometimes it creeps up and catches you unawares. It did just that to me recently when my wife Isobel asked me for a bit of old tartan for the cat's basket. In the office I rummaged around in a large bag of scraps in the storeroom and found a piece of Douglas that had seen better days.

When I spread it out on the cat's bed at home, I was instantly transported back 8 years to a run-down croft in the Highlands. For that welcoming but sadly neglected little dwelling was home to two cats and their master, the late Jamie Scarlett MBE, although Jamie would insist that the relationship was reversed - they were the masters and he was the pet.

The trigger for that instant recall was the cat hairs on that piece of tartan, for Twinkle and Qwerty were no respecters of Jamie's retirement pursuit of tartan weaving and would deposit themselves and their surplus hair on any convenient bundle of fabric that was lying around.

Cat hairs on a length of hand woven tartan must be provenance par excellence and worthy of a substantial premium!