fluffy van cat! (any pronouns) this was based off a marker sketch, i usually zone out when i draw and clean them up and i think i drew her ears a little too big for a cat 😭

Prized for their differently coloured eyes, an endangered Van cat walks in the snow in Yuzuncu Yil University’s ‘cat villa’, Turkey.

Random warriors design

Bottom three are the same Starclan cat

This is Thomas. Thomas is our would-be van cat. He came to us as a kitten, an angry, anti-social ball of fluff. Two years later and he wasn’t changed much, but he's grown to love us deep down.

He used to love coming for rides in the van with us, exploring our park-ups by the beach or on the cliffs, but when we left for our second trip we felt we weren’t ready for the responsibility of a pet to take with us.

As much as we would love to have a furry companion on the road, a little foot warmer in bed, a little adventure kitty to take on walks, we didn’t want to be held back. We wouldn’t be able to leave our van for lengths of time. We wouldn’t be able to go to parties. We’d have to be mindful of temperature and climate, and we would always have the fear of losing him. We agreed that having a pet in a van would suit a different style of travelling to our own.

We struggled seeing all of the stray cats and dogs on our travels, of which so many roam the streets of the Balkans, astray, unfed, unloved. It gets harder and harder each time to leave them behind, and they remind us so poignantly of our own cats at home.

But still, Thomas is our little mechanic. Whenever we’re working on the van, power tools blaring, hammers clanging, wind howling he’s out there with us. He’ll stand on his back legs and place his little paws on the bonnet to get a good look at the engine while we’re working on it, or curl up into a ball on the comfiest oily rag he can find. He’ll happily cosy up on the van bed while we’re cleaning, and once got himself locked inside and ended up at the beach with Ben.

The hardest part of leaving home is leaving our family and our cats behind, and if we could bundle them all into our van and take them with us we would.