A triptych dedicated to Ruggero the cat of Provence.
Actually I cannot claim for sure that he’s called Ruggero, but I can assure you that he seemed to like the name.
Ruggero is definitely the plumpest and hairy big cat I had even seen.
It was not easy to take photos of him, for the reason related to his peculiar personality and the reduced daily light at the time when we usually met (either early in the morning or in the evening).
To explain how we got familiar with Ruggero is necessary a preamble.
My friend and travel mate Sergey Nikolayevich Merzlikin is a smoker, that is a confirmation of the saying “none is perfect”.
When we were together in Aix-en-Provence, Sergey used to go downstairs to smoke his first cigarette in the street.
He got acquainted with Ruggero for that circumstance.
Ruggero wore a green collar and seemed to be healthy and wise, even though very old, but he lived in the street, sleeping on a bush of grass which had grown wildly on the sidewalk.
Ruggero fell in love with Sergey at the first sight.
Ruggero waited for him every morning and materialized himself by Sergey’s legs as soon as he had lit his cigarette.
Then they walked together along the sidewalk, when Sergey stopped, Ruggero stopped, when Sergey started walking again, Ruggero did the same, side, by side.
When it was time to start our daily peregrination, we told goodbye to Ruggero, who disappeared.
When we arrived back “home” in the evening, Ruggero was not visible, but a second later he appeared and sat by Sergey’s feet.
So they walked for a while side by side, then we wished him good night and he disappeared again.
The last morning, when we were leaving with our suitcases and bags, Ruggero was there and accepted graciously to be photographed, and then he didn’t walk by us, but remained sitting on the sidewalk looking at us until we turned the corner.