Veronika Wild

A chilled out Pablo at the Hobart Cat Café Cat Cafés are all the rage, so on Sunday, at the insistence of my daughter and granddaughters, I  visited the one in North Hobart to see what they were all about. Taiwan is officially credited with starting the first Cat Café in 1998, but the idea was so popular with Japanese tourists that they soon started their own. Since then they have flourished around the world, particularly in regions where pet ownership is becoming more problematic.   Even in little old Hobart getting a rental property which allows animals – no, not so much as a goldfish, is almost impossible, as my daughter recently found out. At last count some 30 countries from Latvia to India, from Russia to Canada, from New Zealand to Denmark had Cat Cafés with more being added every day.  A more aloof Tiger Lily reposes on a stool Not all of them are the same. Some have cats which can be adopted offering new hope to abandoned cats; others onl...

If you go down to the park today, you're sure of a big surprise.... I was down in St. David’s Park this morning just for a bit of a laugh. That’s right, a formal laugh with the Hobart Laughter Club.  Not a big crowd today -only six of us whereas there are normally about 13 or 14, but the sun was shining and it was great day for making  an idiot of oneself.  Annette, second from right in the picture, was today's cheerleader.  If it seems a bit contrived having to get together expressly for the purpose of having a laugh, then let me tell you the strange looks you get aren’t half as strange as the ones you get if you laugh out loud in public by yourself. So here were making weird noises and practising different kinds of laughter for no apparent reason. There were belly laughs, the Bailey’s Irish cream laugh, Simon Says laughs, snide laughs, an angry laugh and one or two others which I have already forgotten. No jokes needed - just getting those laughter muscles wo...