At the end of the story you will find some related activities.
I would love it if you tried some and shared them with me at tiikat@tiikat.com
Look out for the throughout my journal and click on the paw to find out more!
My Journal Ram-jammed with colourful ideas
Can one person change the world with their imagination?
Waltzing whiskers that’s a big enough thought to keep me occupied into next week!
The idea all started as a new passenger joined us on board The Purrpoise!
It’s always exciting when I get to meet new people, even if I sometimes do get a little nervous before a first introduction.
Our new passenger is particularly interesting as she’s a professor of psychology! (I had no idea what psychology was until today, but now I know I am fascinated).
Professor Imogen Braintree explained that she studied behaviour and how minds work. She normally studied human behaviour, but she said she could study cat behaviour too and wants to use me as one of her case studies (with Sisu too)! She told me that she is impressed by the amount of imagination used in our games. This made me feel very purroud!
I am an expert in cattitude and also think I have quite a good understanding of human attitude and non feline feelings. I find people’s thoughts and behaviours so intriguing! Human behaviour is sometimes rather unusual in my opinion.
Professor Braintree’s research means she needs to travel a lot, so she is hitching a lift on the ship for this part of her journey. I had no idea anyone was joining us, when suddenly a local fishing boat pulled up alongside The Purrpoise and she hopped off it onto our ship. She went to university with Erasmus a long time ago and he had persuaded the captain to let her travel with us!
The professor told me that she is studying imagination. She says the ability to use it is something that everyone has in common and can be done anywhere! By meeting different people around the world in different environments, she can study how they all use their imagination.
Travelling the world, studying human behaviour and also looking at imagination, what a wonderful job! I could imagine myself doing something like that when I am an older cat.
I certainly couldn’t live without my imagination.
What if we didn’t have an imagination?
Oh no!!! I just realised I need to use my imagination to think about the answer so if we didn’t have it this question couldn’t exist. Thinking about it puts a wobble in my whiskers!
What exactly is imagination anyway? It has something to do with ideas and creativity of course. I will ask Professor Braintree more about it tomorrow.
I can’t help but think about all the things I would have missed if I couldn’t use my imagination.
Would it even be possible to understand what we see properly without using some part of our imagination? Hmm, I wonder…
Without imagination Sisu and I certainly wouldn’t be able to have nearly as much fun! I try to think about all the wonderful adventures we have had using just our imagination.
The many exhilarating days we have had creating our own detective stories on the ship (Haircule Purrot or Furlock Holmes at your service), including ‘The Mystery of Mouseford Manor’, ‘The Puzzle of Pawstone Park’ and ‘The Case of the Disappearing Cheese’…
Sisu is the Queen of Imagination! I have learnt a lot from her. I used mine all the time back in my Finnish forest home, but she takes it to another level of magic!
Thinking of home…
Imagining being there so long ago makes me remember the sunny forest days when I sailed one of my homemade boats on the lake I used to imagine being on a ship out at sea, and now I am really on one! How curious life can be…
Nagano and I also used to create different games in the forest back home: imagining we were ninjas one day, superstar chefs the next.
Sisu loves to create plays, which I never thought of doing before. And whooshing whiskers! Being part of them is thrilling! Sometimes we act them out to the ship’s crew, but often they are just for us.
Pawsome Plays by the SAT (Sisu and Tiikat) Superstars
The Midsea Night’s Dream
Tall Tales from a Tall Tail.
Lifeboat Len and the Crow’s Nest Cat
Not only does she come up with magical play ideas, but Sisu also uses her extraordinary imagination when doing experiments.
Sisu has been the only child living on board The Purrpoise (though there were some visitors), so until I joined the ship she would often work with imaginary partners. Marie Curie, Ada Lovelace and Albert Einstein are just some of the amazing scientists and mathematicians she has worked with on her experiments and investigations!
She has picked some truly great people to join her on her many other escapades too, dancing with Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev while Tchaikovsky conducted the accompanying musicians, debating alongside Martin Luther King Jr. or Plato, adventuring with David Attenborough or flying with Amelia Earhart.
I didn’t know who they all were, so it is very interesting to learn about these amazing humans!
Thankfully, Sisu hasn’t left all of these wonderful people behind now that I am on The Purrpoise with her. They still appear, just maybe not quite so often as I am her purrfect partner in crime.
Her imagination is so powerful that I get lost in it with her until I believe that they are here alongside us too. Sometimes I think they must actually be here as Sisu has such insightful conversations with them. She also does not hesitate with pulling them up on something they have done that she disagrees with!
On the subject of imagination, Professor Braintree pointed out something about my tail that I hadn’t realised before. She observed that I use it particularly imaginatively. I am so used to using it that I hadn’t ever thought about it before. I wonder how many things we all do without realising how wonderful they are?
Sisu has often tried to imagine what having a tail would be like. It is hard for me to describe the feeling, as I have never not had one!
I could not say how many different ways I have used my tremendously long tail.
I use it to swing from masts, as a skipping rope, create moustaches on people’s faces, give Sisu a hat or beard, tickle people when hiding (like Mr Tickle), pretend it’s a snake on floor to scare the crew and for countless more different uses.
Now that Professor Braintree has sparked my curiosity and I have been thinking more about imagination I have realised how art, music, science and almost everything wonderful requires imagination. The world would be a very boring place without it.
Cook Pumpernickel also has great imagination I have to admit, even though I am not her biggest fan (mainly because she most certainly isn’t mine). She requires it to produce all that delicious food.
I love being imaginative with food too when I am allowed in the kitchen. I watch the cook when I can (WHEN SHE DOESN’T THREATEN TO BAKE ME IN A PIE!). I try to learn from her talent and then use my own knowledge of flavours to produce my own creations.
I have lost count of the different flavours of ice-creams I have created and I absolutely love to steep all kinds of fruit, flowers and herbs in water to make tea (or Tii as I like to call it).
Sisu and I spend many afternoons combining her science know-how and my cooking ability in delicious (and sometimes not so delicious) food experiments. One whisker-wrigglingly wonderful day, we even managed to make a giant floating meringue!
I can’t wait to experiment more in the kitchen. I wonder what I will come up with next?!
What inspires imagination? That’s another giant thought. Other people’s creativity is definitely very inspiring. I am inspired by things like nature, reading, art, music, talking to people and even when I am just sitting quietly in thought looking around me. I wonder if it is the same for everyone?
Boat tennis is our very own version of tennis using rackets we crafted out of card and string and a ball made out of foil and rubber bands. We had experimented with lots of different materials for our ball, even using cooked pasta and butter for one but we found this combination to work the best.
Today Sisu and I were even inspired by one of our own creations! We used our imagination and were able to invent something new when we most needed it.
We had been playing boat tennis on the deck when our ball flew high over Sisu’s head, landing just at the edge of the railing. As we ran over to collect it, it wobbled and rolled off the ship!
We watched over, as it bounced off the side below onto a small ledge far down, almost touching the water. How would we ever get it back?
It took quite some time and lots of rubber bands so we didn’t want to lose it and have to start again! And even more importantly, we didn’t want to add to the rubbish that ends up in the ocean.
We knew we didn’t have much time before it would fall off its resting point into the deep dark ocean below. Would we be able to rescue it? We both racked our brains, trying to come up with a solution.
What inspires imagination? That’s another giant thought. Other people’s creativity is definitely very inspiring. I am inspired by things like nature, reading, art, music, talking to people and even when I am just sitting quietly in thought looking around me. I wonder if it is the same for everyone?
Today Sisu and I were even inspired by one of our own creations! We used our imagination and were able to invent something new when we most needed it.
We had been playing boat tennis on the deck when our ball flew high over Sisu’s head, landing just at the edge of the railing. As we ran over to collect it, it wobbled and rolled off the ship!
We watched over, as it bounced off the side below onto a small ledge far down, almost touching the water. How would we ever get it back?
Boat tennis is our very own version of tennis using rackets we crafted out of card and string and a ball made out of foil and rubber bands. We had experimented with lots of different materials for our ball, even using cooked pasta and butter for one but we found this combination to work the best.
It took quite some time and lots of rubber bands so we didn’t want to lose it and have to start again! And even more importantly, we didn’t want to add to the rubbish that ends up in the ocean.
We knew we didn’t have much time before it would fall off its resting point into the deep dark ocean below. Would we be able to rescue it? We both racked our brains, trying to come up with a solution.
Suddenly, I remembered a contraption we had invented during one of our games! We had been using the lifeboat den and decided we needed a way to lift food up from below, so we wouldn’t have to clamber down to get it every time. Then there would be more time for catnaps and adventures!
After some trial and error, we successfully created a kind of pulley system using a rope and bucket hooked over the oar rest. It worked purrfectly! We managed to persuade people walking past to fetch us provisions (Sol and Captain Roughwater obliged, but Cook Pumpernickel wasn’t so keen).
Could we use our imagination to adapt this to what we needed now and save our ball?
While we could use the bucket on a pulley to collect the ball, how would we get it in there?
Then Sisu had a brainwave! The cleaning cupboard was ajar and she spotted the broom sticking out. We just needed to attach something to it to make it long enough.
Rushing to the cupboard we looked inside and found the perfect thing, a long mop! We could tape the mop to the broom, making an extra long handle. How funny that the things that we needed were what we normally dreaded having to use normally!
With the pulley and long broom in place I called for some help from Carlota and her mice. The broom and mop together were heavy, and too much of a challenge for Sisu and I to handle alone. We needed the mice to work the pulley system.
As a team, we all had to concentrate very hard to guide our equipment to just the right place without knocking the ball. Finally the ball made it back up to deck. We were oh so relieved!
We had come up with a creative solution to a problem that needed our imagination!
Later on, when we told Professor Braintree about what had happened (to help her with her case study on us), she explained how important imagination has been in creating advances in science and technology.
Of course! How had I not thought about this before? Inventors think about people’s needs or problems and use their imagination to come up with solutions.
Tii-rific Inventions
(some examples of inventions by me and Sisu!)
Travelling Tii-tray -A moveable tray to help clear up easily after snacks or games
Meowlting Madness -A device for melting a little cheese in the oven
Tiikat’s Tunes Extender Extreme II – Used to play musical instruments from far away (great for scaring people!)
SiSuper Swing – A rope swing going from our lifeboat den to the deck (Nagano would love this!)
Magical Marble Mystery Maze – the best marble maze in the world (in our opinion)!
Some things I would like to invent
A machine that tidies my room for me
Something that makes my tail more invisible (so I can sneak around without it giving me away)
A sleeping bag or bed with moving legs to carry me around still tucked up and cosy
A device that brushes my teeth and fur at the same time
Some amazing moveable sets for plays and performances
A bath that doesn’t make you wet
Maybe if Sisu and I continue using our imagination to the full we could even come up with a new groundbreaking invention or solution in the future that could change the world! We’ll have fun trying at least…
And of course, I need to practice using my imagination for my artistic endeavors too!
This evening the entire crew were able to use our imagination together. What fun it was! Even Cook Pumpernickel joined in. Professor Braintree had brought some story telling dice with her and we sat in a circle on deck creating magical mysteries and terrific tales with them.
Some were absolutely hilarious and had us all in stitches. Sisu and I couldn’t help ourselves but to roll around the floor, tears of laughter pouring down our cheeks. The fact that many of the characters in the stories were based on the crew made them especially funny.
Sisu gave one of the stories a rather scary turn. She was so good at it that my ears pinned themselves back and I instinctively curled myself into a ball. I soon unfurled myself as, of course, this was just a story. We whiled away several hours playing this game, the dice inspiring our imaginations and our creativity.
This evening’s stories included:
The Bear who ate the Colours
Lost in the Woods?
The Time the Waves Stopped Waving
Shipwreck on Ice-cream Island
Ake Jarvinen sat with us too, silently rocking on his chair for the first 5 rounds, only once exclaiming “oh fishhooks” during Sisu’s tale of terror. I assumed that, as he is hard of hearing, that he couldn’t hear most of what was going on. How wrong I must have been!
We were just finishing one particularly exciting story thread, ‘The Lighthouse in the Clouds’, when suddenly he piped up with “It is good to sometimes have your head in the clouds. It is only up there where can you feel the full force of the light.” We thought this was a perfect way to end the story and it also seems like a purrfect way to end this journal entry on imagination.
What a wonderful, imagination-filled day!
Imagine I’ll be back soon..
Can all animals imagine? I wonder what others are imagining right this minute? Imagination can take you anywhere so the possibilities are endless!
You may be able to spot some animals dreaming on the next page….
Why not try drawing a picture from your own imagination?
Want to explore more about imagination? Why not check out some of these activities?
Explore. Learn. Create.
@2020 Tiikat. All rights reserved.
