The Cat’s garden family of 2012 numbered four small characters, namely Ginge, Splodge, Tabby and Blackie. The names were a vain attempt to avoid becoming attached to them by not naming them at all. But some sort of identification was necessary so it was either One, Two, Three and Four, or a name identifying them by colour. Whatever the name (or lack of), it was impossible not to become attached. Epic fail.

During the long hot Summer days, finding a suitable shaded spot for siesta was a necessity and Tabby and Blackie favoured sleeping under the olive tree. Tabby was by nature the less adventurous of these two but excelled himself on the day he earned his full name Tabby Bucket-Head. Whatever made him think that sleeping with his head in a plastic pail in the height of the Summer was a good idea, we’ll never know. Suffice to say that, however cool he might have been when he fell asleep, he awoke in a stifled panic of hot bucketty air, much to the consternation of Blackie who was peacefully asleep, probably dreaming happy kitten dreams of chasing geckos and butterflies.

Needless to say, Tabby’s future siestas were taken ‘en plein air’. Blackie insisted. No more playing at Roman soldiers with a plastic helmet for Tabby. Those days were in the past.