The Visiting Cats came and went. They had always been fed by the local farmers in return for rodent control services, and some of the male feral cats roamed far and wide.

Visiting Cat and top alpha-male NVQ was a big, burly cat, a fighter, a bully, and completely feral. Other cats (especially males) scattered as he approached, and even the females avoided him with only a couple of exceptions – it seemed that his reputation really did precede him.

At the time we first saw him, we had only ever seen one or two black-and-white cats in the fields, one of whom was Quink. So it seemed that a good name for this new cat would be Not Very Quink, or NVQ for short. He was one of the cats who came regularly for the longest time during our stay there.

Female feral cats tend not to roam as much, so some of the more regular faces at the feeding bowls were those of the ladies who visited week in, week out like Kiwi, our CH Visiting Cat, who continued to visit even after her kittens were weaned. She was a lot stronger now, and could visit the garden if she wanted to (although The Cat chased her out if she spotted her).

One new face was Sabiħa who came from a garden across the fields. She probably had a permanent home there as she was affectionate and used to humans. Dinky was smitten by her and followed her round like a lovelorn teenager, gazing adoringly at her.

Sniffly Cat continued to visit; in all probability, she came from the same area (or even the same garden) as Sabiħa. Sniffly was still not friendly but at least she had got used to us enough not to run away as soon as she saw us. For a feral cat, that is progress.

And another new face was Twilight, a feral tortoiseshell cat who also spent time in the culvert and the local vineyards . She was completely feral and, to start with, never visited the garden, eating only in the drive or front path. Unusually for a female, she covered quite a large area, although she didn’t seem friendly with many of the other feral cats with the exception of NVQ, the bad boy of the neighbourhood.

And Visitor (also pictured at the top) was still a regular in the garden, although now that Tiger was weaned she returned to eating on top of the wall or on a plastic crate, just in case The Cat rekindled her original dislike of her.

Despite being generally friendly and accustomed to humans, Visitor had a very unpredictable streak and would lash out for no reason at all, a trait which she was to pass down to a couple of her daughters.