The Cat was a delicate eater, neat and tidy and methodical.

She ate slowly and deliberately and, if she was particularly enjoying her food (her favourites were duck and rabbit) she would lick the enameled dish right up to the edge, to make sure she got every last morsel.

As the boss and matriarch, she was generally fed first and it was unusual for her to share a bowl with anyone except her own family (in the photo above she is sharing with her young son, Blackfur). So, to see her sharing with another female adult such as Cheese in the photo following, was unusual.

As she got older, The Cat developed FOPS (Feline Orofacial Pain Syndrome), a nasty condition which, in her case, was associated with eating. It took her and the humans completely by surprise when, one morning, she suddenly started clawing in panic at her mouth and shaking her head, blood spattering everywhere.

From that time on, both she and the humans started to learn to live with it. We all learnt to panic less, and we started to feed her on her own in a raised box to reduce stress (which can be a contributor to the condition) and make sure her mealtimes were focused on her, and her alone.

The only cats permitted to join The Cat in her special box (aka The Fourposter) were her kittens, Flora and Furrileesa, as their presence didn’t cause their mother stress.

If she had an episode of FOPS, I would immediately remove her bowl (otherwise she would stamp in it in panic as she pawed at her face), and keep the other cats away until she had calmed down.

Sometimes, in bad weather, she had her bowl inside a pod – a luxury afforded only to her in her unique position as matriarch – or on the pallets under the feeding station in front of the pods. In later years, her daughter Flora would join her to eat here

FOPS was a distressing and nasty affliction and, once again, something that the humans had to research, diagnose and educate themselves about – and yet another example of the wealth of cat-related things which we learnt while looking after the feral cats.

(The header photo shows The Cat eating in the drive while Lychee looks on. Lychee was a frail kitten and was adopted into the Garden Family and, within a day or two of this photo, was on antibiotics for her infection).