Whitefur, Greyfur and Blackfur (collectively known as ‘The Furries’) were a close family as kittens. However, they had very different personalities which meant that they happily all went their separate ways as they matured. That didn’t mean that we didn’t see them, as they returned to eat and spend time in the garden with their mother.

But their first few months spent in the garden was a closely bonded time for them and it was not a surprise to look down from the terrace one sunny day and see them napping in a neat row, as though they had lined themselves up for a photo shoot.

Napping in a row was something that they continued to do during their first months. Whitefur and Greyfur were still minded to snuggle up (head-to-head here) whereas Blackfur was more independent; it looks in this photo as though he’s just pushed in to his siblings’ nap in a ‘me too! Me too!!’ moment.

Obviously, the fierce heat of the summer was not conducive to snuggling up with your furry littermates so they must have convened a family meeting and decided that napping during the summer would be carried out landscape-style, as opposed to portrait-style. Once again it looks as though Whitefur and Greyfur were already napping tail-to-tail when Blackfur tagged himself on the end of the row.

And when the weather cooled, efforts were made to revert to previous form, although once again it looks as though it was Blackfur who dared to be different.

And the last photo of them napping together in a family group is from when they were five months old. Their future body shapes and sizes were more evident here; Greyfur was growing into the biggest of the three, a big, powerful cat, thickset and solid. Whitefur was a lean, tomboy-ish figure, graceful and leggy. And Blackfur was long like his mother; he loved to sleep stretched out on his back which made him appear longer than ever.

From this time, they still spent time together inasmuch as they all came to the garden to eat, but they didn’t seek each other out. They were three individuals with their own lives to live, which was exactly what their mother had brought them up to be.