The first year that The Cat had her kittens in the garden was the year that she and Sprocket brought up their families together. The Cat gave birth behind a pile of branches in a dark corner of the garden under the olive tree and, a few days later, Sprocket did likewise.

After two weeks in the garden, we woke one morning to find Sprocket busily carrying the kittens to our first floor terrace where she tucked them away under a pile of freshly pruned olive branches which were waiting to go down to the garden. If we had been more diligent and taken the branches down as soon as we had cut them from the tree, we would never have been able to observe the feline family on our terrace.

The Cat stationed herself right at the back of the pile under the branches and against the wall, presumably to care for the smaller, frailer kittens, while Sprocket looked after the stronger ones in their leafy den, and introduced them to daylight and the terrace.

Over the next few days, the kittens came out one by one, the biggest first – pictured here are The Cat’s two orange boys, Oranjiboom and Tippex, who eventually went to a new home in another village.

We knew that there were initially eight kittens, but had no idea how many had survived until the last one (number seven) emerged a few days later, followed by The Cat. She was comparatively tiny, but full of spirit, something that would set Snopake in good stead.

We placed two boxes on the terrace lined with garden netting and fresh olive leaves, one for each mother to lie in and feed, and the big family settled down to two weeks of life on the terrace until time came for weaning and they were taken back to the garden.

We felt so privileged to have been part of their lives at this point; it was something that never happened again and we considered ourselves lucky.