The Garden Family numbers were boosted in the spring that The Cat and Sprocket raised their families together. There were seven new kittens, four of The Cat’s and three of Sprocket’s, and the decision was taken that the two biggest would be rehomed.

The Cat was an experienced mother and her kittens were bigger and stronger. Her two sons, Orangiboom and Tippex, were the first to emerge from the nest when they lived on the terrace for two weeks under a pile of branches. Their smaller littermates would follow, one by one, as they became big and strong enough.

Orangiboom was the biggest of all; he was an easy-going, fluffy, orange-and-white boy with big paws and a placid disposition.

His brother Tippex was the next biggest; he was also orange-and-white but with a shorter coat and more athletic build (and a more feral character).

When the boys were eleven weeks old, they left for our local rescue centre and were soon rehomed together to their forever home where they lived a happy indoors/outdoors life in another village.

Whether Orangiboom and Tippex knew that The Cat was their mother was not clear – after all, they had been brought up equally by both The Cat and Sprocket – but The Cat certainly knew they were her sons, and she knew they had gone missing. For seven days after they left she roamed the garden with Sprocket at her side, calling, looking for them, searching and wondering. And then her focus turned to the rest of their family, and life went on, as it always does.