The first Visiting Cat to become a regular visitor was Mr Grey; it was easy to name him as he had no predecessors, he was obviously male, and also obviously Grey. So his name described him perfectly. That was nice and easy.

The next was Visitor Cat. Once again, naming her was easy as there were only a few regular visitors. The Cat, however, had other ideas and chased Visitor out of the garden, Visitor was unlikely to be forgotten, although she continued to visit but only as far as the top of the wall where we took to feeding her, after that day.

Next came Saturday. And yes, it was on a Saturday that he first appeared on the garden wall. And also yes, The Cat’s heart probably missed a beat as she espied the handsome orange gentleman heading towards the food bowls. Another nice easy name to come up with.

Sniffly Cat was a constant sniffer so, once again, she was easy to name. Maybe she carried the herpes virus which flared up under stress and made her sniff – who knows? But Sniffly suited her, and her name stuck.

Mystery Cat really was a mystery. In fact it was hard to make out whether it was the same grey-and-white cat in the field each time we spotted her, but once she plucked up courage to come to the food bowls in the front path, we knew it was her. She avoided humans at all costs and never came close if she knew we were there.

And last for today is Durante (who later transformed into G4, the first of the orange cats named by letter and number). He was an avid sniffer and everywhere he went, he sniffed (as opposed to Sniffly Cat who probably should have been named Snuffly). He sniffed the air sitting on the wall. He sniffed the food bowls. He sniffed the boxes and crates … you get the picture. So we named him for Jimmy ‘Schnozzle’ Durante, the famous actor.

Naming cats was a funny thing; sometimes a name came to you immediately, and sometimes it took a while. Sometimes the way a name suddenly appeared in your mind made it seem as though they had told you what it was – and I like to think they did.