The Cat had a selection of different coloured kittens over her life. Although she was a tortoiseshell cat and had a soft spot for orange-coloured gentlemen, it did not follow that there was always a tortoiseshell (or calico) or orange cat in her litter.

When we arrived, The Cat had two young adult kittens living with her in the garden. They were Ana Half-Tail (orange) and his brother Pea Cat (black-and-white), and it was to be another four years before we saw another adult male black-and-white cat (who we called Corky). The Cat led Corky a merry dance around the garden before unceremoniously sending him packing; obviously he had failed his audition (probably by virtue of the fact that he was the wrong colour).

So it seemed incongruous that The Cat gave birth to two more black-and-white / tuxedo kittens in later years – Fred four years after Pea Cat, and then Blackfur, another four years after that.

Pea Cat was a handsome cat; the black was very black and the white was very white. He was not at all friendly, and neither were The Cat and Ana at that time. Even if you ignore the fur colour, Pea Cat and Ana were very different; Pea Cat’s eyes were almond shaped and his head was smaller – there were no clues that they were brothers.

Fred was quite different from Pea Cat. He had a white collar which opened out into a large white bib at the front, and asymmetric black markings on his face. He was very protective of his mother and three sisters even as a kitten.

And once again, Blackfur was completely different. After using up a couple of his nine lives with a life-threatening abscess as a kitten and then an argument with a moving car on the road, he grew up into a fine adult, outliving his mother (he is featured in the header picture).

You’d have thought that three kittens of the same colour from the same mother would share some features, but they really did not appear to (apart from the obvious – they were all boys and they all had two eyes, two ears, a leg at each corner and a tail). The Cat never failed to surprise us.