The following year saw four alpha-males in the neighbourhood. As regards the orange cats, Saturday had moved on, but G7 was still around. G7 had originally come from the direction of the other garden over the fields where cats were also fed, so, although he wasn’t friendly, he was accustomed to having humans around. This meant that, unlike most of the other males, G7 was happy to spend time in the narrow front path where humans might need to walk past you.

This was music to the ears of Kbir, a grey-and-white alpha-male, as he was not happy anywhere near humans and kept his activities to the fields and the garden where he was less likely to come across humans (and more likely to be able to escape safely).

Mr Tiffin (also shown in the header photo) had started off as Sprocket’s boyfriend and had now been around for around eighteen months. He had worked his way up through the ranks and was a handsome grey-and-white cat with peppermint green eyes. The Cat tolerated Mr Tiffin and they were occasionally spotted napping close by.

And then there was NVQ who had made his mark in the fields on the other side of the road and was looking to expand his territory. He was mostly oblivious to the charms of The Cat and her garden, having plenty of female company in the fields where he spent most of his time. He was probably the fiercest of this group of males and would go out of his way to pick fights with up-and-coming younger cats, and the other alpha-males.

It was hard to know for sure which of the male cats found favour with The Cat as she spent some of her time out in the fields. But as regarded the garden, she tolerated Mr Tiffin, G7 (when he came to the garden), and Kbir. She didn’t seem to be bothered one way or another with NVQ, and his agenda on The Cat’s side of the road was weighted towards fighting other alpha-males and keeping competition to a minimum, rather than begetting kittens.