When we first met her, The Cat was spending a lot of her time in the fields. She would return to the drive to drink and also if there was food on offer (which was not a daily occurence before we were living there), and sometimes took her siesta in the garden in the shade of the fruit trees.

When we took over feeding, we fed The Cat and Ana daily at the bottom of the drive in the shade of the olive tree and in front of the garden date. Once this routine was established, The Cat (and Ana) started spending more time in the drive, knowing that food was now a definite rather than a maybe. They ate enthusiastically – a bowl of food was much less hard work than hunting, after all – and, as you can see from this photo, they were keen to take advantage of any omission by the humans to replace the lid on the kibble bucket.

At that time, The Cat still chose to have her kittens in the fields and, for a busy mamma who was sustaining a hungry and thirsty family, she returned regularly to the drive to rehydrate. Her firm favourite was water from the well with a hint (or more than a hint) of green.

When the kittens were big enough to follow their mother over the wall separating the drive from the fields, the drive was the first place to which they came for weaning and to explore. But until then, she would leap nimbly onto the wall, leaving a little row of expectant faces behind in the fields.

From there, they would eventually follow their mother into the garden, once they were big and strong enough to make the jump from the field wall up to the high wall under the olive tree, which divided the drive from the garden. And, of course, knowing that there were kittens visiting the garden, we started to provide food there as well as in the drive.

So, in reality, during those early years, the drive was an important halfway point for The Cat, and she would spend time resting there when she had kittens in the fields as she could be back in the field in a flash, should a kitten alarm be sounded. Obviously there were plenty of more comfortable places for a nap, but for some reason best know to herself, she really liked this corner.

But then again, it was not for us to attempt to understand the workings of a cat’s mind – at that time, we were simply there to supply food.