With Quink gone and Longtail pursuing his own agenda in the fields, Dinky was left to his own devices.

The Cat’s initial antagonism had passed and she and Dinky got on well, occasionally sharing sentry duty on the garden wall and napping together on the water tank under the olive tree.

Dinky still spent time gazing out into the fields and maybe that was when he noticed the black cat who had previously been spotted with Longtail.

This cat looked malnourished and exhausted, and it was Dinky who led the newcomer slowly over the fields one afternoon, stopping every few yards so the weaker cat could keep up. Eventually they arrived at the garden wall and, with a lot of effort, the black cat jumped up and found the bowl of food we had left for it.

This thin, wary cat who Dinky had rescued was to become Madam Kiwi, a CH (cerebellar hypoplasia) cat, and it was thanks to Dinky that she became a regular visitor, coming mostly to the feeding bowls in the front path and drive which were easier for her to access.

The following year, Dinky brought another cat to the garden, this time a pretty calico with whom he was quite obsessed. Once he had lured her into the garden by sitting behind the wall wailing loudly, he followed her round like a lovestruck teenager while she emptied every bowl she could find. She was used to people and had probably been fed in another garden previously, and we called her Sabiħa, meaning ‘beautiful’, to reflect Dinky’s obsession.

It seemed that Longtail was not the only cat with his own agenda – Dinky was turning into a cat who rescued other cats.