Cheese and Cracker were born, along with littermates T and Biscuit, to Visitor Cat in the field.

It was obvious quite early on that the girls were twins, both almost completely black with a tiny white patch under their chin. Visitor brought her family to the drive for weaning; it was convenient as it was just on the other side of the wall from the field.

Cheese (above) and Cracker (below) explored and played with their mother and littermates.

The weeks passed with the family spending their time between the drive and the fields until the kittens (by then just T and the twins) discovered the garden and decided to make it their home. By then, they were weaned and Visitor Cat became an occasional visitor, leaving her offspring to make their own way in the garden rather than risk the wrath of The Cat, who was not fond of Visitor.

T was very conscious of his role as protector of his sisters and they stuck together as a family group until T felt it was his duty to take over as protector of his new younger sisters, Fennel and She-ba, when Visitor Cat brought them to the garden. By then, they were young adults, independent but still strongly bonded.

Around that time, the individual characters of the girls started to emerge, as they became more friendly and accustomed to having the humans around. And, as their different characters manifested themselves in different ways, slowly it became possible for one of the humans to distinguish one twin from the other – something that had been well-nigh impossible before.