On the whole, The Cat was quite a solitary creature when it came to cats outside her own family (with the exception of certain romantic attachments along the way, as dictated by her hormones).
As the matriarch, it was generally other cats who joined her, for instance to relax in a group after feeding, and The Cat was never seen to chase any of them away, even when occasionally the group included non-family members such as Cheese, who was Souci and Flora’s best friend.
Seeing The Cat so accepting of her female family’s close friends underlined the few occasions on which she took a strong dislike to visiting females, the first of whom was Visitor Cat, followed by Madam Kiwi and Phantom, all of whom The Cat would chase out of the garden – quite a reaction from a cat who seemed to aspire to appear as busy as possible while expending as little effort as possible.
One more Visiting Cat who The Cat really would not tolerate was Supervisor Cat who lived in the fields at the back of the garden. Unusually, Supervisor’s territory stretched to the next road and beyond, and into the garden of a house on the other side of that road. Going by Supervisor’s appearance, there can have been very few rodents left in the garden of that house as she was a solidly-built cat who looked as though she had no problem in finding several square meals each day without too much effort.
Supervisor was one of the Visiting Cats who only appeared at certain times of the year, in her case, during the hottest summer months. This could have been because the hunting was not as good in the height of the summer, or maybe because a human who put food out for garden cats was absent during the holiday season. Whatever the reason, Supervisor somehow found her way to The Cat’s garden where she was doubtless delighted to find food readily available.
She made herself at home and was on the way to becoming a regular visitor when The Cat suddenly took a violent dislike to her, chasing her out of the garden.
Although Supervisor didn’t look as though a day or two without food would be too big a deal, she had obviously noticed that Visitor Cat (who The Cat had also chased out of the garden) was being fed on the top of the garden wall and whatever food which we left there for Visitor Cat could easily be consumed without setting a paw on The Cat’s hallowed turf.
As with Visitor Cat, The Cat did not have a problem with the cats she had banished from the garden being on the garden walls, and so a compromise appeared to have been reached, and Visitor Cat did not seem too perturbed that someone else was eating her food.
But, whereas Visitor went to great lengths not to enter the garden, it seemed that The Cat did not trust Supervisor to do the same, and so The Cat would shadow Supervisor round the garden walls, observing her every move, waiting while Supervisor ate Visitor Cat’s food, and generally making sure that Supervisor Cat jumped down into the field and did not try to re-enter The Cat’s orbit.
