I always remember the vet in St Neots telling us that Nigel was going to be a small cat. He arrived at the home of my late and much missed friend Heather. He might have been in the back of a van delivering lawnmowers to Heather’s husband. The tiny scrap (at the time nameless) was hungry and lost. Heather called me for some cat food but before I left my house she had decided to take the kit to the vet to check if he was microchipped. He wasn’t and the vet kept him at the surgery for a week and advertised the lost creature on social media. Nobody claimed him and we asked if we might take him in as we had recently lost one of our two black cats who had been run over by a distraught motorist (it was not his fault, Mack had misjudged running across the road). We collected the stray and brought him home where his appetite did him proud and he grew and grew and grew into a very large and handsome cat with the name that the veterinary nurses had given him – Nigel.

Since then Nigel has become a major feature of our menagerie. He has a huge personality, is a prodigious hunter, a tree climber and a thief who uses his paws to open doors and dishes. Several visiting electricians and plumbers have lost their lunch sandwiches because they have left their van doors ajar. We warn contractors to lock their vehicles when Nigel is outside.

No longer young and slightly overweight, Nigel continues to hunt and climb and sit on our laps either purring loudly or play fighting – depending on his mood and ours.

This morning he managed to climb up onto the roof of the pergola