When my dear Black Maria died -- she was mortally injured by a motorist who deliberately swerved to hit her -- I was left with two cats in the house and two "pensioners" (cats resident elsewhere who hung about my garden waiting for handouts of grub and attention). I had adjusted to a three-cat household, don't ask me how!, and the Universe had apparently established three as my carrying capacity, for a new Number Three appeared within a couple of months of Maria's death. That was Cecil, who popped into the kitchen one summer evening as I was putting out the garbage and never left.

Cecil died of pancreatic disease toward the end of October about six years later. We were down to two cats again, and the Universe allowed us to operate under strength throughout the winter. In early April, Old Bill arrived at the back door, sick and wounded and infested after a winter on the street, and demanded entry. Standing on his hind paws, he hammered on the door and yelled until we opened up. Bill, too, lived out his days with us.

The Universe seems to have re-assessed our carrying capacity, as we have now been a two-cat household for about ten years. It isn't that we are hostile to the idea of another cat, but that no other cat has appeared at the gangplank (as it were) and asked permission to come aboard. That may be because the current incumbents, Watson and Isobel, live entirely indoors, and so the outside territory is controlled by cats who live elsewhere. I imagine their people occasionally receive refugees ...