Lapsang was our black and white cat, who left only a month or so before Enya also did. In one sense, he defined the time of her stay with me, as he first materialised at her previous place on the eve on my arrival to collect her belongings. Sitting large and unflappable on the stone steps that led down to the unkempt, canal-side garden, he barely had to lift a paw to secure his future home.

Prone to sudden biting, Lapsang was an edgy companion, but I loved him. As a city-born one, his experience of being parachuted into the real, natural world seemed revelatory. You could almost see his hair stand on end as he first stood out there on the grass, beech trees distantly overhead, sheep baaing and birds flittering and chattering. I guess his sensory envelope had expanded from something cuboid and living-roomy to infinite and universal.

Before long, though, he was fully engaged. More so than Luke would have preferred, stumbling to me in tears many a morning after finding decapitated rabbit corpse adorning the bottom stair. Why he’d choose to crunch through the skull and leave the body, I don’t quite understand. Perhaps less fluff and fur to cough up later?