WELL, it would appear that I have acquired a gentleman friend. A little on the short side, ginger, very handsome and utterly charming. My only concern is that he may have, shall we say, an attachment elsewhere?

To clarify, my caller is a cat. Not thin, not unkempt, in fact not your average looking stray at all, but none the less, very persistent and always extremely hungry.

He first dropped by several weeks ago, as I was feeding the ferrets. He appeared one evening with Miss Teddi, ambling down the garden path, side by side with my feline lady, as though this was a usual occurrence and that he had every right to be there.

Teddi, I must say, does tend to make an appearance at this time of day, head butting my hand as I fill the ferret’s dishes with cat meat and ferret biscuits.

On this occasion, however, her handsome companion could not help himself, or to be more accurate, he did begin to help himself, but only from the bowls that contained cat meat. His appetite was voracious and eventually I ended up giving him his own.

Needless to say, he licked the platter clean in no time at all, after which he bade us a fond goodnight and disappeared over the garden gate into the dusk. Little did I realise, that this was only the beginning.

He doesn’t appear every day, but then again sometimes he visits twice, calling in at breakfast time as well. He is certainly not thin, but he is always hungry. He does wear a rather smart blue collar, which leads me to believe that somewhere, he may have a home of his own, but it has no ID tag attached.

He is not bothered in the least by the Cavaliers barking at him through the conservatory door and if they are in the garden, he is quite happy to sit on the top of the fence, looking down and wearing, (for those old enough to remember Dad’s Army), what is best described as a Captain Mainwaring "stupid boy!" expression.

So, what to do for the best? I don’t want to encourage him if he does belong to someone else for, as my son rightly pointed out, his people may well have him on a diet and be wondering why he’s not losing weight? (I should add here, however, that having gained his trust, I can now pick this puss cat up and he is extremely fluffy, so not as chunky as one might first be led to believe).

On the other hand, if his family have moved away, or if he’s new to the area and lost his bearings, I would hate to think that he was going hungry, especially now that the nights are growing cold. He certainly seems to have struck up a friendship with Teddi, although her sister, "Dora the Explorer" prefers to ignore him. Someone did suggest that I put a paper collar around his neck to see if that initiates any sort of response? Maybe worth a thought.

On the subject of cats, my granddaughters would dearly love a cat of their own, but unfortunately this request has been denied as my son-in-law suffers from asthma and is allergic to them. The girls have accepted this explanation very well for some time now, coupled with the fact that they do appreciate how lucky they are to have two ponies, two guinea pigs and a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.

Very recently, however, Maisie, at just four years old, had one of her "light bulb" moments.

"I know," she exclaimed, "If we did get a cat, Daddy could always sleep outside, then maybe he wouldn’t get poorly?"

Think I’m going to compile a book of ‘Maisie-isms’. I think this could be just what the world is missing.