I have squatted down there with him, my head also under the stool (something he is quite happy for me to do), and I can assure you that there is Nothing There. I thought for a time that there might conceivably be something – ants or something – getting in, but no. There is nothing. Another theory was that the stool in front of the radiator created a curtain of warm air that he enjoyed, which it might, but that doesn’t explain the pouncing. I can only imagine he can hear the water going through the pipe, but he does it even if the radiator’s off, so I’m not sure that’s much of an explanation either. Anyway, whatever it is, he loves it.

And he’s started going out again, now that spring has arrived. Clearly, he thinks that cold wet weather might suit some cats, but it doesn’t suit him. Una and I really thought that something had frightened him, and that he would never go out again, but as soon as the sun came out, he took advantage of it. He still doesn’t really want us to close the door behind him, but sometimes he stays out even then. Mostly, whichever of us is with him just accepts that he’s the boss and leaves the door open. I’ll probably fit a cat-flap, but it remains to be seen whether he uses it.

As you can see, his tail is just as splendid as ever. He very rarely curls it round – it’s almost always sticking straight out behind him when he sits down, as it is in the photographs. If he’s lying down, he sometimes curls it round, but mostly he lies on chairs, and then he just lets it drape down over the edge.

And he still loves his little rubber ball. He has lots of different balls, and plays with them all, but the rubber ball is his favourite. He has a plastic ball with a bell in it, which he took into the kitchen, as he does, because balls roll better on the tiles. The first thing he did was to roll it against the skirting board, and you could practically see him scratching his head when it came off the wall about an inch or so and stopped. His rubber ball comes all the way back to him when he does that, or goes off at an angle so he can chase it. He pulled it away from the wall with his paw, and tried again. Same thing. With that, he pushed it behind the bucket and left it there.

So what we know about George is that whether it’s snow or stupid plastic balls with bells in them, if it doesn’t do what he expects it to do, he doesn’t want to know.