The black cat, who snapped his achilles tendon in a non-football related incident involving a roof and a couple of starlings, has now done his eight weeks solitary confinement in a cage and, the vet tells us, is allowed out into the living room.

So, two months on and another two hundred quid on my credit card (to remove the metal pin from his heel), the cat edges out of the cage in disbelief.

Don’t let him do any jumping, the vet has warned, and don’t let him go outside for another month. I nod.

But the cat doesn’t seem to have been listening to his doctor’s advice.

He’s only limped half way across the room when a fly hovers a bit too close to him and whoosh, he’s up on his hind legs swiping it, tottering dangerously to one side and just managing to regain his balance before he manages to undo the vet’s orthopaedic handiwork in a moment.

Then he bounds up onto the sofa,ignoring the short flight of gentle steps we’ve built out of a couple of dictionaries and the Reader’s Digest Gardening Year book.

The tabby cat, with whom he normally has a fond and conspiratorial relationship, stretches up to sniff him and then begins to hiss. The fly returns to this end of the room.

The black cat clambers up onto the arm of the sofa and then attempts to scale the back cushions, using eight weeks’ growth of virgin claw to secure his position on the way up, and taking chunks of leather out as he goes.

I make a lunge for him but he lunges first, taking out the fly in one swipe and losing his balance as he does so.

I promise you, if I could reproduce the speed and accuracy of my catching of the cat, I’d be the ace up Fabio Capello’s sleeve when he makes his case to the FA in a couple of weeks.

The room is stuffy and hot and the tabby cat goes to the back door to be let out. I stand at the door and open it slightly, my eyes on the black cat.

He looks at me and then the door, and you can almost see the measuring tape in his mind’s eye. Don’t tell me cats aren’t intelligent.

This one can work out rates of speed and acceleration without a pencil. It’s just the gravity of gravity when you’re on a roof and don’t keep at least two paws on the tiles at all times that he’s struggled with.

This, I tell the family, is going to be a long haul. At least when he was in the cage, he was contained. Fed up, bored, irritable, yes, but then, what the heck, welcome to my world.

But now, you’re going to have to remember to shut all the doors, keep the windows closed, and try to keep him at ground level for a whole month, I explain. I wander out into the utility room as I’m telling them this, and the cat is between my legs in a flash, heading for the cat flap, which I haven’t thought to close.

Another lunge and I’ve got him. Just. My husband puts the lock on the cat flap down.

The family exchange glances but say nothing. I put a pan of water on the stove and light the gas. Within minutes the temperature in the room soars.

Outside it’s near 30 degrees centigrade. I wipe my brow and start chopping onions.

My husband puts the radio on for the news, but the signal is terrible and Charlotte Green wanders aimlessly in and out of the room accompanied by painful crackles and pops. The water starts boiling over. I’m frantically searching for some garlic. My husband sits down with the crossword and the phone rings in the hall. Please get that, I call to my son.

The tabby cat is outside the glass door, crying to be let in.

The black cat is on the mat this side of the door, maiowing. I move the pan off the heat, wipe the onion off my fingers and go and open the door. One in, one out, I say, out of habit. I close the door again.

I’m just remarking to myself that the black cat is limping a bit as he makes his way hurriedly down the garden when I realise what I’ve done.