You know that phrase to let (or make, or watch) the fur fly, or to set the fur flying? Until last night, I always thought it was figurative.

See, there are cats in our neighbourhood - lots of cats. I don’t mean there’s a cat infestation, merely that we live in a bit of London which is quiet and leafy enough to be safe for outdoor pets, and populated by enough DINKY couples to ensure a thriving moggy population.

It’s great that we know several of our neighbours - though some better than others, admittedly. And, like anyone in an urban environment, we recognise other people on our street (or from the next street along, whose gardens back onto ours). There’s the German man who always wears a waistcoat. The woman who looks a bit like Peter Kay. The man who looks like he might be Jamie Cullum’s agent.

Now, of course, we don’t actually know that the man in the waistcoat is German, any more than we knew that the bloke who lived opposite us in West Kensington and used to get pissed on his balcony in his vest was Welsh. He wasn’t, it turned out, but in the early stages of living in that flat, we somehow must have got the impression that he was, and it stuck. He was always known as “The Welsh Bloke” despite not actually being Welsh. And so it is with the German man, Peter Kay and Jamie’s agent.

And as with people, so with cats.

We know a few of the cats in the area by name, but we know more of them by sight. And naturally, we have nicknames for them. There’s a little black round-faced short-tailed moggy with white feet (”Socks”). There’s an inquisitive grey-blue tortoiseshell which steals food from others’ dishes (”Sneaky”). There’s an ENORMOUS ginger and white cat, too fat to jump up onto the back walls (”Ginger”) and there’s a lumbering big white one (imaginatively nicknamed “whitey”) who just looks mean. There are also two smallish black and white cats next door, relatively new to the neighbourhood, and incredibly curious and friendly.

Now, we know what their names are, because their humans told us. But that’s not how we know them. The smaller one, the one who sits on our doorstep and mewls for treats (sometimes indulged) is Beardy (after his, um, beard…well, splodge of black on his chin, if you want to get technical about it) as seen here. The other is Not-Beardy. Yeah, I know, we ran out of inspiration.

Now, beardy has sort of adopted us, in the way that cheeky little friendly cats tend to do. We try not to encourage him, but our back door is right next to our neighbours’, and he’ll often sit outside for hours, when we know they’ve gone away, mewing for attention, or food, or both. Mroo. Mrooo. Mroooo.

We draw the line at a few little kitty treats, but it really is particularly difficult to ignore. Plus, he’s insanely cute in a rubbing-up-against-your-legs-and-purring sort of way. Attention. Food. Love me. Love me. I’m cute and furry and I know it. Mroo.

Most of the time, the cats of the area go about their business in a calm fashion, doing whatever cats do - creeping along the top of gates and high walls, basking in the sunshine, trying to catch cabbage whites, sleeping on the stoops, pleading for attention/food/both. It’s nice to have all the pleasure of cat-watching - all that relaxed pace of life stuff, that snoozing everywhere and nature thing - without having to actually look after one on a permanent basis. Pretty much any time we peer out of the back window, within a minute we’ll be able to spot at leat one puss skulking through a back garden or snoozing on top of a shed.

Occasionally, we’ll witness a cat standoff - two (or more!) moggies staring at each other, backs arched, tails stiff, moving i-n-c-r-e-d-i-b-l-y slowly toward (or away from) each other. It’s a territory thing, of course.

But last night was different.

Last night, at about 3 o’clock, we were woken up by a horrific screeching and spitting from the garden. Peering out into the dark we could just about make out a tumbling bundle of hissing fur, light and dark. From the kitchen window at the very back of the house, we could see better the white mean cat from two doors down was locked in mortal combat with another dark puss. We assumed it was Beardy, our next-door neighbour and wannabe adoptive chum, as P had seen the two of them growling at each other a few days before.

We flicked the outside light on, shouted at them, but nothing would distract them from their spitting rough-and-tumble. From the ungodly sounds eminating from beneath the patio furniture, it was clear that one or both of them was getting taught some kind of lesson. Unable to do anything, we went back to bed, where P muttered that he hoped the cats would be OK, and I tumbled into vivid dreams about losing my hearing, and cats dancing in a field, like four-legged ravers. Put your paws in the air…

When we got up this morning, the evidence was unmistakable. Across the back garden, white fur everywhere. I mean, literally, everywhere. Clumps of it. dozens of strands, floating in the morning sunshine. The poor thing!

All day, we wondered. Had the white cat lost out to the new boy in town? Or was Beardy’s white bib and belly vastly depleted? Someone must have lost, and big time.

This evening, when I got in from work, sitting on the back step and mewling plaintively was a small cat with a black splodge on his chin, and all his fur intact. Not a scratch. Nothing. I gave him a fish-shaped treat and left him to it, imagining he must have been basking in his territorial victory all day.

Later, while enjoying a popsicle on the back step, I spotted the white cat, also unmarked, intact, completely fine, and grumpy as ever, strutting brazenly along the back wall. Not a scratch. No hair missing. Nothing.

The mystery is, therefore: who the hell was scrapping in our garden in the wee small hours? Or do cats just heal incredibly quickly?