When I lived in the village of Hügelsheim in west Germany, I experienced the invasion of field mice that followed the harvest. When the fields were made ready for winter -- cleared, ploughed and fertilized (God how that stank) -- the cute little varmints all moved into the village. On 1 October, you have no mice. On 3 October, you have many, many mice. Plus the black beetles under the water heater and the occasional brown rat.

In the country, the obvious solution to this problem is a cat, and that is how Emmeline Pankhurst came into my life. A small brown tabby creature, Emmeline was death on paws, responsible not only for making off with dozens of the tiny vermin every week but also, in her spare time, for terrorizing my landlady's Alsatian dog and driving off all the neighbour cats who had become accustomed to visiting me.

How did I know how many mice she killed? By the wee trophies laid out each morning beside the stove.