It’s cold and snowing in Stratford, and we have a nice fire roaring in the grate. Isobel is firmly parked on Himself’s lap, and Watson is in the cat basket that sits in top of the heat vent under the sitting room window.

For the last month, I have been copy-editing a big, fat book about the Canadian Army in Afghanistan. The study is not quite warm enough — it’s the windward corner of the house — and Watson thinks I should not spend so much time in there. Yesterday, he nearly wrecked an hour’s worth of work trampling the the computer keyboard.

For sheer destructiveness, Watson has nothing on one of his predecessors, Cecil by name, who liked to shred paper with his fangs. When I had a great heap of academic papers at home for a last check before sending them to the client, I left them on the dining-room table and Cecil found them. He settled himself on top the pile of marked-up copy, all bristling with Post-it notes, and started gnawing all around the edges of the pages. By the time I caught him in the act, nearly 100 pages were fringed on three sides.

I had a hell of a time explaining that to the client!