A cat's view of winter

Mr. Darcy has been cuddlier than usual during this bout of cold weather, often waiting by the couch for one of us to get up on it so he can lie on us. Here, he's keeping an eye on John the cameraman while I serve as the mattress.

On a wool blanket on the couch, getting ready for shut-eye.

Deep in dreamland in a favourite position at my feet. I can count three wool blankets in this photograph.

Mr. Darcy has seen snow before, but every year, it's an astonishment. When I let him out on the morning of this year's first snowfall, he paused at the top of the stairs, pondering. I could almost hear the wheels turning. Step down into the strange white stuff? Turn around and retreat into the warmth? Ahh, what the heck! And down he went, lifting his paws high out of the snow at each step. I felt, strangely, rather proud of him for his adventurous little spirit.

After a week of this, he's getting used to it. He has tracks in the snow all across the yard, and I can see him following them, carefully putting each paw into the holes he's made before. He likes sitting on the back porch at night, gazing at mysterious things out in the whiteness.

But mostly he sleeps, intensely, joyfully, as if the outdoor chill has given new zest to this most cat-like of occupations. Sometimes his four limbs twitch and shake in a kind of cat Saint Vitus Dance. For chilled humans, shorn of their usual routines, it's a good time to accept that cats sometimes have the best idea. Lately, we've been spending a lot of time with him, discovering our own cat-like propensities in a nest of wool blankets on the couch.

Another view of the most comfortable cat in the world.