It took a few years, but the cat has trained him

Started a large editing job today, one that has to be done by the weekend. 

Normally that is fine - except the text had, in this case, been written by a non-Anglophone, and, as such, was, in parts, as dense and as unintelligible, if you will excuse the tautology, as this sentence. (That was an actual sentence structure from the original text, you saw there.)

I usually like how non-Anglophones write: they keep it simple and, apart from the mistakes they naturally make, need little correction. That's how I write in French, anyway. The errors come when you try to be something you are not. The French have a great expression for this: "péter plus haut que le cul" (fart higher than your arse).

So, my head was cast into the screen, rewriting sentences, completing text where the author had been too lazy to write anything other than abbreviations or vague ideas, trying to understand what the hell was meant without having to go and do the research I really should be doing, but couldn't do because of the deadline. 

"Just give it a light edit," the client said.
"Right."

So Ottawacker Jr. was abandoned to his fate for most of the day. He was fed, nourished, given tasks, told off for making too much noise, given his allotted 30 minutes of screen time. When, at 4.30, I staggered down the stairs, I collapsed into the sofa with a large Ricard and spent an hour reading him Lord of the Rings while Mrs. Ottawacker prepared dinner.