In July of 2001 my wife and I traveled to Scotland on a voyage of discovery that would change both our lives.

For the past ten years we had been researching our family history. Both my wife's parents had been born in Scotland as had my paternal great grandfather. We knew the facts of our family's past, the trip to Scotland was to enable us to understand the context.

I had never considered my father a mystery. He was a warm, outgoing, engaging man. He loved to talk and joke and share. He was the life of any party and the centre of attention.

It wasn't until five years after his death and I had begun helping my wife with her genealogical research on her own family, that I realized I knew nothing about my father's family. My mother's was an open book. She talked about her parents and grandparents all the time. I had met nearly all of them myself.

I knew a few things about my father, of course. I knew the family surname, I knew my father's date of birth, I knew he hated his father with a passion that was frightening. I knew he had an uncle who was a Roman Catholic Priest. I knew he had a grandfather who had brought the family from Glasgow to Toronto in the 1870's. And that was about it.

But there were other, less tangible, things I knew without being aware that I knew them. My father and I had never been especially close. I never admired him. I often found him embarrassing. In many, many ways I was his exact opposite.

As I came to understand, that contrast between my father and myself was not an accident. By not understanding the forces that created my father, I became a prisoner of an intergenerational dynamic that closed doors to my growth and shuffled me off down corridors that were self defeating and self destructive.

I set off to Scotland to rediscover my father and ended up liberating myself.

Over the next few days, I'll tell you about it.

Oh, the picture at the top of this blog is of my great grandparents, William and Johanna. Through researching my family's past I located relatives with family pictures but none showed the two of them together. I had to pay an artist to incorporate their separate portraits into the one you see above. Literally had to pay someone to bring them together. It now hangs on my office wall.

My dear friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, had retired from the avocation of private investigator that had brought him world renown, to raise bees in Kent; but had not retired from the mournful playing of melancholy tunes upon his infernal violin.

"But I fail to understand, Holmes, why you would wish to call it 'The Case of the Second Tent?", I sought to distract him from his labours upon that wretched instrument.

Holmes finished the musical phrase.

"My dear Watson," he replied, reluctantly setting the instrument aside, and reaching for the persian slipper in which he kept his pipe tobacco, "It is elementary. You have just heard the tale told to us by our friend, Anexplorer. You know my methods. What would you choose to call it, 'The Strange Case Of The Naked Woman In The Night', no doubt."

"Well, as I recall the story, Holmes, that is its most salient feature. Anexplorer and his wife were camping on the shores of Lake Huron close to the town of Goderich. They were fast asleep in their tent, when Anexplorer was awakened by the sound of a young woman chattering excitedly about her evening spent with some young men she had met at a party. And while she recounted these adventures, she was proceeding to remove her clothes."



"Indeed, Watson. As a gentleman, and not wishing to frighten the young lady, Anexplorer permitted her to continue with her undressing, unchallenged."

"Most admirable, I agree. However, Mrs. Anexplorer was not so gracious, and, having been awakened by the same chattering, demanded, in a loud voice, to know what the woman thought she was doing.

"This occasioned an even louder shriek from the nearly naked maiden, who quickly gathered up her discarded garments and fled the tent, kindly remembering to fasten the zipper up behind her."

Holmes was thoughtfully stuffing tobacco into his Meerschaum, "Those indeed are the facts of the case, Watson. However, if you recall, what happened next was most singular."

"Indeed, Holmes, after some discussion of the intrusion, Anexplorer and his dear lady managed to return to sleep. Some hours later, the light of day just beginning to brighten the interior of the tent, Anexplorer had the curious sensation of being watched. The peculiar notion was strong enough to rouse him from his sleep, certain that if he opened his eyes, he would find the face of another mere inches from his own.

"He then heard the sound of something sniffing and rummaging about in the tent. This event took place before Lindsay, that noble dog, had come to the Anexplorer household, so it wasn't she that Anexplorer heard.

"Sensing the creature was now in the most further remove of the confined enclosure, he risked opening his eyes. And found himself staring at the nether end of a skunk. The creature's identity made obvious by the white stripe down its back."

"And from this, Watson, we can deduce that when the inebriated nymph had fled their tent, she had failed to pull the zipper fully closed and had certainly not engaged the clasps that would have prevented such an entry." said Holmes, lighting his pipe with evident satisfaction.

"As usual Holmes, your skills at deduction astound me." I replied. "Of course, recalling Mrs. Anexplorer's reaction to the night's previous visitor, our dear friend held his breath and uttered the most fervent prayer, that Mrs. Anexplorer would not awaken and challenge this second visitor.

"In time his prayers were answered, for she remained quiet and the fragrant beast, having satisfied itself that no food was to be found within the tent, eventually left through the opening that had admitted it in the first place."

"Quite so, Watson" Homes was already disappearing in a haze of equally fragrant tobacco smoke, "And Anexplorer then leaped to his feet and rushed to properly fasten the entry way to their temporary abode."

"And that is the story Holmes. It ends there, but why would you choose to call it "The Case of the Second Tent?"

"Elementary, my dear Watson, for what can we deduce would occasion even an inebriated young woman to enter a strange tent and remove her garments in the middle of the night. Do not forget she could not have known so fine a gentleman as Anexplorer was the occupant. She could have been placing herself in the gravest of danger."

"Why Holmes, you are quite correct. Whatever could be the answer to this odd riddle?"

"Why, a second tent, Watson! A second tent! In the camp ground where Mr and Mrs Anexplorer chose to spend the night, there had to have been a second tent of the same style and manufacture as Anexplorer's own. It is the only explanation that meets the facts of the case."

"Indeed, Holmes, once again you astound me. However, calling it "The Strange Case of the Naked Woman in the Night", will attract more readers to this blog, than the title you propose."

"Surely not, Watson, the readers of these missives are finer folk indeed. If they choose to read your account it will be despite your lurid title not because of it."

And with that, he reached once more for his fiddle.

The day is warm and Lindsay is especially frisky. Her black coat gleams and she darts about with her tail wagging delightedly, her nose scraping the surface of the snow like a vacuum cleaner sucking up scent.

Suddenly she pauses and stands alert, eyes scanning the pathway ahead of us. Then as I approach, she gives herself a shake and prances off along the path until she vanishes into the distance. Seconds later she comes racing back, dancing excitedly around my feet. Come on slowpoke she's saying, lets get going.

I smile, ruefully.

It is hard to believe Lindsay is crippled with arthritis and wracked with severe pain.

Yet that was the diagnosis from our vet. Until a year ago Lindsay would limp painfully around the house and could often be found huddled in a back room whimpering in agony. For two years I could only take her for short walks around the block, Lindsay limping and whining all the way. It was painful to watch.

She was on a daily dose of aspirin to ease her suffering; but this barely seemed to take the edge off.

And then her arthritis went away. Vanished completely.

Within a week of my arthritic mother moving into a retirement home.

Since my father's death, my mother had lived in a granny flat attached to our house. She cared for Lindsay through the day while we were at work. A very independent woman, she cared for the garden, cooked her own meals, had the dog for companion, and limped painfully about her apartment. Her arthritis is so bad she had had a knee replaced two years ago and may need surgery on the other. But at 89 there are other health issues that make that operation unlikely.

Had Lindsay been miraculously cured of her arthritis? Or had she been mimicking my mother's behaviour?

The March issue of National Geographic has an article on animal intelligence. The cover star is a boarder collie with a vocabulary of 300 words. Lindsay is an English Springer Spaniel and I have no idea how many words she understands. She's certainly the smartest dog we've ever owned. Knows all the family members by name. Never needs to be talked to in short commands, she's very comfortable with sentences. Although sometimes the simple word "NO" seems a challenge for her.

That animals have minds and thoughts comes as no surprise to many of us who have spent most of our lives in the company of animals. What is surprising is that it has taken so long for this to gain scientific acceptance. Are we that insecure about our place in the universe that we can’t acknowledge what is right in front of us?

Lindsay plunges back along the trail toward me, her eyes sparkle and there's a smile on her face. I don't think she's a miracle dog. I think she's just trying to be part of the family. As the National Geographic article says, "A dog in a human pack needs to learn to adapt."

Anyway, have a look at this 30 second video clip of her and you decide:

If it's Wednesday it must be time for another TED lecture.

TED is an elite event where leaders in Technology, Entertainment and Design gather to cross-pollinate ideas and gain inspiration from presentations on the latest developments in sciences and the arts.

Today, David Gallo shows jaw-dropping footage of amazing sea creatures, including a shape-shifting cuttlefish, a pair of fighting squid, and a mesmerizing gallery of bioluminescent fish that light up the blackest depths of the ocean. He focuses on the work of two scientists: Edith Widder at the Ocean Research & Conservation Association, and Roger Hanlon at the Marine Biological Lab.

If last Wednesday was the funniest most inspiring TED lecture, todays is the most jaw-dropping. I promise you won't believe what you're about to see. And its only 5 minutes long.

My wife is an artist. She's won awards, painted on commission for the Toronto Zoo, been exhibited several times. That's one of the paintings she's working on in the picture above.

She has more requests for her paintings than she could ever fill.

But she doesn't make a living at it. The problem is volume. She works carefully and slowly, seldom turning out more than 3 canvases a year.

For her day job she's teacher in one of the more notoriously violent neighbourhoods in Toronto. Her school is in lockdown mode at least weekly.

She loves it. Her entire teaching career has been spent at that school, outlasting four Principals. She genuinely enjoys her students and her staff are especially close and supportive. Many of her students have gone on to University and slowly the neighbourhood is changing, in part because of a major police clamp down on gangs 5 years ago.

When the Poet Laureate of Toronto gave a speech here last week, he told the story of asking his local baker, what is art?

The baker said, "Giorgio, art is what you write and what I bake."

Art, Pier Giorgio Di Cicco believes, is not dusty paintings hanging on gallery walls. Art is an attitude and a care you bring to the things you do. Thomas Merton's father was an artist, but made his living as a gardener. Or, rather, who made gardening his art. For my wife, teaching is also her art. As Giorgio said, its a question of attitude and care.

To be an artist, you don't need to be a poet or a painter or a sculptor; your art can be your job, your garden, your interior decorating, the raising of your children. The care you take in creating your blog.

Another way to think about it is: we are all artists, the only question is, are we good artists?