Once upon a long ago Martha had a bay tree.

Martha loved her bay tree with a single minded devotion that had spanned ten years. She wanted it to be a standard, not a common bush, and for the past ten years had been carefully pruning, smiling lovingly at the tree. She pruned and smiles, smiled and pruned, occaisionally touching a leaf and telling it it was a lovely tree.

Trotter would watch Martha as she stood outside talking to the tree and so it was perhaps unfortunate that one day Fing opened the back door and let Trotter out.

Trotter stood silently and looked up at Martha, engrossed in the tree, and decided that he had had quite enough of her eccentric madness and very calmly lent forward and bit the tiny, slender, tree, trunk, completely in two. Then raced off round the garden with it nearly knocking Martha too her feet.