Lovely feeling to this. Felt like an intimate, totally in character slice of their daily lives. You pitch everything just right, the tone, the setting, the sentiment. The snowball in the face at the end is a great touch to finish on, and I laughed aloud at this.

Bodie nudged him with a shoulder. “Nah, they’re tougher than they look. They may droop a bit but they’ll dig their little roots in under there and pop back up in the spring, good as new. You’ll see.”

Doyle’s fading irritation surged back to life. What did Bodie think this was? Bloody ‘Thought for the Day’? And Doyle was no sodding rose.

Oh, but you are, Doyle! Lovely. All the emotion there, but beautifully understated and undercut nicely by our Doyle.