The outside seating at Tiptree’s Treats was set in a sunken area of the gardens, bordered by the lawn, so Tip’s little patch of sunlight and grass was pretty much at table level. He’d become quite adept at scrounging bits of salad from people’s sandwiches—tortoises might not exactly have a head start in the cute stakes, at least not compared to furrier fauna, but Tip reckoned he was pretty good at working with what he’d got.
He lifted his head to survey the scene, wondering which table to amble over to. He was midway between a family with two small children and the elderly lady from earlier. Kids were generally pretty susceptible to his reptilian charms, but Tip had been a bit wary of them ever since a toddler had picked him up for a cuddle and almost dropped him on the flagstones. He’d h
