twigs

Tanton kindles a small fire of twigs inside a metal pitcher, while expounding for the camera about ecology and overpopulation.

Two years on, his mum Ruth contacted the National Trust after hearing about the seedlings and grafts successfully grown from seeds and young twigs rescued from the felled tree.

But mostly they found shriveled twigs or bare dirt next to the planting flags, which doubled as little tombstones.

The slender twigs still dangling from its bare branches provided a clue that the tree had managed to survive the Zaca and resprouted, only to die some years later.

For all we know, Eric’s payback may be as much about that horse as Shelly, a thinly realized character who will ultimately neither help nor harm twigs’ brand as an entrancing art polymath.