In time honoured fashion, real life is stranger than fiction and I have a tortoise tale to tell.

For 24 glorious, splendid, excitingly responsible hours late last August, we had a tortoise.

At MASSIVE expensive, we'd bought Tim, and the various accoutrements apparently required to sustain tortoises at such a young age, and we'd proudly brought him home.

Less than 24 hours later, he had totally disappeared.

I can't quite explain how that felt. There was, of course, anger, sadness, disappointment, dispair, blame, denial, hope, desperate searching, tri-lingual posters being created and neighbours being told. Yet nothing. Sticks were found, dogs were borrowed, bushes were poked and prodded, stones were unturned and the web was extensively searched. Still nothing. Slowly, sadly, we gave up hope.

And so it was somewhat of a shock that on Easter Sunday, some 8 months later, I took a call from a neighbour with news. Tim had been discovered under a rock in their garden. A little beaten up, but very much alive and kicking.

And after the shock wore off, how happy were we to be proud owners of Tim again.

Not every tale has a happy ending of course - we've mourned many other pets - but, it's fun to know that even after all hope had gone, life can turn around and give one of its little surprises!