A Different Rescue

Post date: May 14, 2016 7:05:10 AM

We never know what to expect next.

Yesterday evening, about five minutes before supper was ready, the phone rang. "I've been given your number by someone who said you might be able to help. I've found a tortoise in my garden".

"We don't really handle tortoises". I know tortoises are much sought after, and the owners will be looking for it, so I ask "Have you tried ringing the local vets?".

"Yes, they weren't interested".

If this truly is a lost tortoise, we know we will be able to find a new home for it very easily. So I ask where it is - about ten minutes' drive away. And, yes, she has it safely in a box, so it won't have wandered off by the time we get there. I take her address and say we'll come out and get it.

That's when she says "It's got the number 46 on it's shell".

It definitely belongs to someone then. But not at number 46 in her road, because she's already been there. And she's asked five houses either side of where she lives.

By this time, supper's ready, so we eat. Then a quick change into a Reptile Events shirt, pick up the rescue kit (medium sized box, anti-bac, newspaper, gloves, etc.) and head out.

It's a very pretty tortoise. And it does have the number 46 on its shell .... but not painted, like a house number. This is a sticker, saying "46", so it means something .... but what? We take the tortoise, and leave a card with the finder, in case she hears any more about it.

Even though we're pretty sure that the 46 is not a house number, we decide to try one road each way from where it was found, just in case. Ten minutes later, we're one street away when the phone rings.

"Someone's told me you may have my tortoise. He's got the number 46 on his shell".

We know that tortoises are valuable, and someone may have heard that a woman had found a tortoise with the number 46 on his shell, so we're still a little cautious until the caller says "We named him after Valentino Rossi, because he's such a quick little ****!"

That explains the sticker! Two minutes later, Rossi the tortoise - who has been missing for three days - is reunited with his owner.

We learn that Rossi's owner, a motorbike fanatic (obviously), has been told that the best time to look for a lost tortoise is in the early morning and evening, in the half-light, so he was out looking in the road for him a few minutes earlier when a neighbour, coming home from work on his motorbike, stopped to have a chat. As neighbour got ready to ride off, Rossi's owner joked "Be careful where you go! Please don't run over my tortoise!"

Neighbour gets home, and the first thing his wife says to him is "You'll never guess what I've been baby-sitting all day"

"Yes I will - a tortoise!"

And remember that the finder had asked at five houses either side from hers? Rossi lives six doors away!

Jane