i have a tortoise (part 1)

some useful information

I have a rescue tortoise called Dr. Alison Parker. Here she is wearing a spider outfit for Halloween.

I’m aware the name Dr Alison Parker is self consciously quirky, but I was young and self consciously quirky and also, she is a doctor. Of Philosophy, but still. At some point, I’ll explain how we found Alison, and my passion for rescuing over buying; I know someone who bought a tortoise off a website and it came in the post. I can’t engage with this emotionally or I’ll oscillate into a different dimension.

I may also discuss the time she nearly died and I had to inject her every day, into her tiny neck, but she kept disappearing into her shell so it became a reptilian farce but with more crying (from me).

I won’t, however, go into her pregnancy. And the fact that she hadn’t been anywhere near a male tortoise, which was how we discovered that tortoises can hold sperm in their bodies for years before impregnating themselves at will, and we only knew she was pregnant because she started trying to bone her sister, which is apparently a classic early warning sign. Tortoises don’t have periods to skip, or boobs to get sore, so it makes sense they’d mount family members. Side bar: imagine a tortoise with boobs.

If you’d prefer not to, or for anyone interested in what it’s like having a little shelled friend, I’ve compiled some insightful terms arranged in a glossary that is not alphabetical or organised in any way. You’re welcome.

Dr Parkour

Dr Alison Parker’s nickname when she climbs on things. Tortoises are incredibly nimble when charged with UVA/UVB light (which they need every day for up to eight hours); she once climbed into my backpack and I got halfway to the gym before the bag started to move. Another time, when we lived in a flat that was safe enough for her to walk about, she climbed into the toilet roll holder in the bathroom and I nearly wiped my arse with her.

Cuttlefish

For calcium, Alison is partial to a cuttlefish bone. When she eats them, she gets white dust on her face and it’s important to say things like ‘Alison’s snorted cocaine again’.

The Tortoise Hotel

An excellent lady runs a tortoise hotel that provides room-and-board if we have to go away. She has a huge fridge that, in summer, is used for Sauvignon Blanc and, in winter, to hibernate tortoises (including Alison). The lady who runs the hotel asks me each year if Alison is going to ‘join the fridge party’ which varies in duration depending on the tortoise (Alison goes for around ten weeks). For a small extra fee, she can have the ‘spa add-on’ (de-worming) and is sent back home with a report card at the end of the stay. It provides helpful observations such as ‘Day 5 of waking: did big wee’.

Tort Law

Nothing to do with tortoises (it is a form of law that remedies civil wrongs), but if you tell a lawyer you have a tortoise, they will make jokes at you about tort law until you shout at them to stop, or one of you dies.

Food

There is one bagged supermarket salad appropriate for Alison, it’s called Florette’s Crispy, and it’s become quite rare (nobody thinks how Brexit affects the tortoise community). We used to live right by a Crispy stronghold (Tesco express) but have moved to an area where it’s increasingly hard to come by. Can’t believe I didn’t ask the estate agent about bagged salad. Kicking myself. And then ordering 16 bags of it from Tesco online, only to find you can’t freeze leaves.

Food (15 certificate, mild drug references)

We supplement Alison’s diet with weeds from the tortoise hotel’s garden, delivered by post every month with the words SPEEDY WEEDS written on the parcel. My old flat used to have a concierge (clang), and one day he said, after years of these regular deliveries: ‘You should ask them to be more discreet’ and I was like ‘about what?’, not realising he thought I’d been buying weed, as in the drug. And that my pseudonym was Dr. Alison Parker (the parcels are addressed to the tortoise, obviously) in an attempt to, I imagine, thwart the DEA. Or whatever the UK version of the DEA is. It’s probably called something shit like ‘The Drug Squad’ aren’t they? Good lord, I just googled it and there’s no equivalent to the DEA, it’s just something the National Crime Agency deal with. That’s mad. We need a British DEA! Shall I start one? Anyway, not for now. Point is, thankfully the parcel also features a hand drawn picture of a tortoise on rollerskates, so the misunderstanding was easily resolved. Although, much more baller to be getting monthly deliveries of drugs with PARCEL OF DRUGS written on the front.

On another drug note, the tortoise hotel once got investigated because a drone saw so much heat emanating from the multiple tortoise UVA/UVB lamps, they thought the lady who runs it was a drug baron.

The Tortobahn

The name for a long corridor she likes to walk up and down. She will do it all day. It’s very long and straight like a German motorway (I’ve never seen a German motorway).

Bump and grind

If you gently scratch the rear end of Alison’s shell, she goes up and down like one of those cars in old-style rapper videos. Having conducted some light research, I’ve found there are three possible reasons for this: she is enjoying it, she is not enjoying it and wants to throw my hand off, or she is trying to mate with me. I believe it’s the first one because, when not enjoying something (like me injecting her in the neck, etc), Alison simply runs away or goes into her shell. And, re the mating, she knows the difference between a hand and a male tortoise. Feet however, is a different matter (see: bald torts)

Bald torts

In 2019, my partner took his sock off and pretended it was a nude tortoise (aka bald tort) that wanted to chat to Alison. Unfortunately Alison immersed herself in this narrative, reared up and charged at his foot with her beak open. It was quite shocking and probably constitutes as animal abuse but, to be fair to my partner, he had no idea how hard Alison would go for it. He was just waggling his foot to try and get a game going (NB: tortoises do not understand games). Unfortunately, for a good five years after this incident, if Alison came into contact with a bald tort (i.e sockless foot) she would bite it. Thankfully, Alison biting something requires her to open her beak about a metre away from her intended victim while walking quite slowly towards it, so violence was easily avoided by picking her up and facing her in a different direction. Even when contact was made, it just felt like a sort of pinching sensation due to the lack of teeth in her beak. All of this has calmed down, and she only nips when I’m wearing red toenail polish because she thinks it’s Friday night tomato time. This is also why I have to be careful there are no red imagery on the newspaper I line a section of her run with, because I once found her eating ex-Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino’s sad mouth.

I think I’ll leave it there, but I hope it’s been informative. Any questions about tortoises, or ex-Chelsea manager Mauricio Pochettino’s sad mouth, feel free to throw them my way.