A Festive Tortoise Tale

[ClareandCo]

I have just read this in Sunday's Telegraph, but found it also online:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/b...Christmas.html

[lonelylayla]

Ah, that was a good read

[becciwales]

Aww, that's a lovely story!

[Suze65]

It won't let me read it

[ClareandCo]

Originally Posted by mediterraneansuze

It won't let me read it

It should work just by clicking on the link.

[Suze65]

Yes I did that but paper is blocking me, I have to sign up and pay.

[becciwales]

I didn't have to sign in or pay. That's odd. x

[becciwales]

My name is George and I'm not very old.
Only maybe 62? 63?
I can’t be quite certain as I don’t celebrate birthdays.
I’m mostly a vegetarian, though I’ll eat dog food if I can find any or a slug if I can catch it, and I sleep in a fridge.
Sorry! Sorry, I’m a tortoise! I didn’t explain that, did I? That must have been confusing. No, yes, I’m a tortoise. Always have been.

[becciwales]

I was hatched a Tortoise-of-Kent, raised as a Kentish-Tortoise, and moved to London when I was a boy in my forties.
Back in those early days I was left to my own devices when the colder months came around and it was time to bed down for winter hibernation. I usually chose a spot under the garden shed and dug myself down into the earth to sleep, happily forgotten by my human family, until the warm spring sunshine awoke me with the daffodils the following March.
Some years it was touch and go. The winter of ’63 was particularly harsh and I got a hero’s welcome when I finally emerged, blinking into the sunlight.
In the Seventies, the family took to packing me in a box of straw in the garage. Those were uncomfortable years. The straw got up my nose and I had disquieting dreams of sinister lettuces.
For the past few years now I’ve spent the winter in a cardboard box in a fridge. It’s a small fridge in the attic, a wine-cooler really. The door is left open just a crack so that I can breathe and I have it all to myself.
To be honest I miss the smell of the loam and leaf mould, the snug fit of my earthen pyjamas. It’s hard to drift off, but once I do it’s a deep and peaceful sleep.
Last year, though, the fridge broke. Whether it was a fuse or some other component I don’t know – I’m not an electrician.
All I know is that it started getting warmer and I began to wake up. Try as I might I couldn’t get back to sleep. I tossed and turned (after a fashion) but it was no use.
Eventually, I started to get peckish and decided I would have to get up and find a snack.
It wasn’t easy freeing myself from the cardboard box but once I had I pushed against the fridge door and half-slid, half-tumbled onto the floor.
Everything was quiet and dark. The family were all in bed, no doubt cosy and warm as you humans inexplicably prefer to be.
I made my way to the attic door, which was open ajar, and squeezed through the gap.
There I was presented with a challenge.
Now, I’m no stranger to steps. You’d think I wasn’t designed for them but I can quite easily navigate the three steps from the patio to the lawn in either direction. What I saw before me now though was, to be frank, ridiculous. Why does anybody need that many steps? Why does anything have to be that much higher than anything else? It’s just showing off.
The stairs dropped precariously away into darkness.
Evolution (of which I’m a big fan) never prepared me for this.
I tentatively edged forward over the precipice trying to reach down to the next step. I’d just decided that perhaps I should turn around and attempt going down backwards when I reached my tipping point and all was lost. Instinct kicked in: I withdrew my head and legs into my shell and hoped for the best. Though alarmingly fast, my sliding descent was relatively smooth due to the soft covering on the stairs; not exactly grass but some kind of beige matting.

I came to a stop and slowly peeked my head out to find myself on the landing outside the children’s bedrooms. Not wishing to disturb, I tiptoed quietly past and came to the top of another flight of stairs.
This time I just launched myself.
Now I can move quite fast (even if I say so myself). If I spot a strawberry at the end of the garden I can be munching on it within the hour. But no tortoise should be accelerated to this kind of velocity.
I barely had time to wonder whether I was breaking the Tortoise-Speed-Record before I was skidding on my plastron across polished floorboards, and came to a halt in front of the patio doors.
Through the frosty pane of glass was a sight so strange I thought for a moment that I was dreaming.
The garden, every inch of which I know so well, was unrecognisable.
It was covered in a thick blanket of white powder and more was falling from the sky like so many tons of dandruff shaken from a vast, itchy scalp. But, I have to say, it did look strangely beautiful.
I turned around and headed into the lounge where I was presented with another startling scene. It looked like an explosion in a glitter factory.
On every flat surface stood folded rectangles of coloured cardboard. Others hung on strings like stiff washing.
And for some reason that I’ve never been able to fathom, the family had decided to bring an entire fir tree indoors and hang more garish ornaments from its branches. It looked a bit embarrassed, like a boy whose big sister, despite his protests, has dressed him up as a princess.
It was as though, without me, the whole world had gone completely doolally.
As I was gazing at this confusing spectacle I became aware of a delicious smell wafting over from the fireplace.

Sure enough a plate had been left out for me on which was a carrot and a small pie. The pie was delicious with a soft, sweet filling of exotic flavours that reminded me, somehow, of hot climates and far-off lands that I’m sure I’ve never visited.
I made short work of the pie and was just polishing off the carrot when a noise in the chimney above made me startle. I backed up just in time as, in a cloud of soot, a large gentleman, dressed in red with a sack over his shoulder, landed on the hearth. His bright white hair and enormous beard made me wonder if it was his dandruff that had covered the garden.
He picked himself up, and was dusting himself off, when he spotted me.
“Good heavens!” said the rotund gentleman, “a tortoise! Why aren’t you asleep?”
“My fridge broke,” I explained, “Who are you?”
“I’m Santa. Santa Claus.”
“Nice to meet you Mr Claus,” I said. “Are you a burglar?”
Santa laughed three times.
“No,” he said “quite the opposite. I bring toys and presents to every boy and girl on Christmas Eve.”
“Really?” I said.
“Ho yes!”
I must have looked sceptical as he qualified it with, “Well, only the good boys and girls.”
“Oh, that probably makes it a bit easier,” I said politely, “but what if a house doesn’t have a chimney? Many of them don’t, you know.”
“Don’t you worry about that,” said Mr Claus, and deftly changed the subject. “Now! Are there any snacks?”
“Oh dear,” I said, “were they meant for you? I’m dreadfully sorry but I’ve eaten them.”
Once again the gentleman laughed, said that I wasn’t to worry and, patting his round stomach, told me it was probably for the best.
Despite his unconventional entrance I decided that I liked Mr Claus. We chatted pleasantly as he took brightly coloured parcels from his sack and placed them under the tree. He apologised that he couldn’t stay, but said he had plenty more to do that night and soon, with great effort, disappeared back up the way he had come.
When Mr Claus had gone the chilly breeze from the chimney started to lull me to sleep. Nice and snug and cold.
The next morning everyone was more surprised by my presence than Santa’s presents. I gather Mr Claus drops in every year.
I felt bad when the children believed that Santa had eaten the pie, knowing all along that it was me.
My fridge was soon fixed and so ended my first, and hopefully only, Christmas.
It was interesting, don’t get me wrong, but I think I’m happy to sleep through these winter months and let you humans get on with whatever bizarre customs and traditions you see fit.
You’re mad, the lot of you.
George is an English tortoise of Greek parentage. He enjoys gardening and has appeared on stage in London’s Royal Court and Apollo West End theatres. He lives in north London with his family.

[Suze65]

I think it's because I've been looking at the headlines and they will only let you look at a certain amount per month without paying