ESIO TROT by Tidgy's Dad.

[Tidgy's Dad]

Now, I expect many of you are familiar with the book, "Esio Trot" by the inimitable Roald Dahl and superbly illustrated by Quentin Blake.
I had a copy but before I moved to Morocco sold it, along with thousands of other books, as it was simply too expensive to transport everything we owned out here.
We did bring a few hundred books and have been buying new ones and replacing old favourites ever since.
In Spain last week, I purchased a copy of "Esio Trot".

Hoooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And read it again and then read it to wifey in a bar one evening.
It's a lovely little read, truly adorable.

However, i noticed with my newly acquired, up-to-date Tortoise Forum knowledge, that some of the tortoise care in this book is incorrect and possibly dangerous.
So, I have decided to rectify this and write an updated version.
This will be appearing here, in episodic form, over the next few weeks.
I think I have too much time on my hands.
Watch this space.

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

INTRODUCING
(dramatis personae)

MR ADAM




ALFIE


MRS WIFEY


PET-SHOP OWNER


THE TORTOISE-CATCHER

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Other books by Tidgy's Dad


101 Dog's Eggs
There Has Been a Magnificent Mistake
1,000 Films to Fall Asleep In Before You Die
TV's Top Fifty Great Cheese Moments
Teach Your Tortoise Darts
Mole Machine Projects For Small Gardens



For older readers
Eat Yourself Fat
Lose Weight With Extreme Shaving
Fazzale : Pimp Your Farts
Bedroom Secrets of the Boardroom Batman

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Photographs by wifey






Armadillo Books

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Alfie says, " Find out more about Tidgy's Dad by visiting his thread at http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/cold-dark-room.123941/ "



ARMADILLO BOOKS


Published by The Insectivore Group
Insectivore Books Ltd, The Cold Dark Room, Tortoise Forum
Insectivore Group (USA) Inc, The Cold Dark Room, Tortoise Forum
Insectivore Books Germany Ltd, The Cold Dark Room, Tortoise Forum
Insectivore Books Morocco Ltd, The Cold Dark Room, Tortoise Forum
Insectivore Books Turkey (P) Ltd, The Cold Dark Room, Tortoise Forum
Insectivore Group (Canada) Ltd, cur The Cold Dark Room, Tortoise Forum
Insectivore Books (Scotland) (Pty) Ltd, The Cold Dark Room, Tortoise Forum.
And maybe in Wales.

Insectivore Books Ltd, Registered Offices, The Cold Dark Room, Tortoise Forum.

www.tortoiseforum.org

First published by Adam 2017
Published in Armadillo Books 2017
This edition has been produced exclusively for Tortoise Forum Members 2017
1


Text copyright Tidgy's Dad with apologies to Roald Dahl 2017
Photographs copyright wifey with apologies to Quentin Blake 2017
All right reserved


The amoral right of the author and photographer has been asserted

Set in whatever font this is.

Made and typed in Morocco by my hands plc.

Except in the United States of America, this book is not likely to be sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or other things, be bent, sold, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than any you may wish to glue on if you've actually gone to the trouble of printing this off, which i doubt you're bonkers enough to do anyway, and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.
or whatever.

British Library Cataloguing not in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is unavailable from the British Library

ISBN 0-013-220965-X

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

To All At Tortoise Forum

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Author's Note

Some years ago, when I was a little child, we had two tortoises that we kept in the garden. in those days, a pet tortoise or two was a common sight crawling across the family lawn or back yard. You could buy them quite cheaply in any pet-shop and they were probably the least troublesome of all childhood pets because they were left pretty much to their own devices , and were quite harmless.
Tortoises use to be brought into the UK by the thousand, packed in crates, and they came mostly from North Africa, Morocco in particular. But a good few years ago, a law was passed that made it illegal to bring any of these tortoises into the country. This was not done to protect us. The little tortoise was not a danger to anybody. It was done purely out of kindness to the tortoise itself. You see, the traders who brought them in used to cram thousands of them tightly into the packing-crates without food or water and in such horrible conditions that a great many of them always died on the sea-journey over (and the number of wild tortoises in some countries was being drastically reduced). So rather than allow this cruelty to go on, the Government stopped the whole business letting the Moroccans just sell them as toys in their own markets instead.
The things you are going to read about in this story all happened in the days when anyone could go out and buy a nice little tortoise from a pet shop.
Sort of..............

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Page 1

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Page 2
(That one was easy-peasy)

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Mr Adam lived in a smallish flat quite high up in a tallish stone and plaster building. he lived alone. He has always been a lonely man and now he was retired from work (at 39) he was more lonely than ever.
There were two loves in Mr Adam's life. One was the flowers he grew on his balcony. They grew in pots and tubs and baskets (most of which are not visible in the picture), and in summer the little balcony became a riot of colour.
Mr Adam's second love was a secret he kept entirely to himself. (and it wasn't cheese, not in this story).




Page 3

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Mr Adam has also just noticed his hunchback due to years of slouching about on chairs and the sofa, not standing up straight and bending over peering at small plants and animals as well as spending decades doubled up looking for fossils. Goodness.

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

The terrace immediately below Mr Adam's balcony jutted out a good bit further from the main building than his own, so Mr Adam always had a fine view of what was going on down there. This terrace belonged to an attractive middle-aged lady called Mrs wifey. Mrs wifey was a widow who also lived alone.
And although she didn't know it, it was she who was the object of Mr Adam's secret love. He had loved her from his balcony for many years, but he was a very shy man (ahem) and he had never been able to bring himself to give her even the smallest hint of his love.
Every morning, Mr Adam and Mrs wifey exchanged polite conversation, the one looking down from above, the other looking up, but that was as far as it ever went. The distance between them might not have been more than a few yards, but to Mr Adam it seemed like a million miles. He longed to invite Mrs wifey up for a cup of tea, coffee or Chablis and a biscuit or some cheese, but every time he was about to form the words on his lips, his courage failed him. As I said, he was a very very shy man.

The airplane should have been flying over the last picture but I forgot.





Page 4

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Page 5

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Oh, if only, he kept telling himself, if only he could do something tremendous like saving her life or rescuing her from a gang or armed cheese robbers, if only he could perform some great feat that would make him a hero in her eyes.
If only...............................






Page 6

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

The trouble with Mrs wifey was that she gave all her love to somebody else, and that somebody was a small tortoise called Alfie Every day, when Mr Adam looked over his balcony and saw Mrs wifey whispering endearments to Alfie and stroking his shell, he felt absurdly jealous, a real case of Tortoise Envy. He wouldn't even have minded becoming a tortoise himself if it meant Mrs wifey stroking his shell each morning and whispering endearments to him.





Page 7

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Alfie had been with Mrs wifey for years, and in Mr Adam's humble opinion it was a miracle he was still alive, and he lived on her balcony summer and winter. Mr Adam had joined Tortoise Forum, which was pretty clever as it hadn't been invented yet, and knew that the terrace was terribly bad on Alfie's feet and legs, though it did keep his claws and beak trimmed nicely. He was also aware that Horsfield tortoises, for Alfie was a Testudo horsfieldii known as Horsfields in the UK and Russians everywhere else, except Russia, probably, were excellent climbers and diggers and Alfie would be happier with a substrate such as fine grade orchid bark, coco coir or even cypress mulch to burrow into. But Mr Adam was too shy to say anything.
Planks originally had been placed around the sides of the balcony so that Alfie could walk about without toppling over the edge, but these had been replaced with much higher walls after Alfie had been seen climbing them and Mrs wifey had heard at the bingo from her friend Mrs Moozillion that a Horsfield had recently been found at Base Camp Three on Everest.
And in one corner of the balcony was a little house into which Alfie would crawl every night to keep warm.

When the cold weather came along in November, Mrs wifey would fill Alfie's house with dry hay, which would make Alfie sneeze and sometimes got wet and moldy,(sigh), and the tortoise would crawl in there and bury himself deep under the hay and go to sleep for months on end without food or water. This was called hibernating by Mrs wifey and brumating by Mr Adam who was right, as usual. But he was too shy to correct her.




Page 8

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

In early spring, when Alfie felt the warmer weather through his shell, he would wake up and crawl very slowly out of his house onto the balcony. And Mrs wifey would clap her hands with joy and cry out, " Welcome back, my darling one! Oh, how I have missed you! "

It was at times like these that Mr Adam wished more than ever that he could change places with Alfie and become a tortoise.



Page 9

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Now we come to a certain bright

morning in May, when something

happened that changed and indeed
electrified Mr Adam's life.( and no, he wasn't stazered by the police).

He was leaning over his balcony watching Mrs wifey serving Alfie his breakfast.
"Here's the heart of the lettuce for you, my lovely", she was saying. "And here's a slice of fresh tomato and a piece of crispy celery. "
Mr Adam knew from Tortoise Forum and from The Tortoise Table that this romaine lettuce was okay for tortoises but, especially the heart, had a too high water content to be perfect tortoise food, that tomato, as a fruit was bad because of the indigestible sugars it contained and the acids that can, in extreme cases, actually effect the natural tortoise stomach flora and prevent the tortoise breaking down the cellulose in it's proper diet ! And celery leaves contain high levels of oxalates and it's seeds are diuretic, it is too high in carbohydrates; too high in sodium and the calcium/ phosphate ratio is poor as well. NOT a good tortoise diet. But Mr Adam was too shy to say anything, and he wasn't fond of Alfie anyway as he was increasingly suffering from Tortoise Envy. So :
" Good morning, Mrs wifey," Mr Adam said. "Alfie's looking well this morning."
"Isn't he gorgeous!" Mrs wifey said, looking up and beaming at him.


Page 10

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Page 11