ESIO TROT by Tidgy's Dad.

[Tidgy's Dad]

"Absolutely gorgeous", Mr Adam said, not meaning it, as he was still gripped by Extreme Tortoise Envy. And now, as he looked down at Mrs wifey's smiling face gazing up into his own, he thought for the thousandth time how pretty she was (pretty stupid, more like as will be seen), how sweet and gentle and full of kindness, and his heart ached with love. (lust would be more accurate, I feel).



Look at that water bowl!
Not only is it see through, so that poor Alfie can see out and try to get away,( an opaque soaking dish is a better option) but this is impossible for Alfie to climb in. And if he did he'd probably drown.
The of course there's the bad mix of foods and the silly coco coir tray which Mrs wifey uses as a dirt box for Alfie to use as a toilet. Goodness.
I must say, however that there was supposed to be a slice of tomato in this shot, but I couldn't be bothered to go and get one.
So I used a sea urchin instead, also bad for a tortoise diet. I expect, though it's not on The Tortoise Table. Did anyone spot it ?
Here is the tomato that should have been in the picture.


Page 12

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

"I do wish he would grow a little faster." Mrs wifey was saying. " Every spring, when he wakes up from his winter sleep, I weigh him on the kitchen scales.
And do you know that in all the eleven years I've had him he's not gained more than three ounces ! That's almost nothing ! "
Mr Adam doubted very much that Alfie weighed three ounces now, Mrs wifey probably had metric kitchen scales. But he was too shy to mention it. He also thought it was a pretty good idea to weigh the tortoise only yearly, once it was fully grown. When they were small and growing, monthly was better, as you could clearly see their progress without driving yourself completely doolally with worry if you weighed them more often and the weight fluctuated wildly.That way lieth madness.
"What does he weigh now ?" Mr Adam asked her.
" Just thirteen ounces," Mrs wifey answered. "About as much as a grapefruit."
Hmmm. About as much as a grape, thought Mr Adam.
"Yes,well, tortoises are very slow growers", Mr Adam said solemnly. "But they can live for over a hundred years."
If you follow the Tortoise Forum care sheets and Beginner's Mistakes advice etc. that is.
" I know that," Mrs wifey said. "But I do so wish he would grow just a little bit bigger. He's such a tiny wee fellow."
"He seems just fine as he is," Mr Adam said.



Page 13

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

" No, he's not just fine! " Mrs wifey cried. "Try to think how miserable it must make him feel to be so tidgy! Everyone wants to grow up."
Mr Adam thought that Mrs wifey was being rather anthropomorphic. Tortoises are unaware of the concept of ageing or getting bigger. And he wouldn't feel miserable through being small, but maybe a bit sicky through having such a terrible diet. Still :
"You really would love him to grow bigger, wouldn't you?" Mr Adam said, and even as he said it his mind suddenly went click and an amazing idea came rushing into his head.
"Of course I would!" Mrs wifey cried. "I'd give anything to make it happen! Why, I've seen pictures of giant tortoises that are so huge people can ride on their backs! If Alfie were to see those he's turn green with envy!"
No, he wouldn't, Mr Adam thought, he'd either be terrified or, considering Alfie was a Russian, try to chase them off his territory. Mr Adam knew that Mrs wifey was talking about Aldabra, Galapagos and maybe big Sulcata tortoises being ridden by children and sometimes adults, it always seemed a bit cruel to Mr Adam, especially when the adult was quite fat.









Page 14

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Mr Adam's mind was spinning like an out of control carousel or an extremely twisty-turney thing . Here, surely, was his big chance! Grab it, he told himself. Grab it quick!
"Mrs wifey," he said. " I do actually happen to know how to make tortoises grow faster, if that's really what you want."
"You do?" she cried. "Oh, please tell me! Am I feeding him the wrong things?"
Yes, you are, thought Mr Adam, but now he could not tell her that.
"I worked in North Africa once," Mr Adam said. "That's where all these tortoises in England come from, and a bedouin tribesman told me the secret."
(Though, of course, Russian torts don't actually come from Africa. Nor do Hermann's that you often find in the UK, but bedouins are unusual in Eastern Europe) (Bedouins are very interesting people who really do know a lot of secrets. But one of them shot me once, which wasn't so nice.)
"Tell me!" cried Mrs wifey. (Crikey, she's always crying, isn't she ?) " I beg you to tell me, Mr Adam! I'll be your slave for life."
When he heard the words your slave for life, a little shiver of excitement swept through Mr Adam. "Wait there", he said. "I'll have to go in and write something down for you."


Page 15

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

In a couple of minutes Mr Adam was back on the balcony with a sheet of paper in his hand. "I'm going to lower it down to you on an odd bit of rope," he said, "or it might blow away. Here it comes."







Page 16

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Mrs wifey caught the paper and held it up in front of her. This is what she read :


(Notice the pyramided Russian tortoise climbing up the right side of the page)






" What does it mean?" she asked. rolleyes "Is it another language?"
"It's tortoise language," Mr Adam said.



Page 17

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

"Tortoises are very backward creatures. Therefore they can only understand words that are written backwards. That's obvious, isn't it?"
" I suppose so," Mrs wifey said, bewildered. (Duh!)
"Esio trot is simply tortoise spelled backwards," Mr Adam said. "Look at it."
"So it is," Mrs wifey said.
"The other words are spelled backwards, too," Mr Adam said. "If you turn them round into human language, they simply say:

TORTOISE, TORTOISE,
GET BIGGER BIGGER!
COME ON TORTOISE,
GROW UP, PUFF UP, SHOOT UP!
SPRING UP, BLOW UP, SWELL UP!
GORGE! GUZZLE! STUFF! GULP !
PUT ON FAT, TORTOISE, PUT ON FAT!
GET ON, GET ON! GOBBLE FOOD! "







Page 18

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Mrs wifey examined the magic words on the paper more closely. "I guess you're right," she said. "How clever. But there's an awful lot of poos in it. Are
they something special?"
"Poo is a very strong word in any language," Mr Adam said,"especially with tortoises. (and tortoise keepers! How excited we get when our tortoise poops sometimes !) Now what you have to do, Mrs wifey, is hold Alfie up to your face and whisper these words to him three times a day, morning, noon and night. Let me hear you practise them."
Very slowly and stumbling a little over the strange words, Mrs wifey read the whole message out loud in tortoise language.
"Not bad," Mr Adam said. "But try to get a little more expression into it when you say it to Alfie. If you do it properly I'll bet you anything you like that in a few month's time he'll be twice as big as he is now."
"I'll try it," Mrs wifey said. "I'll try anything. Of course I will. But I can't believe it'll work."
"You wait and see," Mr Adam said, smiling at her.




Page 19

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Back in his flat, Mr Adam was simply quivering all over with excitement. Your slave for life, he kept repeating to himself. What bliss!
But there was a lot of work to be done before that happened. (he's not kidding!).

(For those of you interested in such things,, the chair is English oak, horse hair stuffed leather upholstered, hand carved, one of a set of four we've had in the family since the early 17th century, Jacobean, there are also two larger armchairs from the same period).



Page 20

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

The only furniture in Mr Adam's small living-room was a table and two chairs. These he moved into his bedroom. Then he went out and bought a thick sheet of canvas and spread it over the entire living-room floor to protect his carpet.
Next, he got out the telephone-book and wrote down the address of every pet-shop in the city.
There were fourteen of them altogether.





It hasn't come out very clearly, but the two pet shops that Mr Adam has written down so far are Petstupid and Tortoises 'R' Us.
Mr Adam's glasses should be on his forehead for this shot but I forgot and wifey didn't notice.



Page 21

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

It took him two days to visit each pet-shop and choose his tortoises. he wanted a great many, at least one hundred, perhaps more. And he needed to choose them very carefully.
To you and me there is quite a bit of difference between one tortoise and another, but to the layman there is not much difference at all. To them they differ only in their size and the colour of their shells. Alfie had a pale shell with darker patches, so Mr Adam wanted to choose only light shelled, dark spotted tortoises for his great collection.
Size, of course, was everything. Mr Adam chose tortoises of all different sizes, some weighing only slightly more than Alfie's estimated weight, the 'thirteen ounces' by Mrs wifey's scales, others a great deal more, but he didn't want any that weighed less.










Page 22

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

But Mr Adam encountered some problems with his cunning plan.
For example here is the first pet-shop he visited :





"Do you sell tortoises ?" Mr Adam inquired, thinking the pet-shop owner looked vaguely familiar but unable to place him.
"Yes", responded the pet-shop owner, fishing a tortoise out from under the counter. "This is a tortoise."
"It is", agreed Mr Adam, immediately recognizing it as a Greek, Testudo graeca. "Got any Russians?"
The pet-shop owner looked at him, strangely. "Listen, mate, this is a pet shop. I don't know about Russians, but there's a very nice Polish family living at number 32."
Mr Adam sighed and examined the stock. They were all Greeks. "I'll take them all, anyway," he decided, as they were all bigger than Alfie.
"Feed them cabbage leaves," the pet-shop owner told him. "That's all they need. And a bowl of water."
Mr Adam sighed again, as he was aware, thanks to the yet to be created Tortoise Table, that cabbage was a bad tortoise food, as it contained goitrogens that interfered with thyroid function and could damage the liver and kidneys. But as part of a carefully balanced diet, some could be fed. Mr Adam also knew that many pet-shops were operating with information of their time,( thirty years ago for us, but many still do this) and for proper up to date information from experienced tort keepers you needed to go to the also not created yet Tortoise Forum.

The next shop only had Indian Stars ( Geochelone elegans) and the next just sulcatas ( Centrochelys sulcata). Mr Adam bought all the ones bigger than Alfie.

Here is the fourth shop :




"Feed them cabbage leaves," the pet-shop owners all told him. "That's all they'll need. And a bowl of water."
The rest of the pet shops gave the same advice and Mr Adam was forced to buy various tortoise species, as no one had any Russian tortoises.
Here is the fourteenth and last pet-shop from Mr Adam's list.





You will notice this is not photoshopped. Just proves the pet-shop owners are not all played by the same actor, you see!

"Oh!" said Mr Adam, "I'm sorry, I thought this was a pet shop."
"It was until last week, mate", said the ex pet-shop owner. "But we sold all our Russians and couldn't get any more, so we are now a Doctor Who Memorabilia outlet. But I still have one tortoise left, under the counter."
Mr Adam bought it, thinking a lot of pet-shop owners looked very similar.
"Feed it cabbage leaves," the ex pet-shop owner told him. "That's all it needs. And a bowl of water."



Page 23

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

When he had finished, Mr Adam, in his enthusiasm, had bought no less than one hundred and forty tortoises and he carried them home in baskets, ten or fifteen at a time, which was difficult for him as they were as heavy as potatoes. Many of them seemed to be called Sheldon, Shelley, Shelby, Voldetort or Franklin. He had to make a lot of trips and he was quite exhausted at the end of it all, but it was worth it. Boy, was it worth it ! And what an amazing sight his living-room was when they were all in there together!



Page 24

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

The floor was swarming with tortoises of different sizes, some walking slowly about and exploring, some munching lettuce leaves, others drinking water from a big shallow dish.(which of course would be better if it was big enough for tortoises to soak themselves in. And we all know keeping torts together in this number is not good, pairs rarely work, groups sometimes do, but this is ridiculous! And they should all be quarantined for months before being put together. Mr Adam knew all this, but couldn't be bothered. )
The tortoises made just the faintest rustling sound as they moved over the canvas sheet, but that was all. Mr Adam had to pick his way very carefully on his tiptoes between the moving sea of brown and yellow shells whenever he walked across the room. But enough of that. He must get on with the job.



Page 25

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Before he retired Mr Adam had been a mechanic in a bus-garage. And now he went back to his old place of work and asked his mates, Ronald and Abdul MacDonald, if he might use his old work bench for an hour or two.
What he had to do now was to make something that would reach down from his own balcony to Mrs wifey's balcony and pick up a tortoise. This was not difficult for a mechanic like Mr Adam.








Page 26

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

First he made two metal claws or fingers, and these he attached to the end of a long metal tube. He ran two stiff wires down inside the tube and connected them to the metal claws in such a way that when you pulled the wires, the claws closed, and when you pushed them, the claws opened.
The wires were joined to a handle at the other end of the tube. It was all very simple.
Mr Adam was ready to begin.









I should point out that in the book, the drawing by Quentin Blake actually shows a topless lady! It's a children's book!
After closely perusing 49 magazines for research I have decided it's inappropriate for Tortoise Forum so have substituted a different calendar.



Page 27

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Mrs wifey had a part-time job. She worked from noon until five o'clock every weekday afternoon in a shop that sold newspapers, sweets and cheese. That made things a lot easier for Mr Adam.
So on that first exciting afternoon, after he had made sure that Mrs wifey had gone to work, Mr Adam went out onto his balcony armed with his long metal pole. He called this his tortoise-catcher. He leaned over the balcony plants and lowered the pole down on to Mrs wifey's balcony below.





Alfie had been eating lettuce.





But had now moved over to the tomato and was basking in the pale sunlight over to one side.
"Hello, Alfie," Mr Adam said. "You are about to go for a little ride."
He wiggled the tortoise-catcher till it was right above Alfie. He pushed the hand-lever so that the claws opened wide.





Then he lowered the two claws neatly over Alfie's shell and pulled the lever.








Page 28

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

The claws closed tightly over the shell like two fingers of a hand.




He hauled Alfie up on to his own balcony.





It was easy.






Then Mr Adam remembered he was not supposed to be wearing the hat. Bad continuity.
So he put Alfie down among some flowers while he removed it for the next photo.





It was to be the last time that little Alfie was to feel the warm sun soaking into his shell and skin and to have that vital UVB so necessary for vitamin D3 synthesis to enable calcium absorption ,for a very long time.


Page 29.

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Mr Adam weighed Alfie on his own kitchen scales just to make sure that Mrs wifey's figure of thirteen ounces was as wrong as he thought. It was. So he adjusted his scales accordingly.
Now, holding Alfie in one hand, he picked his way through his huge collection of tortoises to find one that first of all had the same colour shell as Alfie's and secondly weighed exactly two ounces more.
(by Mrs wifey's measurements from here on referred to as MwM.)



Page 30

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Two ounces is not much. It is less than a smallish hen's egg weighs. Two MwMs is even less. It is less than a grape. But, you see the important thing in Mr Adam's plan was to make sure the new tortoise was bigger than Alfie but only a tiny bit bigger. The difference had to be so small that Mrs wifey wouldn't notice it.











Page 31