RH is back! And wants a tortoise (or three)

After a week of total isolation in the Allgäu valley, RH and family arrived back - promptly after breakfast - in Bovinia today.  Still no cows!  I'll have to research this further.  Where we were staying, only 45 minutes away, selected herds were wondering the pastures.  And looked most contented, if a little skinny.

I feel reluctant to launch into a long description of the retreat.  Suffice to say, coke, wine and beer were drunk, and we were fed three times a day with stodgy Bavarian food by large ladies in maroon t-shirts.  That alone prevented me from eating too much, also the fact that, until the very last day, the kitchen team failed to understand exactly what a vegetarian is, despite many attempts to explain on my part.  I think they've got the idea now, which will be good for the next person.

While we were away our desire to acquire some tortoises grew.  I'll be blogging about this again, no doubt.  Our sad track record of pet-keeping does not inspire confidence, so we are keen to get it right this time.  I thought you just kept a tortoise in the garden, then packed it into a box - I remember watching this on Blue Peter as a child - for the winter.  But apparently there's a lot more to it than that.

You may laugh, but only yesterday I was in a petting zoo, fairy-tale parky kind of place.  As luck would have it, there was a little tortoise enclosure.  I interpreted this as a SIGN that we should, indeed, go ahead and get some.  I wasn't entirely sure though, so before we went, I returned to their hang-out and observed them for a few minutes.  I was waiting for conclusive evidence.  And then it happened - CG does not believe this at all - one of them waved its foot in my direction.  My new project is thus researching the ins and outs of tortoise keeping.  Blame our old neighbour in England.  He was a merchant sailor and had a tortoise, Terence, that I think had been smuggled back from a faraway land.  Every now and again, Mr Sailor would poke his head over the garden fence, and Terence would poke his head out of his shell, and we'd have a little chat.  My brother and I found this infinitely more exciting than the bunches of green bananas my mother would be presented with (I never did find out what she did with them.)

If any of my blog-readers should happen to have experience with tortoise-keeping, I implore them to write and give us some tips.  We and our future pets will be forever in their debt.