This is my desk tortoise. Her back is a hinged lid, and I keep these three little silver shells inside. I take them out when I write, and lay them on the desk.
I got the shells in the aquarium at Ilfracombe a few summers ago. My parents had joined us on holiday, back when dad was still driving and able to walk with a stick.
My mum thought the shells were ‘New Agey’, and I could sense her mentally grouping them with yoga, herbal teas and bath bombs while I paid for them.
They have the words, Inspire, Imagine and Relax written on them, and they feel lovely in your hand; cool to start, but quickly warming, and pleasingly grooved with their shell patterns on their reverse sides.
The tortoise is from a charity shop in Tankerton, Whitstable. I was supposed to be nipping in only to grab a body board we’d spotted as we drove past. Mark and the kids were waiting in the car. When I saw this little trooper I knew she’d be the perfect receptacle for my shells. When I got back into the car, I didn’t tell the others about her straight away. I wanted to check the shells fitted ok.
I have a bit of a history of buying stuff in charity shops that isn’t quite right.
Anyway, the shells fitted, and it all worked out perfectly. If the house was burning down, (and everyone was out safely), I’d grab this little tortoise, along with my notebooks and laptop. She’s become a kind of adult equivalent of a soft toy somehow.
Maybe I like her so much because I can relate to her: slowly creeping, fat foot after fat foot plodding, munching as she goes; retreating into her shell in times of crises; unable to see her destination as she fumbles through the long grass…
That’s pretty much how I feel when I’m writing, at least at the beginning.
And then I get those odd moments where it all suddenly falls into place and I switch to become not the tortoise, but the hare, whizzing and spinning, dashing and amazed at how many words I’ve accumulated, and then horrified that it’s already 3pm, and the kids will be waiting at their classroom doors, the last to be picked up once again.
I got the shells in the aquarium at Ilfracombe a few summers ago. My parents had joined us on holiday, back when dad was still driving and able to walk with a stick.
My mum thought the shells were ‘New Agey’, and I could sense her mentally grouping them with yoga, herbal teas and bath bombs while I paid for them.
They have the words, Inspire, Imagine and Relax written on them, and they feel lovely in your hand; cool to start, but quickly warming, and pleasingly grooved with their shell patterns on their reverse sides.
The tortoise is from a charity shop in Tankerton, Whitstable. I was supposed to be nipping in only to grab a body board we’d spotted as we drove past. Mark and the kids were waiting in the car. When I saw this little trooper I knew she’d be the perfect receptacle for my shells. When I got back into the car, I didn’t tell the others about her straight away. I wanted to check the shells fitted ok.
I have a bit of a history of buying stuff in charity shops that isn’t quite right.
Anyway, the shells fitted, and it all worked out perfectly. If the house was burning down, (and everyone was out safely), I’d grab this little tortoise, along with my notebooks and laptop. She’s become a kind of adult equivalent of a soft toy somehow.
Maybe I like her so much because I can relate to her: slowly creeping, fat foot after fat foot plodding, munching as she goes; retreating into her shell in times of crises; unable to see her destination as she fumbles through the long grass…
That’s pretty much how I feel when I’m writing, at least at the beginning.
And then I get those odd moments where it all suddenly falls into place and I switch to become not the tortoise, but the hare, whizzing and spinning, dashing and amazed at how many words I’ve accumulated, and then horrified that it’s already 3pm, and the kids will be waiting at their classroom doors, the last to be picked up once again.