Tim Dowling: having a tortoise reminds you that life is long

My wife got ours when she was eight, and he came to live with us soon after we got married. I don’t remember anything about that in the vows

It is the first truly bleak day of autumn – the sky is a deep grey and a steady drizzle is falling. Sitting in the unflattering light of a kitchen downlight and looking out the window, I think: this is it now, until spring.

Except it isn’t, quite, as a few hours later the cloud begins to break up and a shaft of watery sunlight reaches the brick step just outside my office shed. When I open the door to let in the warm afternoon air, I find the tortoise sitting there.

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