Ulverston tortoise lost for seven years recognised from burn mark
Ms Christopher told BBC Radio Cumbria that the owner did not believe she would see the tortoise again. "She said it was the last thing she ever received from him [her son] so it is of huge sentimental value to her, as you can imagine, to have her tortoise back."The lady and her daughter are really pleased, just really thrilled to be reunited with their tortoise."
The Hermann's tortoise went missing while her owner was visiting a friend."She had popped her in her friend's garden so they could have a catch-up but when she went to leave, the tortoise had vanished," Ms Christopher said. "She was absolutely heartbroken at the time and had no idea where she'd gone."Seven years on and the terrapin was found by 12-year-old Logan, nine miles away from where she vanished."He was over the moon to find it as he loves animals but he brought her in to me after a few days and was pleased when we found the owner," Ms Christopher said.
After putting pictures on Facebook, Ms Christopher said the owner contacted the pet shop. "She really didn't think it was going to be hers because she lost it so long ago but because of the distinctive markings I said it had on its shell, she said it sounded like theirs. "Her tortoise had once got wedged under a wood-burning stove, and it had left a flat spot and a burn mark on the top of her shell. "That stopped me in my tracks, it matched exactly."Ms Christopher said she did not know where the tortoise had been.She added: "What matters is that she's finally home."
Follow BBC Cumbria on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
World's longest-serving KFC worker known as ‘Miss KFC' dies aged 74 after battling cancer
THE world's longest-serving KFC worker, racking up 47 years, has died aged 74. Tributes were paid to Pauline Richards, known as 'Miss KFC', after she succumbed to cancer. She started at the branch in Taunton, Somerset, in 1978, and estimated serving six million chicken drumsticks over the next five decades. Pauline started as a cleaner, going on to work on the tills and became a manager. She saw both her daughter and grandson getting jobs there. Kathryn York, chief people officer at KFC, had called her a 'an important role model in her local community.' This year, Pauline said: 'I have no plans to retire, it all depends what my body says.' She added: "A lot of people on a night out come in looking for me. "I go to a pub down the road and I see them down there. "I haven't bought a drink in the last two years. After her death, Taunton Town Council said: 'Our thoughts are with her family and all those who knew and loved her.' Beloved chicken chain that's 'way better' than Popeyes announces it's now adding 20 new locations to lineup
The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
I'm forced to witness my wife dating endless stream of men as we still live together… did she ever really love me?
DEAR DEIDRE: SINCE my wife and I split up, she's been dating a constant stream of men. Although we're separated, we still live together, so I have to see her getting dolled up almost every night, then sometimes not coming home until the morning. Her behaviour makes me feel like she can't ever really have loved me, and it's killing me. We're in our mid-thirties and have been together since college. She's the only woman I've ever loved. Things started going wrong four years ago, after our daughter was born. My wife went off sex, blaming tiredness. But even when our daughter started sleeping through the night, she didn't want me any more. She stopped communicating and wanted to go out with her friends, leaving me to babysit. Then, six months ago, she told me our marriage was over. She said she didn't love me any more. But for financial reasons, it's been impossible for me to move out, and being stuck living together has made her resentful. Recently, she told me that as we're over, I'd have to put up with her seeing other men because she didn't want to wait any longer. She's on a dating site, meeting a different man every week. I can't tell you how painful it is. When she rolls home in the same clothes, and I know she has slept with another man, I want to cry. I'm just thankful she hasn't brought anyone back to our house. I still love her and don't want sex or a relationship with anyone else. I thought she was my soul mate and that we would be together for ever. The thought of having to move out and be alone again — just a part-time dad — is unbearable. I'm on anti-depressants because I feel so low. Yet she's going out partying as if she doesn't have a care in the world. How can I let her go and move on with my life? DEIDRE SAYS: Having to live together after separating is now, unfortunately, a common issue. Your wife has moved on emotionally, but you haven't. Perhaps she thinks rubbing your face in her sexual activity will make you move out quicker. Instead, it's destroying you. It won't be good for your daughter either. While it's good you are taking medication, counselling would also help. Ask your doctor about this. It's a soul-destroying feeling being stuck in an unhappy situation, so try to work out a timescale for you to be able to separate physically also. This will help you to move on. If there's any way you could stay with a relative or friend for a while, so you are out of this toxic environment, that will also be beneficial. My support pack, Moving On, should be useful, too. THANK YOU FOR... HELPING EASE SON'S ANXIETY OVER SPLIT DEAR DEIDRE: AFTER separating from my wife, I tried hard to be a good dad to my son, but every time I had him for the weekend, he just cried for his mum. It felt like she'd made me out to be the bad guy because I'd left her. But the truth is, I only left after she had an affair. The last thing I ever wanted was to split up my family, with a child of eight in the middle of it, or to be single at 40. I wrote to you asking how I could help my son to settle when he stayed with me. His anxiety and distress worried and upset me. You sent me your support pack, When Parents Fall Out, which explained how any tension between me and my ex could hurt my son. You also recommended I contact the helpline on 0808 800 2222 and (0300 0300 363) for more advice. And you reassured me that I was a good dad, and I needed to keep on telling my son I love him – so he didn't blame himself. I took your advice and my son now seems much more secure when he's with me. He's even messaging me from his tablet when he's at home. Thank you. TEENAGE TROUBLES DEAR DEIDRE: MY boyfriend is so judgmental, he makes me feel like I can't be myself. When I went out with some friends the other night and got drunk, he was really annoyed. He told me he didn't love me when I drank and that they're a bad influence. We're both 18 and have been together for two years. I hate feeling like I'm not good enough for him and have to act the way he expects. We had a big row and now he's being all sweet and loving because he knows he upset me. What should I do? DEIDRE SAYS: If he's making you feel you can't be yourself, and emotionally blackmailing you, it's a red flag. Being concerned about you is one thing, but controlling is another. Tell him how you feel and ask him to be more understanding. But if things don't change, it might be wise to move on. Read my support pack, Learning About Relationships. ANGERED BY DAUGHTER USING EX TO DECEIVE ME DEAR DEIDRE: WHEN my teenage daughter told me she wanted to get her nose pierced, I forbade her from doing it. But my ex – her dad – gave his permission, despite knowing how I felt. Now she has an extra hole in her nose and I'm furious with both of them for being so sneaky and dishonest. I'm a single mum in my early 40s. My daughter is 15. She got her ears pierced at nine, with my blessing. But when she said she wanted a nose stud because she thinks it looks cool, I vetoed the idea. Personally, I think having lots of piercings looks tacky. And I also worry about whether it'll affect her chances of getting a job in the future. Plus, I was concerned it might get infected. I told her if she still wanted to do it at 18, it was her choice. Instead of taking no for an answer, she went behind my back and asked her dad. She came home from her weekend at his with a great big stud in her nose. I'm really furious. They think I'm overreacting, but I feel very strongly about this issue. Am I in the wrong? DEIDRE SAYS: Teenagers love to rebel, so it's likely telling your daughter you think nose piercings look tacky will only have encouraged her. But the damage is done. The hole will eventually heal up if she takes out the stud – which she may have to do at school anyway, depending on their policies. And she can remove it for job interviews – if she hasn't grown bored with it by then. It sounds, understandably, like you're more angry she went behind your back, and that your ex disrespected you, than you are about the piercing itself. When you're calmer, you need to sit down with each of them and explain why this has upset you so much. Consider agreeing to some rules and boundaries with your ex so you're on the same page in future. NEED TO CHANGE MY PERFECTIONISM DEAR DEIDRE: I'M such an obsessive perfectionist that it's spoiling my life – and my marriage. When I planned a birthday party and people either didn't reply or let me down at the last minute, I was so upset that it ruined the whole event for me. Now, I've stopped speaking to several friends. I'm a 38-year-old woman and my husband is 40. I always go the extra mile for everyone. The problem is, I expect everyone else to be as diligent as me, and when they're not, I feel let down and stop trusting them. I've driven away so many people that I'm increasingly lonely and hate myself. I do talk to my husband about this and he says I should just 'chill' and stop holding people to impossible standards. I'm the same at work. I always end up doing overtime and resenting the rest of my team, who don't put in the same effort. I know my perfectionism is unhealthy. How can I change? DEIDRE SAYS: It seems you lack self-confidence, which translates to neediness. You set impossible standards for everyone, including yourself, and when they're not met, you feel miserable. It's likely this has roots in your childhood. Perhaps you were made to feel you were never good enough. But nobody is perfect. Having flaws makes us human, and sometimes you need to forgive people – and yourself. As you know, it's not that easy to just 'chill'. But talking to a counsellor could be beneficial. See my support pack, How Counselling Can Help, for more information.
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Our failing water firms are a damning reflection of Broken Britain
The latest report from the Environment Agency on the state of Britain's rivers is a veritable shower of euphemism and shame. 'Serious pollution incidents', the bland bureaucratic term preferred by the agency, are up by 60 per cent just in the last year. We all know what that means: lumpy sewage in streams and on seashores that turns the stomach of anyone nearby, asphyxiates fish, and generally decimates the environment. 'Wastewater' leaking out while being carried uphill is apparently a particular problem, one 'impacting' swimmers. Around 80 per cent of the most serious 'incidents' were down to three companies – Thames Water (33 spillages), Southern Water (15) and Yorkshire Water (13). There is no suggestion that the situation is likely to improve; indeed, all the talk is of Thames Water, the largest company of its kind in the country, collapsing under the weight of its own debt rather than its scandalous record on pollution. It's a damning reflection of 'Broken Britain'. Why has a supposedly civilised G7 economy grown so easily accustomed to such an appalling state of affairs? It may be true that de-industrialisation has cleaned up some of the larger rivers and estuaries in recent decades, but the water companies, the regulators and successive governments can hardly take credit for that. What they are responsible for is what is in their control – maintaining a sewage system that does what it is expected of it in the modern world. It is one of the most basic services – and yet in parts of the UK, it feels little more than a hopeless aspiration. This river of excrement has been rolling for years, and, while the details can be complex, the principal streams of blame that feed into the scandal can be easily identified. Incomprehensibly weak regulation is the strongest of the currents, either because Ofwat was never given sufficient powers or a wide enough remit, or because it was incompetent, or all three. There has never been a shortage of official bodies nominally overseeing matters – the Environment Agency and various iterations of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, as well as local authorities – but always a huge deficit of effective democratic control. There is, of course, a fundamental contradiction at the heart of this particular privatised industry: the provision of clean running water and efficient sewage disposal may not align with the commercial imperatives of the companies denationalised in 1989 in England and Wales (Scotland and Northern Ireland were spared the experiment). Profit and public service can co-exist and even flourish – but not always, and not everywhere. Even if the industry had been regulated better, the privatised model combined with zero competition and regulated tariffs was poorly prepared for the task of investing the vast sums needed to renew the crumbling Victorian infrastructure, let alone build the reservoirs and pipework required to cater for a population that was to expand by some 12 million in the ensuing decades. Some public services ought not to be expected, let alone forced, to turn a profit. But from early on, the major weakness in the regulatory regime was becoming apparent – that while the need to monitor charges and water quality was recognised, there was no oversight of the financial health of the companies. Once the shares had been acquired from the small shareholders in the initial public offerings and placed in the hands of private equity firms, the companies were free to load themselves with as much debt as they fancied – which paid for bumper dividends for the new shareholders. It left a vital public service hopelessly over-mortgaged. The chance was taken for some lucrative asset stripping, even certain reservoirs were sold off, and the companies were left so enfeebled that if Ofwat tried to fine them, they could plausibly claim that they would go bust. They contrived to make themselves too big to fail. Or so they hoped. On Monday, the government will publish a review of the industry by Sir Jon Cunliffe, the head of the Independent Water Commission, and its own proposals will follow. As we reported on Friday, the government is expected to scrap Ofwat. It must use the power of parliament to chart a new course for the industry. Despite the pollution crisis, the Treasury cannot afford immediately to renationalise the most distressed of the operators, Thames Water, because of its enormous debts – more than £16bn. It seems inevitable that Thames will fall into the special procedure that will ensure continuing water and sewage services to 15 million customers in southern England and London while the government takes control. This is a far cheaper remedy for the taxpayer, but it does still mean that the considerable cost of cleaning up the rivers, keeping the taps on and the loos flushing will, to some extent, fall to the taxpayers as well as the bill payers. Either that, or we just get used to having the dirtiest rivers and beaches in Europe.
