A tortoise has been returned, safe and sound, to its owner nearly two years since it disappeared, turning up just streets away from where it escaped in the first place.

Maddie Tibble, was given the tortoise, as a present, for her ninth birthday and within two days it had managed to escape from her back garden and into the school playing fields behind where she lived. Maddie was understandably upset when it could not be found and was given a new tortoise to replace Lottie the escapee, but eventually gave it away because it was just not the same. She then had to come to terms with the fact that she would not have a pet tortoise ever again.

Amazingly 22 months later, Lottie the tortoise was discovered walking along the road the other side of the playing fields in Essex, where it was thought she was lost in the first place The road, which was on the far side of the fields, is just over a mile from Maddies house, where she escaped from. She was taken in to a local vets, by the person who found her, where the electronic chip she had been fitted with was able to identify her as Maddie’s lost pet. The vet examined Lottie and found the tortoise to be in perfect health, despite her ordeal.

Maddie, who is now ten years old, reportedly said that she could not believe that it was the same tortoise she had lost such a long time ago and was shocked that it had been returned to her. She and her family were, of course, thrilled to have it back again.

The tortoise somehow had managed to fend for itself all of the time and had survived a very hard winter, one of the coldest in decades.