It’s human v tortoise in the Beddington household. And the

You wouldn’t believe how fast these things can move until you try to lock them up. How long until the next jailbreak?

We have entered the season marked in our household by the battle of wits between human and tortoise. All spring, my husband (dexterous, resourceful, engineer) pours his ingenuity into trying to keep the four tortoises (prehistoric, pea-brained, no opposable thumbs) in the garden, while the tortoises, out of the greenhouse and warmed to a point where they are unnervingly speedy, FYI, do their utmost to escape. It makes no sense – here they have a spacious all-you-can-eat buffet; out there it’s cars, cats and chaos. But the reptile heart wants what it wants.

We’re already had one jailbreak by our worst recidivist. Despite double wooden sleepers corralling her and in defiance of all physical laws, she’s been apprehended previously trundling down the street, destination unknown; wedged, thwarted, under a gate, still fighting to free herself; and repeatedly in our neighbours’ garden, demolishing her summer-flowering annuals (sorry, J). We’ve tried a GPS tracker; she rubbed it off in minutes.

Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist