family photo

That's four of us taking a family photo! Guess who's who?

I wonder how long will it take for us to outgrow this feeding tank... Nanook is already taking up a lot of space. But I still love her. She's still my blur blur sister.

neglect

My female owner has been neglecting us. We hardly see her anymore. We miss her so much, we dont even mind listening to her play the flute. Just to have her around us again.

overslept

For turtles, there's no such thing as oversleeping. Every moment we open our eyes, it's the right time, either to bask in the sun, look for food and simply, to stone.

For my female owner, she has been oversleeping these days. She woke up on Sunday morning at 0700hr, when she's supposed to be at the starting line of a 12km run (sidetrack - I wonder how long that would take us to cover!) at 0715hr. Today, she woke up at 0720hr, when she's supposed to get a lift from her kind colleague at 0740hr.

So for two days in a row, we hardly saw her, coz she was gone with the wind....

Dona

This is my seond brother, Dona. He is seldom featured here as he is camera and people shy. However, my female owner managed to catch some of his quieter moments on her chio camera.He holds the honour of the only terrapin who can flip himself over when he is upside down. He's also small and nimble. Runs really fast, if you dont see carefully, you would think that he's a rat scurrying to safety.

something changed

Something changed in our hearts (my siblings and my female owner) these few days. Knowing the male owner had begun his chase of prey again (i.e. finding another partner) had somehow set us free, catalysed us to close a chapter in our lives and given us the courage to live life differently.

For us turtles, we are disappointed that our male owner had given us up so quickly. The develpment was like a fast-moving cancer which separated us in a twinkling of an eye. Nanook and I feel even more upset, because we were handpicked by our male owner and nurtured by him for a few months before he brought (or dumped?) us to my female owner's house.

For my female owner, she wonders for a while how he could have gotten over her so fast.

So what has changed in her heart?
Deep in her heart, she knows that she will never shed another tear for him again.

humans change

It’s amazing how fast human beings change when they become unattached. My female owner, never one to read books, is reading her fourth book in the two months my owners separated. My male owner, always so self-conscious of his singing voice, has been going to karaoke and is now trying to master two songs.

How quickly humans change.

moving on

My owners talked again today. Online. The first time they chatted online (many years ago), it ended in a quarrel. Online quarrel! Can you believe it?

It could be because of that or other reasons (e.g. my male owner had been adamant about not installing MSN on his home computer for security reasons) that my male owner did not use MSN at home. Only my female owner would. Until they separated. Then he installed MSN on his home computer.

Anyway, my male owner told her that he has moved on, since the day they separated. He assumed that she did too.

As for me and my fellow siblings, we are still in the Balcony, moving nowhere. Just like this photo here. I've made this broom my arm chair.

abrasion

Dodo's left arm is injured. This time, he must have scrapped his arm against something sharp for a portion of his skin is dangling away from his arm. However, he doesn't seem bothered by it, as he spends his days walking around the Balcony. My female owner is getting jaded by his numerous injuries that she is adopting a wait-and-see approach.

Boys will be boys. They never keep still.

feasting

Been a long time since I left a shellprint here. Miss me?

Thought that I would share a little on something very close to my heart. For those who have been following my life-story, you would know that one of my pet topics revolves around FOOD. So today, I should let my photos do the talking, to let you know how our feeding tank looks like and how my female owner usually feeds us.

Enjoy this “cultural exchange”!

The invitation to feast - clean water in the feeding tank - so we are climbing in

Being hand-fed - Note the rare appearance of Dona

Enjoying our meal - Nanook is missing...

A close-up picture of me - the flash must have blinded me for a while

Me climbing out after the feast - see how dirty the water has become?

sparkle

See the sparkle in my eye?


Pretty or not?

brief encounter

My female owner did something today, something which she thought she would never be able to do for a period of time. She met my male owner face-to-face. Apparently, yesterday he requested to get back his favourite jacket and she agreed to meet him today to do so (this explains for the measly dinner she gave us yesterday!). Well, the summary was that, she met him at the pre-arranged time and venue, passed him the jacket and left. The long of it was that, she didn’t know what to expect or how to talk to him when they met. Not knowing what would be appropriate, she decided to keep silent while he, though man of few words, reminded her that it was the beginning of the 7th month and told her to be careful during this period of time (such love he has for her despite everything. though we would have loved it, he didn’t mention us...). My silly female owner kept silent throughout the whole encounter and only nodded her head in response. She then left for her music lesson, and struggled (but succeeded) to keep her tears in during the lesson. Looks like we turtles will have to grow up in a broken family.

sun tanning

Dodo, my eldest brother, has a very dark green shell. He managed to get such a good colour, no thanks to his numerous sun-tanning sessions. Out of all the four of us, he is the only turtle who has the patience and will-power to soak himself in Singapore's powerful sun-rays. I tried to educate him about harmful UV rays, but he dismissed my concerns, saying that only humans suffer from the harmful effects of UV rays.

Dodo is so into sun-tanning that he did it even though he had a swollen arm. See how his left arm could not be retracted into his shell?

wander

It's Singapore's birthday tomorrow! Me am excited because that means that my female owner will be home (it's a public holiday). And that means that she may bring us out for a walk in the rest of her flat. That sounds exciting coz we've been cooped up in the Balcony for a long time. She never brought us out to wander around the flat since That Fateful Day. My siblings and I will pray hard for this to happen tomorrow.

Pray with us.

what happened?

My female had not been exercising since she stopped talking to my male owner. Slowly but surely, she was putting on fats (just like me!). In a bid to get into better shape (both physically and psychologically), she agreed to go jogging with some of her colleagues at MacRitchie Reservoir. It was risky for her ego, coz all of them could definitely run faster than her.


At the reservoir, she spied the familiar blue bridge that stood over the murky waters. The water is home to countless terrapins, many of which had been released into the wild by their owners. My female owner spent some time looking at the terrapins swimming effortlessly in the water, enjoying their swim amidst the setting sun.



She couldn’t help but wonder, what happened to our ability to swim?!

escapade

I miss my male owner. I decided to keep a lookout for him by perching myself on as high a ground as I could, using whatever I could find in the Balcony. This was the result of my efforts.

Balancing myself on my female owner's tricycle and a flower pot.

View from the top, the heights I would go to to find him


Still lying in wait. Nanook said that I was wasting my time.
You must be wondering whether I managed to get down safely. I did. My female owner saw my attempted escapade and hurriedly took me down, when she saw me attempting to climb higher up the tricycle...

touched

Dodo is very touched that my female owner’s friends left get-well-soon messages for him. He is certainly getting better and eating well. In fact, when my female owner came home today, he was the only turtle to come out to greet her (Don’t ask me why the rest of us didn’t come out!). Not to mention also that his ego got a boost when he heard that someone said that he is a “big strong boy”. Men.

hobble

Dodo has been cooped up in the tank for a week already. His patience is wearing down. His arm is still slightly swollen, but my female owner, sensing his misery, set him free to walk around the Balcony.

Dodo managed to hobble around for a while, before retiring into a corner to sleep. Guess he's still not fully recovered.

Maybe he needs to go back to the clinic.