Tor2 is a Greek spur-thighed tortoise. His birthday is 27th August. He is six years old. He hibernates — or sulks — all winter. In the summer he walks around the house or lives in the garden in a special fenced area we call his gulag. He spends all summer trying to get out of it.

He eats dandelion leaves, other leaves (but he’s a bit fussy), fruit (when he’s allowed it) and anything he finds on the floor which he is not allowed to have!

Marcel is my lobster and he lives in a tank in my office. He’s a blue lobster, and lives in fresh water. He eats krill — just like a blue whale — and also squid, prawns and salmon.

Every four weeks or so, Marcel loses his entire skin – it comes off in one piece, and he crawls out of a gap in the tummy. It looks like a see-through lobster. He eats his skin (gross!) then hides for a few days while his new skin goes hard. Marcel has ten legs and his teeth are in his tummy!

Marcel is named after Marcel Proust, who was another writer who had a lobster. He lived in Paris in the late 1800s.

Luki has tropical fish in the house. We also have fish in the garden pond, and a rare newt which we see about once every two years. The pond has an island, called Monster Island, but there are not many monsters there — at least not in the winter!