In Sickness & in Health: It's autumn - time to stick the tortoise in the fridge

Last year, Rebecca’s husband, Nick , was hit by a car and seriously injured. Here, in one of a series of columns, she writes about the aftermath of his accident

Tortoises tend to hibernate for around three months of the year (Getty)

This time of year always makes me feel sad. I hate the loss of daylight more than I love the crunch of cornflake-coloured leaves and the smell of woodsmoke-heavy air. The promise of mulled wine arriving in pubs helps a bit, but autumn is, at best, bittersweet.

The main reason my mood dips, though, is because by the end of the month, I’ll be saying goodbye to a friend. Again. You see it’s almost time for my tortoise, Nimrod, to go into hibernation. I’ll miss his beaky little face and stoic company for three months, and I hate getting him ready for winter. No food for four weeks, to clear out his stomach so that nothing ferments in there while he’s in stasis. He’s meant to slow down come October, but when I hear him scrabbling in his tank – a wood and glass, split-level, mid-century modern affair that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Hollywood Hills circa 1956 – I feel horrible that he’s not eaten for a fortnight.

Once he’s finished a month of fasting, and once he’s spent a few days in a cool place, it’s time for an even cooler one – the fridge. He is popped into a box and put in the fridge where he’ll stay at a constant temperature until the weather outside warms again. I promise I’m not making the fridge bit up – there’s a wonderful picture online of a lady who runs a tortoise sanctuary, stocking her fridge with torts. She doesn’t bother with boxes so they sit in serried ranks, like meat pies, next to the Cathedral City and bottles of chardonnay. I shudder to think of the hygiene implications (as well as being in his box, Nim goes in a spare fridge so he can’t contaminate the wafer-thin ham).

I’ve long fancied being able to hibernate, although I prefer the idea of making a warm nest underground to bed down in, rather than the chiller drawer. Let everyone else deal with bad weather, Christmas insanity and January guilt. At the moment I’m in the first act of a cold and I’m on my second round of antibiotics for dodgy kidneys. I would like nothing more than to take to a pile of duvets, switch off my phone and not emerge until the afternoon light comes back.

Still, it’s a case of be careful what you wish for. I was telling Nick about preparing Nim for the big sleep, and how I rather envied him bowing out until March. Nick looked horrified. “I’ve done that,” he said. “I was out of it for months. It’s horrible. You wake up so confused.” I hadn’t thought of his coma in quite that way, but his body was, if not hibernating, then waiting until conditions were right to come round.

And although, once upon a time, Nick would have loved the idea of spending days in bed watching movies and TV, waited on hand and foot, with no work stress or life admin to deal with, the reality of being bed bound is, of course, torturous. So while Nimrod endures his starvation diet, and his chilly boudoir, and while Nick is stuck where he is, I shall put thoughts of retreating for the winter to the back of my mind and enjoy the – dark – days I have at my disposal.

Twitter: @rebeccaj