Sarah-Jane Muirie and Ginger the tortoise – credit, Sarah-Jane Muirie, released

Ginger was a lonely female tortoise who escaped from her home one year ago to try and find love.

Single for the first time in years, Ginger dug under the garden fence and made a slow getaway across countryside fields following the death of her longtime companion, Fred.

Her dancing days might have been behind her, but that wasn’t going to stop her from trying to find someone to share her golden years with.

Ginger’s owner, 51-year-old Sarah-Jane Muirie, is now celebrating the return of her beloved pet, who she has owned since she was a 10-year-old girl and that was found last week by a horse rider in the rural English county of Gloucestershire.

Muirie had put up signs around the area following Ginger’s disappearance last June, but said she’d given up hope after nearly a year without a single sighting.

“We had another tortoise called Fred who we lost a couple of years ago and a vet friend of mine believes she went looking for a mate,” Muirie said. “It’s that time of the year and she’s always had Fred so she’s dug herself out under the garden fence and through next doors before getting into some fields.”

“She is that well camouflaged we thought there’s no chance we would ever find her but we put up missing posters anyway.”

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Ginger was discovered behind the Mount Inn pub, a good mile away from her home, with Muirie speculating she had just come out of hibernation.

“A woman in the village from Greece first spotted her but thought nothing of it as they are native to Greece. But obviously its an unusual thing to see in the UK and it was a horse rider who spotted her the following day,” she told the Southwest News Service.

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“Amazingly, somebody remembered the posters we put up nearly a year ago and we then got the call. At first I thought it couldn’t be Ginger but then realized there’s probably not too many people around here with tortoises.”

Muirie said since coming home, Ginger has been enjoying the sunshine and found herself a little area where she can sunbathe and eat food. To have a pet for 40 years, she says, is so special. It wasn’t just a tortoise that came home last week, but childhood memories.

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