NEWLY-WED Veronica Kneeshaw had her hands full with new arrivals - the day after she got married.

Her two pet tortoises, Gi-Gi and Herbie, sensed that love was in the air, and mum Gi-Gi laid two eggs, burying them in the sand at the couple's West Heslerton home.

She said the Mediterranean Testudo Graeca tortoises were an endangered species, so she had to do everything she could to let them survive.

She said: "You have to keep the temperature and humidity exactly right for the eggs, so they took over the airing cupboard.

"The only thing we had was a friend's incubator for chicks, but that's no good because of the fans inside keeping it too dry. I had the eggs in a propagator filled with sand and kept in the airing cupboard, and I just kept adding a drop of water."

When the baby tortoises were born they were as small as a pencil sharpener and weighed just five grams. But since then the pair of girls - named Charlie and Delta because they were the third and fourth eggs to be laid - have quadrupled in size.

Veronica said they had plans to move to Spain eventually, taking the tortoises, and breeding more in sunnier climes. Until then the unusual family will be on display at the couple's business, Woodland Nurseries, at West Heslerton.

Updated: 08:47 Wednesday, May 28, 2003