A love story....really!

Ok, it's Valentine's Day and as a special treat I have one those heart warming, sappy, stories that will just make you want to go, ahhhhhhhhh. Either that or you'll think I've just gone a little soft (not in the head I hope). Enjoy....

"The hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen and weighing about 300 kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down Sabaki River into the Indian Ocean, then forced back to shore when tsunami waves struck the Kenyan coast on December 26, before wildlife rangers rescued him."

So what do you think happened to baby Owen the hippo? That's right, he was lonesome and depressed until he found a surrogate mother. That mother just happened to be a tortoise...a very big tortoise.

A-less-than-a-year-old hippo has adopted a male tortoise, about a century old, and the tortoise seems to be very happy with being a 'mother'," ecologist Paula Kahumbu, who is in charge of Lafarge Park , told AFP.

After it was swept away and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatized. It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother. Fortunately, it landed on the tortoise and established a strong bond. They swim, eat and sleep together," the ecologist added. "The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it followed its mother. somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if protecting its biological mother," Kahumbu added.

The hippo is a young baby, he was left at a very tender age and by nature, hippos are social animals that like to stay with their mothers for four years," he explained.

So all is well. The baby hippo and the tortoise, a most unusual couple, have bonded and are filling a need for each other. It kinda makes me think about unusual pairings we see in humans. Some people just don't at first glance appear to be well matched, but it works anyway.

Sort of reminds me of myself and some of my amigos. An odd lot, now I just need to decide, who is the tortoise and who is the hippo?

Smile, it's Valentine's Day and someone loves you!

Eduardo