WORRIED neighbours can relax after a missing tortoise belonging to Oxford's former lord mayor and lady mayoress ambled home after yet another adventure.

Intrepid pet Titus was the subject of yet another 'missing' poster plastered around North Oxford, after he disappeared from John and Muriel Goddard's home.

The 90-year-old creature turned up in their garden last week, having taken a trip through a compost heap.

But it is not the first time the roving reptile has disappeared to explore his surroundings.

Artist Mrs Goddard said: "He came up the path covered in sticky grass cuttings and slime. I was a bit upset when he went missing - he is always going on adventures but I thought maybe this time he really was gone. We have had him for 35 years and have become quite fond of him."

She was convinced he had burrowed under their hedge in Blandford Avenue and escaped as he has done several times before.

Grandmother-of-seven Mrs Goddard, whose husband served as Lord Mayor of Oxford in 2010, bought Titus at a market when the family lived in London and said began making breaks for freedom when they moved to Oxfordshire.

She said: "It's an ongoing thing. My neighbours get quite tired of me going round saying 'have you got a tortoise in your garden?'

"Once he really did disappear, for six months. I thought that was the end. Then he was seen by a farmer about two miles away, walking along the edge of the field. The farmer took the trouble to pick him up and give him a ride on the tractor to the animal sanctuary.

"Something happens to him every year; he's a survivor. One time he was dug up out of hibernation by foxes and my daughter found him frozen solid - I thought he couldn't survive that with all the ice on him, but she put him in the airing cupboard and he thawed out."

Titus also moseyed over to the vicarage allotment when the family lived in Marsh Baldon and chomped through all the lettuces, leaving unimpressed Mrs Goddard to go out and buy replacements.

Two years ago he snuck under a hole in the hedge and was picked up on the next road by a visitor, who drove him back to her home in the North of England before tracking down Mrs Goddard and returning him.

She added: "I can't afford time to go chasing round after him but I find I always do - he is a part of our life. Hopefully he won't do it again now we've blocked the hole."

Titus is now happily hibernating but Mrs Goddard has kept the missing posters safe in anticipation of his next disappearing act.