When I was at university, I used to know this bloke called Joe who was literally given Spanish.

No word of a lie. It's very unusual, but he was called to do missionary work somewhere Spanish was spoken, and he didn't have much of a natural aptitude for languages, and... next thing he knew, he could speak and understand Spanish. I don't know exactly how much work he put in himself, but I do know that it was nowhere near enough, in ordinary circumstances, to get him to the level of fluency which he in fact achieved. I mean, he was pretty flabbergasted himself. So, after he graduated, he went off and did his missionary work wherever exactly it was, and he was gone for quite a few years; and when he got back to England, much to my surprise he looked me up and came to see me. We'd always got on pretty well but never been especially close, and we hadn't been in touch at all while he was away, so I don't even know how he found me or why he took the trouble; but he did. And that was when I found out he'd been given something else, as well as Spanish.

Joe had not seen me for ten years or more. During that time, I had developed a very strong fondness for penguins. He had no way of knowing about that by ordinary means. Nonetheless, he brought me... a cuddly penguin.

Specifically, this was a Plonka Penguin. If you're over a certain age, you'll remember those well; they were drawn by someone who signed the cartoons as "Miranda" (much later I found out it was a man), and they were all over greetings cards during the 1990s. You could not walk into a card shop without seeing these wonderfully goofy penguins getting up to ridiculous antics, and I absolutely loved them. They were always drawn a certain way: they were grey and white rather than black and white, they were distinctly pear-shaped, they always looked (deliberately) a bit wonky, and they all had little tufts on top of their heads. They were usually also at least a bit cross-eyed.

So Joe walked up to me and presented me with this penguin, and I took one look at all his wonky, cross-eyed, delightful gormlessness and concluded that a) he was clearly ver' ver' drunk, despite having just been given to me by a missionary, and b) his name was Wilfred. Sometimes I struggle to name cuddly creatures, but not this time. Wilfred was just the clear and obvious correct name.

I'm a writer. A good plushie is a three-dimensional story in its own right, and Wilfred is a most excellent plushie. He simply oozes character. While I would never encourage over-indulgence in alcohol in real life, Wilfred's established personality of a bumbling but very affectionate old soak is entertaining and has gone from strength to strength over the last thirty-odd years. He's travelled everywhere with me; he's been to a number of interesting European cities which I visited primarily for d'Artagnan's concerts, and sometimes he's been to the concerts themselves hidden in a bag, because d'Artagnan is very fond of him too (like me, he's a sucker for a good plushie). When I went into hospital ten years ago, I was too spaced out to pack everything I needed, given that I was a lot more dangerously ill than I knew and it was after one in the morning; I forgot my toothbrush, but I didn't forget Wilfred. He not only went into hospital with me, but he even got to sit through my emergency operation. The nurses gave him a bath... he did rather need it. He'd been cuddled quite a lot lately.

In fact, Wilfred is even better travelled than I am, because unlike me he's been to the USA. A friend of mine had a girlfriend over there for a while, whom he'd met online through me; and she was particularly fond of Wilfred (I used to post a lot of photos of him getting up to various mischief at the time), so my friend asked if he could possibly take him over to see her when he went to visit. Unfortunately that relationship ended in a shower of sparks, but Wilfred apparently had a good deal of fun over there and made friends with the girlfriend's cat.

But I think the most moving Wilfred interaction has to be with the lady with dementia in hospital; sadly I can't remember her name. It might have been something like Hattie. This lady was very confused and never really knew whether it was day or night, but she was extremely sweet... and she latched onto Wilfred. So, usually a couple of times a day, she'd wander over to my bed to come and see him, and I'd hold him and make his head move so he looked as if he was having a conversation with her (he's remarkably expressive like that), and she'd be delighted. I wanted to send her a photo of him via the hospital when I was finally discharged, but unfortunately it turned out I wasn't anywhere near as well as they'd thought I was, and I was back in an entirely different hospital within the week, because by this time I'd gone down to stay with my sister to convalesce.

Anyway... just before my 60th birthday, I was talking to someone online and for some reason the subject of Plonka Penguins came up, so I went to look for one of the cartoons so I could show them, and my search led me to eBay... where there was another Wilfred. I looked, and I thought "if you're still here on my birthday, I'm going to rescue you."

She was, and I did. So Wilfred now has an almost identical long-lost twin sister.

Her name is Wilma, because of course it is!