Trevor and Bernard

Seven years ago this week I went to Amsterdam on business and returned with a stuffed giraffe for my three month old baby boy. He looked like a Trevor and so he was named.

He was greatly loved by the baby boy.

Neither of these are that giraffe.

A year or so later Mrs B went to fetch that baby boy from his minder only to find her in tears. Trevor had fallen out of the buggy and, despite much searching in the rain, he was lost. I'd like to say the baby boy was inconsolable but he got over it - as they do. The parents, however, had placed great belief in Trevor's powers of consoling and the importance of a favourite childhood toy, in adult mythologising at least.

The internet came to the rescue and Mrs B, not without some adventure and assistance from my Dutch speaking relatives, sorted things. A few weeks later a parcel arrived in the post; Trevor had 'returned' from his brief holiday and all was well.

Trevor is the giraffe on the left. As should be obvious, he has been very loved.

That isn't all. Mrs B, being significantly wiser than her husband, had taken the precaution of purchasing two Dutch cuddly giraffes should the second Trevor also go amiss.

That is he on the right. He has spent most of the intervening years at the top of the wardrobe.

When Milo arrived we decided that Tom might just realise that the plump, clean, decidedly perky second giraffe was not Trevor back from a restorative trip to a toy health farm and so he came down from the top of the closet with some barmy cover story.

And he became Milo's own Bernard.

Milo is not as yet remotely interested in Bernard.

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The style of the picture is somewhat influenced by 123's toy series of a few weeks ago... fab work