The first weeks of life for a plushie in the first year of the new millennium (or the last year of the old millennium) are not easy or enjoyable. As those of you who have been paying attention after somehow getting from a factory in China, I had wound up in Stevenage, England, as the property of a scruffy student.

My initial misgivings about my new owner soon passed. He certainly didn't dress as smartly as some - but this turned out to be a good thing. Because he didn't spend huge amounts on designer gear, it meant he had more money to spend on the important things in life - such as life itself! When he was out working on some madly complex thing at the university, I would sit on his bed and read books and check out the internet.

This not only passed the time, but also answered many of my questions about life, the universe and everything. It explained about who I was, why I had been created and why there were so many identical plushies being made. What I didn't know at the time, was that the friends we made through it would play a part in making me the first international plushie mega-Stan, loved by tens of people all over the world.

The winter days were lengthening, and spring arrived. It had been 3 weeks since I had been rescued from the shop in town, and I had come to realise that my life was quite good. This particular morning my fleshie, who was called Arthur, was busy packing up some clothes into a bag. He was evidently planning to go on holiday (we say 'holiday' in place of 'vacation' here), and I was very pleased when he picked me up, and took me along also.

We drove with Arthur's parents to Dover, a well-known British port at the narrow part of the English Channel. From here it is just 26 miles to France - and takes just over an hour on the ferry. The ferries that cross to Calais, on the French side, are big. You drive your car on to one of the lower decks get out and go upstairs for the duration of the crossing. Not wanting to be left alone in the car I sneeked into Arthur's carry on bag - and peeped out at the world.

We went to the waiter-service restaurant - which is only a little more expensive than the self-service one but is loads better! We also had a nice table looking out across the water at the famous white cliffs of Dover. There's a song about "blue birds over, the white cliffs of Dover", but all I could see was seagulls! And as I watched them, the ship ploughed on towards France!

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