There have been numerous different ducks in my life. I have had more ducks, in fact, than I have had men, and indeed, I might choose a duck over a man any day of the week, because ducks are far less complicated. Ducks don’t have egos which need flattering, they don’t subject you to long involved stories about mates of theirs you hope you’ll never meet, and they’re always prepared to give you a cuddle after a hard day, without first subjecting you to a psychological analysis of why exactly it is you need emotional reassurance today and what this says about your validity as a person.

I am ashamed to say that I have no recollection of my first duck. He was given to me by a relative, at a stage in my development where I had not yet grasped the importance of holding on to things I did not want to lose, and therefore I dropped him on a road between my home and the doctor’s surgery, on the way to an appointment about my heart. I was apparently inconsolable at his loss and, a good Catholic even aged six months, presumably overcome with guilt regarding my own role in the accident.

My dear grandmother rushed out to the shops and bought me a replacement, which she probably could not afford to do at all. This second duck was smaller than the first, but nicely shaped for a child to hold onto. He had two bright blue eyes, a shiny orange beak and was covered in a beautiful downy white fur. On the top of his head some factory worker in the Far East had attached a strip of yellow fabric, which had the effect of making him look more like a cockatiel, and as far as I have been able to see served no useful purpose apart from providing a method of clipping him to the washing line on those occasions where I threw up over him and he needed to take a bath. I also discovered that if you turned him upside down and rubbed this yellow member across the palm of your hand, it tickled considerably, and so the protrusion was henceforth known as his “tickly thing”.

In a remarkable flash of inspiration, as soon as I gained the power of speech I christened my new toy Duck. A good name I feel; short, memorable, descriptive, and not a contravention of Sudanese blasphemy laws. Some of the other names I chose for my toys were not so catchy. Another particular favourite at the time, a very innocent-looking puppy, was condemned to go through life bearing the name “Baby Wolf Yum”. Duck and I were soon inseparable; he features in most of the photos of my early childhood, although my own first memory of him stems from the age of three, by which time he had already lost all of his fur and one of his eyes.

Alas, the advancing years have not been kind to Duck. These days he is balder than my boyfriend and as blind as an animal who has lost both eyes in a washing machine. All that remains of his tickly thing is a curious, yellowish stump, and his body bears the scars of various attempts to stitch him up. He is, however, a remarkably well-travelled duck. He has been to Germany, Switzerland and Austria, as well as to London, Scotland and Wales, plus a great many places in between. Now that he is twenty-three he needs a lot of rest, and can most often be found reposing on my bed. We have only been parted for one night since I was six months old, that night being one on which I was trying to impress (or, at least, avoid being ridiculed by) a certain guy. After that solitary experience, however, I came to the realisation that no guy is worth choosing over a duck.

From then on, a lifelong obsession with ducks began. My bedroom abounds in duck-curiosities, one of my particular favourites being Abel, who is over a foot high and despite being wooden and thus not very huggable, is nevertheless quite adorable due to the quizzical expression on his face. I even have a battery-operated duck lamp, which glows red and yellow alternately and is often pronounced quite eerie by acquaintances I lock in the windowless downstairs toilet with it in order to get the full effect. Nothing, however, can beat the real thing, and so it is that I am proud to declare that for the past three years I have been sponsoring a real, live duck by the name of Tufty, who resides at the Slimbridge Wildlife Reserve in Gloucestershire. Tufty and I have yet to meet, seeing as there are rather a lot of ducks at Slimbridge and it would be rather time consuming to go round and introduce myself to them all individually, but I am hopeful that my £24 a year subscription provides her with ample bread and whatever else it is that ducks require to lead comfortable existence. Anyone who has been inspired by the multitude of very cute looking ducks on this page can adopt one of their own at http://www.wwt.org.uk/adoption Go on, you know you want to…