Napoleon has emerged from the garage, after his transatlantic voyage, and is now on the windowsill of the bathroom that's adjacent to my study. For years, he sat on my mother's desk (still in the garage) in Wimbledon, and before that he was in Lyndene, on Station Road, Ossett (in Yorkshire), until my Auntie Jess (really my Great Auntie Jess) died. And before that - Auntie Jess was given him, as a present, by the French family with whom she stayed in the 1900s, I should think - well before WW1: she'd gone to France (probably between leaving school and becoming a teacher?) to practice her French. I find it hard to imagine what it was like carrying him back - I presume by train, and then the Calais-Dover boat, and then a train to London, and then probably getting the Tube - maybe a cab? - between Victoria Station (I think that's where the trains for the ferry left from?) and St Pancras, and then catching - maybe the Flying Scotsman - from St Pancras to Leeds, and then the local train to Ossett. And then explaining him to her family ...
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