Curate's Egg

"Let us move from the era of confrontation to the ear era of negotiation"
Richard M. Nixon

Alf is not the Ginger Pud, let that be said first and foremost. Cute with his big silly whiskers but not the Ginger Pud. Cute with his big bouffant hairdo but not the Ginger Pud.

We've had a long and antagonistic relationship. He's never liked me even though I've tried hard with him. Why doesn't Alf like me? I don't understand his issues. It's not like I've tried to bite him or anything. I've never chased him. But lately he has let me investigate his over-sized tail. I know that he is king of the hill. I know my place in the scheme of things. But we are going to have to live in this house for a long time together so the hatchet needs to be buried.

Last night he scratched my nose. Big time. I wasn't stealing his dinner or anything (like I'd get a chance!) It was a big scratch. Totally unprovoked. I wasn't a wuss and I didn't go running to mummy. I didn't phone child Dogline and ask for advice about bullying. I just left it... walked away. He does pick on me all the time. Last week he stole my pocket money and nicked off with the green monkey. But did I dob him in? No.

So this morning I thought I would try again. To be friends. And it was fine. Alf let me sniff him. I am truly honoured. I could grow to love Alf, if he'd let me. But he has issues with consistency. (And peeing where he shouldn't - but that's another story.)

Like me, Alf is a Curate's Egg. Good in parts. The parts I sniffed today were very nice.

I was going to call this Parson's Egg, only because Snotty called Maud this last night. Snotty cannot remember any idiom or colloquialism correctly. "You are a Parson's Egg," Snotty said. "What?!?" said I. And laughed. Do you see what I have to put up with? Between you me and the goal post (!) - Snotty is bonkers.

Edit at 9:15am. It won't let me put an apostrophe in Curate's egg, so I've put speech marks. It's that or a question mark which it keeps defaulting to.