The curse of Merlin the Happy Pig

Merlin yesterday. Bag of lemon drops not pictured. 

The phrase 'making a rod for your own back' springs to mind whenever I think of Merlin the Happy Pig. He drives my lovely other half @thestrollingmum completely mad, yet he doesn't exist - outside my (sometimes rather over-active) imagination.

Yet he is the subject of an ever-increasingly complex set of spoken stories I tell to Princess C to get her to hurry up for school, eat all her breakfast or snuggle up in bed before falling asleep.

Merlin the Happy Pig (as Blackadder fans will instantly recognise) is a character name steal from an episode where (I think) Edmund is talking about telling a story. It's a tiny, throwaway line - yet Merlin has evolved into a character who is about the same age as Princess C, a boy pig, who is almost always constantly either getting into scrapes and trouble - or doing really stupid things like visiting the world's most haunted house, or eating bits of a granny witch's house that is made entirely of sweets.

Merlin's key vice is lemon drops. He will do anything for them, in fact the earliest Merlin stories evolved from trying to get Princess C to brush her teeth properly - warning her that Merlin didn't, and all his teeth fell out when he visited the dentish because he ate too many sweeties.

Every spare moment in the day, Merlin is begged for (or demanded) and yet I've never really put flesh on his piggy little bones. Maybe I ought to one day, write him down (at risk of being sued by Ben Elton, Stephen Fry and Rowan Atkinson!) draw him and let him wiggle his piggy little nose at other kids to see if they have any interest in the world's happiest - yet most accident prone - pig.