"Smudge, Smudge, Smudge, Smudge, Smudge ...."

One of my favourite characters in my weekly read The Beano, was a scruffy lad called Smudge. As the name might suggest, he was a bit unkempt, a bit scruffy and always with muddy cheeks but I liked him.

I can't honestly remember why but as a big fan of the famous comic, he was one of my faves.

For reasons that have also slipped my mind (although certainly not for obvious reasons), one of my nick-names for Joseph is Smudge. I occasionally sing a daft little ditty which includes the ever-so-slightly made up word, "Smudge-tastic".

It basically means how terrific I think he is.

Today he passed me this note which he wrote while sitting next to me at the table (but forbade me to look at what he was doing). As always, a slight spelling mistake makes it all the more endearing, especially as dropping a couple of letters turned "Smudge" to "smug".

To top it all, he ended it with "dad-tastic", which is, erm ..... fantastic!!

(click to enlarge)