Whiiine

I am utterly broken. I dunno, it's sort of not quite physical and not quite mental, it's both. When M described her Totoro fantasy to me this morning:

"Imagine an empty room, and the only thing in it is a giant Totoro, big enough to lie down on top of, that's warm like a hot water bottle and soft as Hungarian goose down. And its chest goes up and down".

... I whimpered with longing. Imagine how lovely that would be? I would never, ever leave the house again. I reckon between making these, and importing Daim eggs into the UK, I could be quite rich quite quickly, if I had the tiniest shred of entrepreneurial spirit, which of course I don't. Increasingly as I examine my failure to progress in the world, I am reminded of Zola's Rougon-Macquart cycle (though props to me for spelling that right first time, at least something is still working in my head): I am basically the decadent dregs of initially promising genetic material. Maybe I'm just going to spontaneously combust, like Oncle Macquart? Aw. I want to go and read some of the more floridly melodramatic ones now, whilst lying on my Totoro.

As it is, I am some blend of sick and wretched, and trying to finish an exceptionally long and complex law thing I am not very proud of (yet! Let's think positively for a second! Maybe tomorrow morning it will all suddenly come together in a masterfully fluent fashion?). My brain is like a grey spongy rag, resistant to anything except 30 Rock, penguins and leaning my head against the radiator to moan gently. Prog Rock is here, languishing on the sofa. He is very tired. Even so, we have discussed Cliff Richard's sex life, heat exchange in dog paws, Mr Wickham in Pride & Prejudice, the tableaux vivant of sordid that is my back yard, Ugolino eating the bishop's brain and Ken Clarke's voting record. I am going to take him to Johnny Hallyday's favourite restaurant where you can only have steak. With special sauce. Presumably the sauce is made of collagen:

Let us, however, remember that the worst is nearly over in the northern hemisphere. It is nearly the end of February (though the mystery of what on earth to get Fingers for his 1 March birthday remains unresolved). My 4 snowdrops have been joined by 2 optimistic irises. I - and this is a MASSIVE concession from me - actually enjoyed walking the dog this evening. I am going to close this blethering nonsense by telling you all the things gmail has offered to sell me today:

Non-surgical safe stem cell knee surgery (eh??)

Labradoodles

Hijab al hob (this sounds like a recipe)

Dog boots

Swelling hands

Car rental in Iceland

Make of this what you will.