Shrink Hydration

I make no apologies for this awful photo. I need a decent camera, my phone one seems to be getting worse, but it feels kind of appropriate to have this blurred-at-the-edges image of my recently-hydrated grow-your-own-therapist doll that I was given as an early Christmas present in December. I brought him along, still bubble-wrapped to my therapy session last week, intending for it to mark a transition between that time and this. My shrink is not one of those much given to the gratuitous merry jape and it was all rather embarrassing, especially when I said about putting him into water and watching him grow. "Lots of associations there, then," he said. What can he have been thinking about?

When I came home I did put him into a jug of water and he grew puffy and pale, with distorted features that reminded me of Frankenstein's monster. I feel in some way responsible for this. He has a large, bulbous head and (as you can see) a fragile little body as though he has had trouble incarnating properly. He never stood a chance because he was only ever someone's idea of a joke. Lucky for him and me that I have faith and believe in the redemption of almost everything, including miniature rubber psychotherapists.

We celebrated the birthday of Mr. Signs with a bash at Signs Cottage on Sunday. It was lovely, but I knew the only way I could manage the day was the three-stage approach of alcohol, caffeine and drugs. It sometimes works well (and did on this occasion), but one pays afterwards and I am paying. And driving my mother and her partner to and from hospital because of an eye operation he had has quite taken the stuffing reserves out of me. The sheer awfulness of NHS hospitals in this country is something one is surely never tired of writing about or relating but I am in a similar condition to the bleached-out rubber shrink and just about as good for anything. We are keeping each other company.