Delayed gratification

I had a really underwhelming day at work today. I went on a training course that bored me to tears. I punched messages furiously into my Blackberry as complex issue after complex issue dropped into my inbox, reinforcing my sense of being hopelessly trapped in an airless room with substandard tea, nasty biscuits and nowhere to hide. Eventually I gave up on the course, returned to my desk, dealt with the various situations, and then took myself off to redeem the day. I took a long, long route to the tube in the expectation that one of the many shops and boutiques I would have to walk past, would resolve my sense of a wasted day in a flash of impulse retail therapy. But it didn't. I poked in a few but left feeling a bit desultory. In and out of Kate Spade, Paul Smith, Poste Mistress and some weird Danish shop where the assistants wore huge turbans and vibrant potato sacks (well they LOOKED like potato sacks in a former life) had no impact at all. I gave up and went home to continue my work. I work in the kitchen - my kitchen is lovely and big, white and bright, with a beautiful view over my garden, which is small but perfectly formed, with herbs growing near the French windows - a total idyll  for the keen cook - and I realise I won't be able to resolve my day and return to my work until I have baked something. But I am too cross to make a cake, and biscuits feel frippery, and I lack the concentration to make a tart. That leaves dough. I leaf through my favourite recipes, then I surf the internet, then I sit back and think for a bit, and then I get up and mix flour, baking powder, yeast, sugar, lemon zest and butter, in a mixer with a dough hook. I watch it as it goes round and round and round, getting sticky and elasticated and glistening. I take it out. Oil a large bowl with sunflower oil. Place my beautiful dough in the bowl. Cover it and put it in the fridge. It will prove all night, and tomorrow I will think about lacing it with chocolate, splitting it, plaiting it, rising it and baking it. Just the anticipation is enough to transform my mood. Finally I have achieved something worthwhile with my day. I settle back into my work, and I work efficiently and creatively. See, for some people it's a glass of wine, and for others it's a bath. And for me, it's dough. Not an end product, but something that takes effort and skill to create, and then needs patience and gentle hands, which I won't even be eating for another 24 hours. Delayed gratification, Melinda style.