How can you lose patience making a three-minute loaf? Oh, yes, you can ... I slopped in too much water and considered chucking the sticky, gloopy mess that didn't look like any loaf I'd made before.

It wasn't the sort of day when I should have considered making anything more complicated than a cup of tea. I was up to my eyes in boring jobs that couldn't be procrastinated any longer. But then I got The Urge.

Inspired by another blogger, I was going to make the famous New York Times loaf that I've been meaning to make for simply ages. And I was going to do it Right Now.

It didn't even take three minutes to mix it all together. It's not a therapeutic loaf because you don't have to bang out your aggression on it. (I used to make bread every Saturday when I had a job I detested some years ago.)

Twenty hours later it looked such a mess that I could hardly scrape it into the pot. (An old Pyrex casserole with a lid.) I couldn't believe that my loaf would look like Jane's or Cornflower's.

But it emerged from the oven crusty and brown, with a dense, chewy crumb almost like sourdough. It was good with cheese. It would be great with homemade soup. And now it's nearly all gone.

I'm tempted to set another one to rise but I'm shocked at how fast it disappeared.

I thought I was only the person in the house.

Could it be mice?