Time management: not all it's cracked up to be

Times almost without number, I have lain awake in the early hours, thinking "I might as well get up, rather than let this valuable commodity time just trickle away between my unrestful fingers." And not done it, of course, just gone on lying there. Growing unproductively older.

So this morning, 5.30, when even the cats were blameless (Barry asleep at my side, where he rather likes to be; Mac out in the hallway where Barry used to be before that damn tabby displaced him) and I was just relentlessly awake, I did the other thing. I got out of bed, swathed myself in a Batman bathrobe (what can I say? I married a geek) and came through to the keyboard.

And... Yeah. I suppose. I have proofread twenty pages of a book that Vonda's shepherding to publication; I've made and changed plans for dinner tonight, for other dinners; I've done a little work on Pandaemonium, and it's barely 9.45. But, urgh. I feel tired already. Early waking may have become a habit, but early rising really doesn't suit me.

In a minute I shall wander in my garden and praise my lemon tree. I was worried about my lemon tree, until a month ago. It had shown no growth at all this year, no new leaves, no blossoms; but at last there was a hint of leaf, and then a touch of budding. And now? Now it's all bright green and pink and white, busy busy in its late little spring when everything about it is all summer. So I will do that, and survey new strawberries and peas and beans and tomatoes and so forth; and then I think I may lie on the sofa and eat grapes and read O'Brian for a bit, poor pale effete ineffective creature that I am.

In other news, what California bird is greyish-black and white in quite striking bars, long-tailed (the tail's black with white edges when it spreads) and noisy? There's been two of them hanging around for a few days now. I don't know if they're a couple canoodling or rivals squabbling; and apparently it doesn't matter how long I look at them, their name still doesn't drop magically into my mind. And I am no good at all at using online identification sites. Apparently.

Evolution of a lunch

As loyal focused readers will remember, I toasted all the bread in the world two days ago, and ate it up. Yum yum.

Which meant, of course, that there wasn't any bread for yesterday (bread was rising, but my sourdough process takes all day and the day before) and Karen was working from home, so I needed to feed her.

As those of you with deep memories will remember, when I was in Provence a couple of years back we went to a restaurant where the speciality was pasta with sage and whisky, flambeed inside a giant cartwheel parmesan cheese. I've recreated that at home without the cartwheel (I have to do it in a saucepan, sigh), and as I have a giant thriving broad-leaved sage in the garden here, my first thought was to do it again.

Only then I remembered that I only had fabulous whisky, and I just ain't doing it with that.

So I thought okay, butter, then: sage butter is a classic with pasta. Fusilli and sage butter and parmesan, sounds like a lunch to me.

And then I thought, I have some mushrooms. Mushrooms and fusilli and sage butter and parmesan. Sounds like a lunch.

Garlic. Garlic and mushrooms. And fusilli and sage butter and parmesan.

Bacon. Bacon and garlic and mushrooms and...

So what I did, I fried sage leaves in butter until they were crisp, and set them aside.

In another pan I fried bacon in its own fat until it was crisp, and set it aside.

In another pan I boiled fusilli until it was al dente, and set it aside.

Going back to an earlier pan, I fried mushrooms in garlic and butter and olive oil; then I added the pasta; then I added the bacon. There may have been more butter, also salt and pepper.

Then everything went into a bowl and I stirred in grated parmesan, and scattered the sage leaves on top.

Let's just say there weren't any leftovers.