Gayle Letherby's Blog

 ONE HOUR

I publish fiction, memoir and the occasional rant on ABCtales.com  https://www.abctales.com/user/gletherby Recently in response to one of the weekly Inspiration Points -  'one hour' - I wrote: 

The Gift 

What would you do if gifted an hour?

Watch two episodes of your favourite soap or the first part of that Netflix series that everyone is talking about?  

Talk and laugh and talk some more with your mum on the phone?

Share coffee and a slice of cake (two forks) with the friend you’ve been meaning to catch up with for ages but … ?

Read some more of the novel that’s been keeping you up way past your bedtime for the last three nights?

Relax in a bubble bath, topping up the hot water by twisting the hot tap with the big toe on your right foot?

Cook your favourite meal... go for a swim... plant the shrubs you bought at the garden centre last weekend... sit and chill with the cat on your knee... go to the gym…?

What would you do if gifted an hour?

Why wait.

Give yourself a gift.

***

Sharing my contribution to Facebook I asked friends:  'What would you do?' Mary Garland responded with these lovely words: 

Today I was gifted an hour

by the absence of the usual traffic en route to work.

Taking up Gayle's invitation,

I'll use the hour to write, no, crochet, no, read, no, think.

It's such a precious gift, this hour,

so many ways it could be spent that I'm scared of losing

this one hour in indecision

for the clock ticks as I write this, think, look out the window.

There's a black cat in the buddleia,

three magpies in the adjacent tree as I write, watch and

wonder this precious hour away.

And I realise I'm happy, using this hour this way.