Sunday Scribblings: The Last Hour

The last hour has seen twilight fall, slip in to cover my garden with the grey veil of evening before the afternoon’s half-way over. It has seen the rain abate and return, abate and return in full force, carried on the howling wind that sweeps around the gable, whips the shrubs and trees into a new December dance.

This hour – in a winter Sunday afternoon – has been one of chocolate and coffee, of yesterday’s newspapers scattered on the kitchen table. It has been a time of wandering the house, still in pyjamas and dressing-gown, plans for a shower – later, later – and touching new things. Soft pink scarf and gloves, the petals of white lilies, the dull brass of the Tibetan singing-bowl my sister brought, the smooth wood of the stick with which the sound is drawn out of the bowl.

This last hour has seen moments of nostalgia dismissed, and moments of maybes fostered. These last minutes of this last hour see me at my table, the dog settled on the rocking-chair, the fridge humming and the boiler doing its heat-up, click-off, heat-up, click-off magic that keeps me warm and cosy inside, while the blue-tits outside fluff their feathers when they come for peanuts and a share of the greasy fat-ball I hung just the other day.

The last hour has been a lazy hour, an hour of awareness of a class to prepare for tomorrow night, a letter to complete, forms to fill in. They’ll all wait to tomorrow. This hour has been one I will forget. Not the hour in which major decisions were reached, or any thought has been followed to a conclusion. It’s been a drifting, moodling hour, the hour in which I put away the dishes used for my birthday supper, washed Kathryn’s plate, sorted my socks and put on a load of laundry. The bowl of dusty stones I carried from the living-room still wait to be washed at the kitchen sink.

And the twilight deepens, and the hour I write of recedes. A gust from the east blows the last of the leaves from my neighbour’s birch across my garden. The animal of the wind waves its arms through my berberis and forsythia. I gather some warm towels, soft fresh clothes. Now I’m ready to go shower, get ready to leave my little nest for an evening meeting, glad to have reflected on the little pleasures and small, sacred things this hour has witnessed, glad now that I have had this hour.

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For more Sunday Scribblings on the theme of "The Last Hour" , go HERE