Imagine: out of the blue, you have a free half-hour. Maybe someone’s running late, or you’ve managed to leave work early, or a chore you had scheduled turns out not to be necessary after all. All of a sudden, in your busy life, a brief oasis of time opens up. What you do with it?

Do you decide to put your feet up? Have a proper rest, for a blissful half-hour, the kind of relaxation you so rarely have time for? Maybe you pour yourself a glass of wine, maybe you just collapse onto the sofa. Finally, a chance to recharge your batteries properly.

Or perhaps you decide to go for walk. While everyone else is at work, you can get some exercise and some relaxation at the same time: joy! You take in the place around you, near your home or your office, a place you’re in all the time but never really have a chance to notice properly. You savour the blue sky, or the autumn leaves, or even the skilful graffiti.

Alternatively, you might prefer something more productive: tidying up your desk or living room, oiling that squeaky door, putting up those shelves, whatever it is you’ve been putting off for weeks now. In half an hour you could really clear your backlog.

Another option would be to bury yourself in a book. How wonderful to have half an hour to plunge, uninterrupted, into a different world!

Or will you just fritter the time away on your phone?

August’s cause of the month is Antibiotic Research UK. Donate here. July’s was the AllTrials campaign, as you’ll know if you follow me on Twitter.