Blog 68 - Summer's Over

Blog 68 - Summer's Over

September 2025

Hearing the hoot of an owl carries a certain weight, doesn't it? It reminds you that there are unseen things out there and for a writer it instantly taps into a primordial part of the brain. The part where stories are born and sounds like an owl hooting, coax it into life. Noel Coward famously said, "The season of mists and mellow fruitfulness hasn't arrived yet. It's still summer." But he clearly never heard an owl hooting at 6:30 PM. I mean, come on, 6:30PM on early autumn evening? That’s not just a hoot; it's a message. So, I thought I’d see if I could pull you along this decidedly winding road and try and explain what the message was to me.
I was stirring a cup of coffee, gazing out the window at the dwindling daylight, and contemplating the drudgery of another night shift when the distinctive call cut through the quiet of twilight. And just like that, three distinct, utterly unconnected thoughts sprang to mind, jostling each other for prime real estate in my perpetually overthinking brain.
My first thought, immediate and instinctive, was: "Well, that's it, summer's over." The long, dreary nights have officially returned. It wasn't even fully dark yet, but the owl's premature vocalisation felt like a clock striking midnight on the sun-drenched days. I don’t know about you, but I always feel that there's a particular kind of gloominess that settles in when the evenings draw in. There’s a subtle shift in the air that promises endless cups of coffee, woolly jumpers, and a renewed, almost desperate, attempt to find sanctuary in the warmth of a duvet. For a writer, it’s supposed to mean more time indoors, theoretically more time at the keyboard, but for me, it’s a sigh, a shrug, and a subconscious reach for the thicker socks, all triggered by a single hoot of an owl.
But then, almost immediately, that cynical thought was elbowed aside by something far more profound: "Isn't nature a fantastic thing?" Seriously. There, unseen in the deepening gloom, was this magnificent, silent hunter, a creature of ancient wisdom and impeccable camouflage, choosing that precise moment to announce its presence. Its call, so clear and resonant, was a stark reminder of the wild beauty that exists just beyond the cultivated gardens and the hum of domestic life. It’s the kind of moment that makes you pause, that pulls you out of your petty human concerns, and reminds you that there's a vast, intricate world operating on its own clock, entirely oblivious to your deadlines or your word counts. The sheer elegance of it, the mystery. For a fleeting second, the impending darkness felt less like a harbinger of gloom and more like a canvas for the unseen wonders of the natural world. It was a beautiful, humbling interlude, a whisper of magic in the mundane.
And then, as quickly as the wonder arrived, my third thought, the most enduring and perhaps most self-deprecating of the trio, landed with a gentle thud: "That's another year where my writing career hasn't taken off." Oh, the exquisite timing of it! The owl, a symbol of wisdom and intuition, hooting its judgment on my stagnant literary ambitions. It wasn't a mournful cry, more of a wry, knowing chuckle from the universe. Another cycle of seasons, another rotation around the sun, another stack of unfinished projects, and here I am, still crafting blog content about… well, about owls hooting and the never-ending cycle of my anxieties. The irony, as ever, is not lost on me. Who cares about my unedited novel sitting on my dust covered hard drive when I can turn this very thought into a blog. A blog which may become the 800 odd words that will resonate, go viral, make someone notice.
These three seemingly different thoughts are, in fact, my brain’s attempt at content creation. I’ve learned to interpret these musings from a writer's perspective, the early darkness and the gloomy sigh? That's the raw emotion, the relatable human experience we try to tap into. The fantastic nature of the owl? That's the awe, the wonder, the unique perspective we strive to offer, the fresh angle on an old topic. And the perpetual 'not quite there yet' feeling about my career? That's the driving force, the underlying motivation, the very struggle that often becomes the content itself. How many times have I sat down, faced with a blank screen and a looming word count, and found inspiration in the most unlikely and personal of places? A half-eaten biscuit, a weird dream, or indeed, an owl's timely declaration.
The challenge of writing this blog, especially when aiming for that elusive 800-word sweet spot, is precisely this: to take these fragmented, internal musings and weave them into something cohesive, engaging, and (hopefully) insightful. It's about turning summer's end into a reflection on change, a fleeting appreciation of nature into an exploration of beauty, and a self-deprecating chuckle about a stalled career into a shared experience of ambition and persistence. So, as the owl doubtless continues its nocturnal hunt, I'll continue mine – for words, for meaning, for that one blog post that finally makes someone, somewhere, hoot with agreement. And who knows, maybe this one's it.