July
July arrives with a darkness that takes its time. The evenings linger, warm and loose around the edges, and the last birds don’t quite know when to stop singing. But when night finally settles over Fownhope, it does so with a softness that makes the sky feel wide and welcoming. Sit here beside me — this is summer at its most unhurried.
High above, Hercules holds his quiet stance in the clear midsummer air. He isn’t a loud constellation, but there’s something steadying about him, as though he’s bracing the sky for the slow slide toward the season’s turning point. Not far away sweeps Cygnus, its long, easy shape gliding overhead as if it owns the summer darkness. Close by hovers Aquila, wings outstretched, keeping faithful company in the warm night. These three rule July’s high sky with a kind of effortless confidence.
To the west, Leo is beginning his slow farewell, slipping toward the horizon after months of bright evenings. Virgo follows him, her wide form leaning into the dusk as if bowing gently out of the season. They’re the constellations of spring and early summer, and July is when they finally start to loosen their grip on the sky.
Turn north and you’ll find Ursa Major, the Plough, circling as faithfully as ever, a quiet guide in the stretched-out twilight. And weaving between these familiar shapes winds Draco, coiling through the northern dark, never quite settling, never quite leaving.
This is July’s sky — slow to darken, gentle when it does, and full of constellations crossing paths between seasons. Stay with me a while. Even in high summer, there’s always something to watch.
Sounds and Smells
The air is thick with summer — warm, sweet, alive. Heat lingers in the ground, and the scent of meadowsweet and clover deepens as the sun slips away. In the hedgerows, honeysuckle stirs, releasing its sweetness just as the first stars appear, an open invitation to the night shift.
Listen closely. The daytime hum fades, replaced by a softer chorus: bats weaving through the warm air, their wings flicking close as they hunt; the quiet too-wit, too-woo of the tawny owls calling across the valley; and down among the grasses, faint green pinpoints of glow-worms — tiny lanterns for those who care to look.
A breeze moves through the leaves, cool at last, and the scent of evening primrose drifts by — its yellow blooms wide open now, waiting for the hawk-moths that hover like small miracles, feeding in the dark. Somewhere beyond the hedge, a hedgehog rustles, patient and practical, carrying on its nightly patrol.
The village settles, but the fields stay busy. Moths trade places with bees; owls with blackbirds. Even the stillness hums with quiet work — feeding, hunting, breathing, living.
I keep watch through it all, carved and silent, but never alone. The night here isn’t empty. It’s a second daylight, softer and secret, lit not by the sun, but by the small, steadfast glow of everything that thrives when the rest of the world has gone to sleep.