What does ‘summer’ mean to you? For me it’s days like the one pictured, with skies that look like they’ve been painted, boats on the water and families on the shore. It may not be perfect blues and blazing hot days, but, as we Brits say (when we can) “at least it’s not raining.”

Can you write a tale inspired by your own particular thoughts of summer? Include specific details that bring to mind memories of summers’ past (anyone else remember sitting in the car at the seaside waiting for torrential rain to stop?), from ice cream flavours to a particular coastal walk, and any minor disasters you can laugh about now, years after the event.

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please let me know by emailing judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’d love to know the creative direction you choose.

You know that feeling you sometimes get that someone’s watching you? Imagine if your watcher was a tree. These googly eyes have clearly been added to this branch as a bit of a joke, but what if woodlands really could sense us?

I recently saw a BBC 4 show about a year in the life of a 400-year-old oak, and the presenter George McGavin explained how trees know the change in seasons not because of the drop in temperature (which is lucky, because this July could have triggered autumn), but because they can sense the colour red, which tells them when the sun sets each evening.

That knowledge changes everything I thought I understood about trees and other plant-life!

Can you use this to inspire your next creative work?

If you write or create something prompted by this idea, please let me know by emailing judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’d love to know the creative direction you choose.