Today’s the first day of the southern hemisphere summer. The origin of the word ‘summer’ is unclear. Summer, Sommer, etc. are widespread in Germanic languages; and related words pepper (pun intended) Indo-European languages where the root *sam, a variation of *sem, seems to mean simply ‘summer’ or hot season [1]. In Norse mythology, Sumarr is a personified hot season [2].
Summer means lots of thing to me. Including 9 p.m. gloaming, full batteries, home-grown vegetables and raspberries, weaning of lambs and kids, blowflies, cricket Test matches, snakes, high bushfire risk, the Sydney to Hobart yacht race, less political media chatter, advertising rams for sale, and less work.
To set the mood, here are ten of my favourite music items with ‘summer’ in the title: Summer wind [3], Summertime [4], Those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer [5], In the summertime [6], Summer is a comin in [7], Summer nights [8], A summer song [9], Summertime blues [10]. That Sunday, that summer [11] and, of course, Vivaldi’s four seasons (summer) [12].
Do you have favourites to add to this list?
Whatever the season where you live, I wish you a healthy, happy and safe one.
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