Tag Archives: summer

It does feel a bit like Autumn, doesn’t it? Leaves have been tumbling in the garden and there’s a lovely chill wind whispering around the house.

This house does love fall, you know. Creaking corners, gargoyles, fireplaces…

With summer truly waning, we will surely be nostalgic for the warm and lazy days covered in ice cream and lemonade.

Which, naturally, brings me to today’s word.

Aestival (also estival) is an adjective that means of, relating to, or occurring in summer.

The etymologies are rather straight forward, wouldn’t you know. It stems from the Middle English, in turn from the Old French, in turn from the Latin aestīvālis, from aestīvus, from aestās, summer.

Perhaps we should begin planning our Aestival Festival for next June now, eh?

It’s too hot and humid for me to go outside today, so I’m sitting in the library surrounded by oscillating fans and reading material. I’ve broken out my summer-time secret as well; I keep metal canteens filled with water in the freezer. When the weather turns this hot, I strap a few to me with my old canteen belts and as the water thaws, my temperature drops. It leads to some soggy reading chairs, but it’s worth it to keep my temperature down.

Mordecai is preparing for a mysterious journey, and I wonder if he plans to search for underground fishing locales. Legend has it that he would only have to go across the river to Manhattan, though by the looks of his pack, it appears he’s preparing to go much further.

If you can, grab yourself a cold glass of lemonade and read something. You can start with this. I find that nothing cools like a good spark of imagination.