Apricity – the warmth of the sun in Winter

Regular readers of this daily blog know how much I love beautiful language, words, their etymology

This week am reminded of the word apricity, dervied from Latin and meaning the feeling of the warmth of the sun in Winter.

Recently where I live outside London we have had a “freeze” for about ten days, yet somehow it was rapidly followed by this week of spring-like weather, with temperatures up to a balmy 15c (I can just hear my Caymanian friends kissing their teeth at the idea of 15c being balmy!).

Last weekend I went for my first bike ride of the year. As we rode back over one of the beautiful viewpoints in the Surrey Hills, we passed a runner who had taken his shirt off. One of my sons, when he went to Scotland to do his masters degree, had worked out the temperature at which Scots declared it to be “time to sunbathe in the park” to be 14c. At that temperature, the site of many shirtless males in city parks often will spark the exclamation “taps aff!” (tops off).

Anyway, though it is still only February and we will have cold weather still to come before Spring solidly arrives.

Meanwhile, I am appreciating the apricity when I can.