# In the Summertime, when the weather is hot, you can stretch right up and touch the sky. When the weather's fine, you got swimming, you got swimming on your mind. Have a drink, have a drive, Go out and see what you can find #

We are now back from our detour where we looked in depth at the cause and effects of plantsimism. We have now returned to our systematic look at the four seasons. As you can tell from the slightly rephrased extract of Mungo Jerry's 1970 classic, we are looking at Summer. As Riverblossom Hills does not have a Summer and instead has two Winters, we are returning to the quaint Simlish village of Simpleton Magnus and will visit the home of Sandra Ross and her partner Todd Byall.

Although it is the warmest season, the weather is not always fine in Summer. If the temperature is low for the season, usually towards the beginning or end, there is a chance of hail. Here, Sandra Ross has been caught in a hail storm. It lowers comfort and energy and if she stays out in it too long, it could prove to be fatal. Also, a buildup of hail can damage your plants.

As the song puts it, Summer is supposed to be hot and of the four seasons that are included in TS2 Seasons, it is. Wearing Outerwear is a quick way to pass out from heatstroke although sufficient exposure to the Sun regardless of how the sim is dressed will achieve the same effect. Also, spending too much time in the hot tub will make you overheat.

When a Sim is exposed to the heat for too long, there is a risk of them suffering from heat stroke and passing out.

Yes, I know this is not part of the song but it does serve as a segue to the changes that have been made to swimming pools with this expansion.

Swimming pools can now have round corners. These cost §300, take up a 2x2 area and can be placed on their own or as an addition to an existing pool. I would have liked to see inner corners as well as it would have added an extra element for lot designers. Nevertheless, this 2x2 outer corner does make a difference.

You are no longer restricted to how your pool is coloured. Any wall covering can be used for the sides of the pool and any floor covering can be used for the bottom of the pool. You are only limited by your imagination. This pool here has a wall and floor coverings from the Glamour Life Stuff Pack.

The water in pools has changed. It is clearer, the surface ripples and you can also see reflections of sims in it and also if you have the appropriate EP enabling neighborhood view, you can even see the reflection of neighborhood landmarks.

There is now a pool slide. This looks identical to the one that came with "Vacation/On Holiday" for TS1. Personally, I think we have waited too long for this but it is good to see it has finally made it. Pools have a large footprint so a pool needs to be at least this wide to fit it.

As well as swimming, sims can play the game of Marco Polo whereas the words are changed to Timla and Tourneau (Tim LeTourneau, a DemiGod of The Sims). Perhaps this could become as much part of the sim nomenclature as the Nightlife Smustle.

Sims have now realised that they do not need a diving board or slide to get into a swimming pool. However, they have not realised that they can climb out of a pool on their own. The ladder is still required, otherwise your sim will drown.

Swimming pools are at a constant temperature. In the simworld, pools have water conditioning whereby the water is kept to a constant temperature. As a result, your swimming pool is a good place for sims to restore their temperature from a red shade of hot to a green shade of average. This also works in reverse in the wintertime and can be used to help your sims to warm up from a blue shade of cold.

With all of these changes, it makes it very attractive for every house now to have a swimming pool. However, now I face a dilemma. I have recommended ponds for fish and pools for swimming and lots can usually not fit both. It is just a pity that sims cannot swim in their ponds.

Although anything can be planted at any time of year, Summertime is the recommended time of year for sims to plant their tomatoes, pole beans and cucumbers. It is also the recommended time for harvesting peppers, strawberries and eggplants. Planting is best done in the first few days of Summer as well.

# Summertime, and the livin' is easy. Fish are jumpin', and the cotton is high. #

Summertime affects relationships of a non-famlilial and of a non-romantic nature. All other social interactions benefit from approximately 15%. Also, the Energy need bar decays at a slower rate if the sim is outside.

This means that the summer is the best time to invite those new neighbors over for a pool party in order to get to know them better.

# Summer days driftin' away, To uh-oh those summer nights #

On warm Summer nights, fireflies come out. To gain some fun, your sims can go out and capture them in a jar. There is a cheat that supposedly allows those captured fireflies to live forever and provide free lighting, but mine seemed to die on me.

What I would have liked to see in Seasons is day and night being of a different length to correspond with real seasons. Perhaps it might have complicated the code too much, I don't know.

Summer doesn't last forever, unless it has been rigged so that it does. The flowers and the trees will not always stay in bloom. Everything must fall and that season is what we will be looking at next.