Dog Days of Summer

(Animal idioms are everywhere)

When I was trying to put words on my current malaise, the above sprang to mind without hesitation. Then, I had to find out where it came from, then I thought I’d look up why so many of our figures of speech have to do with fauna, and down the rabbit hole I fell, hahahaha.

Holy moly, there is a lot of thinking going on about this, which makes me feel better about how easily it came when using such idioms in writing The Shapeshifters of the Beau Monde novels.

Up came links to pages listing the more familiar ones in English with their origin stories, then lists of how to use them correctly if English is your second language, then! in myriad languages – the Chinese ones are especially evocative – and then then, entire scholarly papers about the subject, like for PhD candidature.

I feel less silly about it now.

That looks way too robust tbh. And in petticoats, too!

So the whole point of the search-engining was: from whence did the term ‘dog days’ derive? It connects to the Lion’s Gate situation, which I posted about here, and the dog star Sirius which is brightest at this time of year, and the way this weather is really hard on dogs and increases their risk of going mad, which of course makes me think of To Kill a Mockingbird, and did that scene happen in summer…? (I think that it wasn’t, which was made it even more disturbing…?)

It’s too muggy for this much thinking.

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TL;DR, I am not upset that summer is almost over.

I didn’t have a warm weather holiday as usual, and am planning a lil getaway maybe around birthday time at the end of September. This is sparking an idea about holidaying in the Regency Era, but see above, no energy. (Also! Regency era pets?!?)

That idea about vacations will make another post, because I’m currently cooling down the Downstairs perspective of life* in Lowell Hall – mouse maid Mary Mossett’s vera amoris story, for those who recognise her from the series!

I’m getting fairly het up about servants’ lives in Regency Era times, which despite all my dukes running around the place, is something I feel strongly about. The whole division-of-power issue will definitely become interesting when I get to O’Mara’s story which largely takes place in Ireland…

Roll on autumn!! xoxo Susanna

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*OMGGGG it is not possible for me to recommend this more highly: Longbourn by Jo Baker. It’s Pride and Prejudice told from the perspective of the servants and it is spectacular. I think I lost my copy a move, gonna replace that ASAP. Here‘s a link.

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Also, please see here for more info on The Shapeshifters of the Beau Monde.