Dog Days of Summer

We are now in the throes of the dog days of summer, a northern hemispheric name that links the time when Sirius (the "dog" star) rises at dawn with the most stinky, humid and hot weather imaginable (also known in Scandinavia as the "rotting days", for obvious reasons).

The dog days have been around since Roman times and are described as a period "when the seas boiled, wine turned sour, dogs grew mad, and all creatures became languid, causing to man burning fevers, hysterics, and phrensies" - Brady’s Clavis Calendarium

We've taken a slightly less hystrionic and more literal interpretation of the phrase - we've been flirting with the idea of adopting a dog. Our neighbour Lara picked a lost dog up in the mountains and brought her home. We've established that she is not fatally ill with heartworm (good), nor microchipped (and therefore untraceable to a home). Lara is firstly seeing if someone with more money and room can take the dog in, but we're the fallback option if that's not possible. We're definitely enjoying taking her walking (despite the heat), and she's very very friendly, if not so well trained...

Lara and "Sylva", the dog

In other news, Nic and I are happy to have reached a more elevated position... when we sleep! Nic spent today building a bed frame for us, so for the first time in over a year I'm sleeping off the floor!

I'm super duper impressed by husband's efforts here - he was sawing and screwing and bolting and doing all sorts of manly stuff all day (and looking very nice in a fancy carpenter's belt while he did it too!) . There Nic, I said it. I'm super, duper, impressed.

The many stages of building a bed... cutting, laying it out on the lawn, testing the assembled frame in the bedroom, piling the mattress on top and feeling proud of yourself!

Finally, I cleaned and roasted the seeds from the sunflowers we had planted earlier in the summer today. They're quite fun to eat because you need to shell them... like pistachios.