Yikes, this weather is enough to make you "park a bloody jumbo"!!

 For all of you who are wondering what the hell I'm talking about with this "park a bloody jumbo" statement.  It's very easily explained.  In the delightful British 4-parter called Lost in Austen, this young gal Amanda Price time travels back to the era of  novelist Jane Austen and thru a door in her bath tub, lands in the Bennet household circa 1813.  She is right in the beginning of the novel Pride and Prejudice, where she thinks it's a "Jim Carrey thing but period"(the Truman Show), goes into mild shock because of where she finds   herself  and is accused of making very elliptical statements including the observation of the expansive grounds of the Bingley estate.  As she rides in a carriage, and peers out the window she loudly states, "Wow, you could park a bloody jumbo" referring to the property, the size, and how a very large plane could land there.  Lydia, one of the Bennet sisters hears her remark and repeats it in the ballroom, having absolutely no idea what she is saying but she thinks it fits the dilemma she is speaking of to her sisters.  So I too feel the need to use the odd statement to refer to the quirky weather.

Why am I even bothering with this trivial pursuit of an explanation?  I haven't a clue.  I guess because I absolutely adore Jane Austen and can't get enough of her novels.  Or the films that are made from the novels.  And I absolutely love Lost in Austen, I can watch it over and over. I've been married twice and have had four children but that doesn't preclude how I'd love to fall in love just like the ladies in all the Austen stories.  Amanda Price also relished her time sitting on the sofa reading Pride and Prejudice to feed her fantasy of falling in love(with Mr. Darcy of course), following proper courtship and manners as Elizabeth, Elinor and Emma and the rest of the fabulous heroines that were created by one of the most beloved authors in history.

Now there is a film called Austenland, where a young woman(Kerri Russell) or man can visit and live, ever so briefly, a 19th century fantasy with costume and scenarios out of one of Austen's novels. I haven't seen it yet but I'm very curious about how they portray a modern sensibility seeking a long lost society where women were treated so differently than how they are now. (I'll write later after viewing the film).  

So, we were literally freezing, with the numbers in the teens, in NC the last few days and today it's in the 70's and sunny.  I could call the weather schizophrenic and it would apply but what came to mind with the sheer awe of how the weather altered so drastically was Amanda's comment, applicable to the radical tempature change, but thru Lydia's comprehension. Okay, I haven't lost it, by no means, but since words are such a magical thing, meaning one thing in one decade or country and changing in a matter of years to mean something else, I thought it would be fun to write about the series Lost in Austen.  You have to see it to know of what I speak.  Imagine someone who made remarks in 1813 coming from Hammersmith, England of 2006.  It's just so much fun to hear Amanda carry on with people who haven't a clue what she is talking about.  I love when she is telling the egregious character Wickham how she is going to broadcast his evil ways in "neon". And he asks ever so gingerly, "what is neon." I love it!

For example, in  just a few years the words straight and gay have both taken on new meanings from just 45 years ago.  Shagging in England means to have sex, but in North Carolina it's a very important dance with it's origination coming from right here in the south.   And there are many more examples but I had no intention of going off on this adventure with words, but I did, and to not make this too lengthy  I'll leave you with my bit of trivia especially for you fans of Sleep Hollow.  The very handsome Tom Mison who plays Ichabod Crane is also Mr. Bingley in Lost in Austen so you must watch it on Netflix and see a very clean, proper and blonde Mison take your breath away.   Now I'm gonna go watch Austenland.  I bid you all ado for now.
p.s. (UPDATE):  just watched Austenland and absolutely loved it.  Too funny! So out of the box strange and quirky.  Kerri Russell knocked it out of the park!