Beware the Ides of March

When I was much younger I was not allowed to watch Up Pompeii because it was too rude for me to watch.  When I did watch it illicitly, I did not understand it because it was full of double entendre that I just didn't understand.  When I watched as an adult I realised it was a) a product of its time and b) rude.  What I remembered most about it as a child was the soothsayer (Senna) who ran around saying 'beware'.  She may, or may not have said 'beware the ides of March', but in my mind she did.  It is definitely key in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar as it is the day he is murdered.

So here I am, as ever, bewaring the ides of March just in case.  When I realise what it is I am actually bewaring about.  Frost.  Not a late frost, it is not a late frost to have one in March, it is just frost.  The days have been so lovely recently.  There have been bees and butterflies and frogspawn is in the pond.  I have all these seeds just waiting to be sown and I am itching to get on with starting them off.  But I know from my garden journal that I religiously complete that there was frost last year on the 19th March.  I had to bring stuff in from the unheated greenhouse as I was worried it might suffer.  So I have to wait, I have to have that patience that I only seem to have when it comes to gardening (and even then I struggle to maintain it).

Which in turn reminds me of when I used to work in a department store in Nottingham (a long gone department store) and one of the people I worked with used to call me Cassandra, not in a Tia Carrera, Waynes World sort of way (the film wasn't even made then and I should be so lucky!), but in a foreteller of doom as apparently I used to spend a lot of time saying things would go wrong.  Of course I had to remind him that Cassandra was actually right in her prediction and no one had believed her.  Anyway, so I am watching the weather, Cassandra-like hoping that I am not foretelling doom yet the forecast says there are still chilly nights ahead, so maybe I am Cassandra after all?  It was frosty overnight in some areas last night and more is probably due at the weekend.

So much to do, so much I want to do, but I have to beware.  It is not Spring yet and the ides of March are a good reminder to be patient a little while longer.