The Ides Are Not Yet Done

 Julius Caesar was assassinated on the 15 March 2068 years ago, in the year 44BC. Legend has it he was warned by a soothsayer in the days prior to "Beware the Ides of March", but maybe this is because it was included in Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar.

I have long liked March as a month. Whilst it can be excessively hot, have big rain events and storms, it often has lengthy spells of lovely stable weather. The days are shorter than in the often-brutal heat of February and an evening dew commences bringing some calm to man and beast. The beginning of autumn. Deciduous trees and shrubs begin to colour as the leaves transform from growth to senescence. It's a time of rich harvest in the garden and farms. For me in recent decades, March has been the time for many family holidays, chosen because the changing season gave me some relief in work commitment.

The good thing about having written this blog is that I can go back and see what I was doing at a point of time, with the tap of a few buttons. I scrolled through March each year today.

2023 - Last March I wrote about neighbour Helen's dramatic departure around the time of her 79th birthday. Our friend Ian from Canada and his sons were staying with us at the time. It was Helen's 80th birthday this year. I visited Estia Nursing Home to see her, but she wasn't there. She'd checked out with one of her daughters for 5 days that very morning. I left in her room a card signed by us, a bunch of flowers from our garden, a block of chocolate, and a container of pineapple from one I'd sliced that morning (when I cut up a pineapple in the past, I'd always give her some when she called on her daily visits.

2022 - Raging floods in Qld.

2021 - We moved to McCracken from Gembrook.

2020 - We were on holiday at Henley Beach in Adelaide. Covid taking off.

2019 - Blocked septic drain Gembrook, 40C, effluent flooding back into bathroom through shower outlet.

2018 - Rain after prolonged dry spell. Thomas the Tank engine cancelled in Gembrook. Ha Ha!

2017 - No blog post, because we were on holiday Sth Island New Zealand. Caught up on blog about it in April.

2016 - Holiday lakes Entrance. Full on Rheumatoid shit, abatacept injections.

2015 - Trip to Canberra with Gord to watch cricket. Holiday to Adelaide.

2014 - Wrote to Melbourne Football Club telling them I was not renewing my membership because of largesse in the AFL, snouts in the trough, Demetriou leaving with payout $2mill after salary similar. This didn't last long, I renewed the next year. (Glad I came across this, I told my friend Graeme Forster the other day I had continued my membership right up to the 2021 premiership. I was wrong, I stopped one year).

2013 - Holiday Nth Island NZ.

2012 -NHPEM turmoil. Big storm. Old butcher shop at Silverwells flattened by huge pine tree down full square on.

2011 - Floods Western Vic, biggest in history memory.

2010 - Big rain early March, more later.

2009 - Holiday Normanville SA after a few days at Lakes Entrance.

2008 - Holiday Lakes, visit from Ian Sinclair and Kulan.

2007 - Father Lyle died 24 March. Prior to that we did a trip to Lakes and Cape Conron.

On his way to the Theatre of Pompey on the Ides of March Julius Caesar encountered the soothsayer and said, "See, we are at the Ides of March." the intonation being that no harm had come to him. The soothsayer replied, "The Ides are not yet done."