Country Town Survival

I was born in a country town. Parkes, NSW, 2870, to be exact. I remember being taught that the population of the town was 7,000, which made Parkes better than Forbes, which was smaller, and better than Dubbo, which was bigger. Parkes was Just Right.

what Parkes is most known for - The Dish

I spent my whole childhood in Parkes, and only left to go to university in the Big Smoke of Sydney, but ended up staying there for work. My mother still lives in Parkes, and sees no reason why she should leave. My father was born there, and only moved away to go to teacher’s college, then to spend several years learning his craft at various schools around NSW. I think the biggest school he taught at was when he came back home and was at Parkes Primary. He taught in a lot of small country towns – I mean small as in he was the only teacher! Mum and Dad did spend a year on a teaching exchange in New Zealand, but even then, the place they went to was a small country town.

One constant topic of discussion in our small country town was how to keep the town alive. I can’t remember exactly, but back then, I think the concern was of what to do if the farmers couldn’t make a living, with the price of wheat and wool being so low. The flow on from this would be that the farmers would not spend money in the town, businesses would go bust, and the young people would leave the town to make a living in the city.

view of Parkes from Memorial Hill

Parkes was lucky, in a way, because a few things happened that meant the town has survived, and grown, in fact. Population now is around 10,000. Parkes was settled originally because of gold. Gold mining didn’t last all that long back then, but the farmers came along, and the town kept going. But just when farming might no longer support the town, improvements in mining techniques meant that a mine could be opened.

Add to this the Elvis Festival, and Parkes was back on the map!

But not much has really changed, all these years later. There is still the discussion – what about when the mine stops? And how long can Elvis keep pumping money into the local economy?

As time goes on, I think it gets harder to find answers. We are trying to balance the needs of so many – how do we campaign against a mine, when not having the mine means the town will die?

view along the Bylong road

I was thinking about all this on the weekend when we were driving back to Bathurst through the Bylong Valley. We stopped for lunch at Kandos, which only exists because of the existence of limestone in the area – Kandos was established by Cement Australia when they started quarrying the limestone and making it into cement.

The quarry was shut down in 2011. But the town still survives. Now, the population of the town is just over 1,000. The town sees itself as the gateway to the Wollemi National Park. The surrounding area, in fact the whole Bylong Valley, is a beautiful place. Again, though, it is fighting for survival.



another view along the Bylong road

Mining wants to come to the area. The locals don’t want it to (Bylong Valley Protection). But how could a town like Kandos survive without it? No quarry, anymore, so without the mine, how could people stay?

Having driven through the valley, I can see why the locals don’t want the mine – that beautiful landscape would be destroyed. Having had lunch at Kandos, I can see why they think they can survive without the mine. We ate in a lovely café that was the old railway station, converted into a café, bar, shop. That was only one of several cafés in town. And going by the number of brochures about things to do in the area, things are going along just fine.

Country towns seem to always be fighting for survival. But if Parkes and Kandos are anything to go by, there is always a way for them to keep going, if only the people who live there care enough to make it happen. We asked the person behind the counter in another of the cafés in Kandos what keeps the town going. Her reply? Love.

Country towns are such interesting places. I desperately hope they can continue to survive.

Coffee, and Rituals

I’m not a coffee snob. I draw the line at International Roast (it’s not really coffee, is it), but other than that, if it’s after 10:30am and I haven’t had a coffee yet, I’ll drink pretty much any kind of coffee. But I do have some preferences.

I like my coffee to be in a proper mug, not one of those takeaway things. I have been known to send a coffee back because I asked for it in a proper mug but it came in a takeaway one. If I have to have a takeaway (because I’m taking it away), I like it to be without a lid. I mean really, since I’m getting a cappuccino, there isn’t a lot of point if most of the creamy top of it, along with all the chocolate sprinkled on top, is stuck to the lid.

I like to have the time to actually enjoy my coffee. Savouring the creamy top and the lovely coffee flavour are a major reason why I love coffee. If I have to rush it, or do something else at the same time, I can’t do it justice.

My morning tea ritual

I like the creamy milk on top of my coffee to be just that – creamy. Not frothy, creamy. Frothy is just all air, and quite disappointing. I’d rather have a thin layer of creamy than a huge pile of frothy.

I like my coffee like Goldilocks does – not too hot, and not too cold, but Just Right! Too cold means I have to drink it faster than I’d like. Too hot means it burns my mouth and I have to wait for it to cool down a bit. Just Right means I can start sipping right away, taking my time to finish it, and not have it go cold before I do.

I like my coffee to have a bit of flavour. Sometimes the smell of the coffee is just wonderful, but the taste is a real let-down.

I like my coffee to come with a spoon. That way, I can spoon the creamy top off and “eat” it first, then sip the rest of the drink. Those paddle-pop stick things do a reasonable job if you just want to stir the coffee, but they just don’t work well as spoons.

We ritually take photos of our Kids, doing naughty things

But these preferences are just me. Most coffee drinkers have their preferences, and I don’t judge them if those preferences are not the same as mine. My Dad, for example, had a simple preference for “ordinary coffee with ordinary milk in it – none of that frothy crap” (that’s a direct quote from him ordering a coffee in a café on the North Shore in Sydney). A good friend always orders hers “extra hot, and if it isn’t hot enough, I’ll send it back”. Another friend always leaves half the cup.

But what do I do at home? Well, that is where the ritual comes in. I didn’t realise how much of a ritual it had become until I was thinking about routine in my day. Morning tea is a significant part of the routine. (Maybe I should call it “morning coffee”?) Coffee in the plunger. Taken to the Viewing Area (the name we have given to the part of our home that looks across the back yard to the farmland). Let sit for just the right amount of time, to brew and cool slightly. Poured into “my” mug. Topped up with creamy milk (Les gave me a milk frother for Christmas). Drinking chocolate sprinkled on top. Creamy milk eaten with a spoon. The remainder of the mug sipped as I chat with Les and look out at the world that is our view.

This ritual calms me. What more need I say?

Our Christmas Ritual - the Santa salt and pepper shakers,
the Christmas bonbons, the sparkling wine

We all have rituals. They help us feel safe. We get a bit tetchy when they are challenged, but that’s just because we are scared, and unsure of how we will cope with change. There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as we don’t hang on to those rituals at all costs. We need to know when to let them change, or even let them go.

Retired, or Just Not Working

When I told my boss that I was retiring, he told me that I couldn’t retire, because I was too young! I wonder how much that was because he is just a little bit older than me? Anyway, it was a fairly common response when I told people. I wonder if the response would have been different if I’d just said that I was giving up work?

breakfast on our short break to
Bingle Tree Retreat

It seems that there is an assumption of age being a factor when we use the “R” word. If someone in their 30s stopped working and had no intention of going back to paid employment, would they say they had retired? Probably not, but I think the only difference between me and that person in their 30s is about 20 years.

At first, I really didn’t want to have those age-related connotations applied to me, so I fought against using the term “retirement”. I mean, I don’t think I’m old, and I certainly didn’t stop working because of my age. But then I realised that I hadn’t actually just stopped working, I’d done more than that, so why not call it “retirement” and see what happens.

one of the guests at the Taronga Zoo Christmas Lunch
- because we are retired, we can now attend!

Back when I was talking about Being Prepared, I said how there is a difference between wanting to retire, and just not wanting to work. It was as I was thinking about that difference that I realised I was retiring. So I suppose I should try to explain what I mean.

Many people these days have had breaks in their working lives. I’ve done it a number of times, to travel, as a semi-enforced break after being made redundant from a job (boy, that was DEFINITELY a case of “not working”), as a much-needed “time out” after a particularly challenging job. There are many other reasons, such as caring for children or the elderly, studying, or taking the time to devote to a passion. But none of these seem to be retirement. What is the difference?


a travel pillow, made for my niece, who is
off travelling to Europe

One of the differences, for me, is that I have absolutely no intention of going back to paid employment. I will be doing some volunteer work, so I may be working, but I will still be retired. Even if I do get some payment for something I do in the future (eg if I ever earn any money from the things I make), I will still consider myself to be retired. That’s a bit contradictory, I suppose, but it makes sense to me.

Another difference is that I’m doing so much more than not working. It was as I was going through all my reasons for not wanting to go to work that I saw it was time to retire. It wasn’t that I hated work – I didn’t. It was just that having to go to work each day was getting in the way of me doing things I wanted to do more.

winding some cotton into balls so I can
knit it into who knows what

If I was just not working, I would probably be bored to distraction, and not know what to do with myself. When I was thinking about retiring, I made sure I wasn’t doing it just because I didn’t want to work. If that was the case, once I’d gotten over the novelty of not going to work each day, what then?

So, I consider myself to be retired. It suits me. I’m sure it doesn’t suit everyone. If you are thinking of retiring, and it’s because you don’t like working, there is more thinking to be done. Think about what you are going to do if you aren’t working. If you end up just not working, you may well end up not liking not working! Then what?