Swings and Roundabouts - Mayfield Gardens

I might have mentioned once or twice before that us retired people can often take advantage of the fact that there are many fewer people around during the week at places we want to go. On week days it is wonderful to be able to take our time wandering around, taking things in. On weekends, we would be trying to dodge thousands of people, or waiting patiently for people to move out of the way of that perfect photo opportunity only to have some other inconsiderate people move directly into the frame.

No inconsiderate people in this photo opportunity

Today we ticked an item off our “To Do List” (a retirement “To Do List” is much more fun than a business “To Do List”). We headed off down to Oberon and Mayfield Garden. For the first time, it is open during the week instead of just on the weekends, so of course we chose a week day to go. And we were well rewarded for that – only one tour bus and about 15 cars in the car park when we got there, so in a garden that covers 160 acres, you certainly don’t notice the people.

how's this for autumn colours?

The garden is absolutely fantastic. And if you think spring is the best time to visit a garden, think again – this garden is specifically a cold-climate garden and the autumn colours are magnificent. Mind you, I think a visit in spring will be on the “To Do List” as well.

I only took about 125 photos today. How will I choose which ones to include here? Maybe just a heap of photos at the end? It took us over 2 hours to wander around the garden, so only 125 photos was quite restrained.

I may also have mentioned once or twice before that there is a downside to taking our outings on week days – not everything is open. Yep, swings and roundabouts.

the entrance to the coffee
(and food, on weekends)

On weekends there is food available for purchase, so you can wander around the garden then head back to the food area for a nice bit of lunch. Alas, no food on week days. BUT, there is still coffee! Yippee! And the coffee is the lovely Fish River Roasters, a local mob, so I was very happy. If we’d felt inclined, we could have had a lemon tart, or chocolate macaron, but no meal-type food.

However, since we are now experienced at Mid-Week Escapades, we know to check before we go what will actually be open. So we packed our lunch. By the time it was lunch time, we’d seen all we wanted to see of Mayfield Garden, and went to Oberon Dam hoping there would be a picnic area there. Unfortunately not, but it was still a lovely view from the car as we ate lunch.

So even when there is a down side to taking the outing during the week, it can be made into an up side. That is one of the great things about being retired – flexibility and heaps of options. So for us, it was a case of what we gained on the swings we also gained on the roundabout.

Oberon Dam - our view at lunch

Gotta love retirement!

Now, as promised, more photos from Mayfield Garden.

an inconsiderate person in this shot - but maybe it gives perspective? 

This Week I...

I feel like I’m lurching from week to week without actually achieving anything. This isn’t true, but that’s how it feels. I do have a diary that pretty much everything goes into, because if it isn’t in the diary, it won’t happen! But I don’t really look at that to see what has happened in the past – it is just to make sure I know what is coming up in the future.

We have been keeping a diary since we retired, but in reality, it is Les who has the discipline to write in it every day. Me – it’s just not part of my routine, so I don’t even think about it. I’d like to say that I’m simply too busy doing things to write about them, but that wouldn’t be true. And because it is Les who does the updates, I don’t think about what has happened each day, and the day passes without me consciously thinking I’ve actually done something.

One reason for keeping a diary in retirement is so that feeling of just going along, day by day, with nothing ever happening, and thinking that the retirement  is being wasted, can be kept at bay. Because I’m not writing in the diary, I need to find another way. This week, I thought I’d try taking photos as a way of remembering. Taking photos helps me remember in two different ways – the most obvious, in that I can look at the photos at a later date and remember, but also because the simple act of taking the photo makes the moment stick in my mind better.

Here are some of the moments from my week.

I finally got around to making tomato chutney from the tomatoes given to me at tennis last week.

I was given more tomatoes at tennis this week!

I picked tomatoes from my own plants. Maybe I find a recipe for tomato sauce?

Friends I have known for more than 30 years visited!

We toured through Ben Chifley’s house, bringing back memories of our own parents’/grandparents’ homes. My mum still uses a toaster like the one in this photo!

To keep the historical theme going, we visited Sofala for the Rebellion on the Turon.

I added to my egg cosy repertoire – these will go on sale in the Craft Shop.

I realised how weird the weather has been this year, with the apple tree having flowers on it – it’s autumn! Not spring!!

We rescued a frog from inside the house. It had been company in the shower for one of our guests, but when it ventured out into the living area, and Maggie-cat got interested, we thought it would be better off in the greenhouse.

And that was the week that was, so I know I've actually been reasonably busy. Do I think I can keep up this photo diary? Who knows. But I do like the idea of having a pictorial diary of my retirement, even if it is just of jars of chutney and piles of tomatoes!

What's in a Name?

A couple of weeks ago, Les and I drove back from Parkes along the back roads, as you do when you are retired and have all the time in the world. The trip took me on roads I’d never been on before, and through towns (or tiny little villages, to give them their correct description) I’d never heard of, let alone visited. It was a really pretty trip, but it got me thinking. There should be a regulation that insists that they (those mysterious people who do these things) include on town signs an explanation of how the town name came about.

what sort of rock would be cranky?

I love words, and as an extension to that, names. It interests me how much a name can influence how I think about something, without me even knowing what that thing is. I love finding out how names come to be.

this is the view at Cranky Rock - sort of what I expected

But getting back to our trip back from Parkes (named after Sir Henry Parkes, because he visited once).  Since I am the navigator, and as I said, we were on roads I’d never been on before, I had to rely on a map. The only map I had on hand was not very detailed, but good enough – how lost can you get, and we had a full tank of fuel? First stop after Canowindra (Aboriginal word, I’d been there before, and know how to pronounce it) was Mandurama (another Aboriginal word, don’t know how to pronounce it, didn’t know where it was, but the signs were there). All good so far.

But from Mandurama, I needed to get us to Barry (can pronounce it, but why on earth would there be a town called Barry?). Hadn’t heard of it before. Didn’t have a clue which direction it would be in. Thought for sure there would be a sign to point us in the right direction. No such luck.

But there was a sign for Neville. Why on earth would there be a town called Neville? Did the townsfolk have a falling out with Barry and become Neville fans? What are the chances I’d be on the right track towards Barry if I directed us to Neville? Turns out, pretty good.

Neville is, in fact, on the way to Barry, when driving west to east. Who knows why they (those mysterious people again) chose Barry to put on the map, but not Neville. The villages are much alike, as their names suggest. They are both VERY small. Neither has anything in particular to make it stand out. Except for the fact that they have names that are not really thought of as town names.

In fact, what else other than a person would be called Barry or Neville? I don’t think I’ve heard of anyone calling even a pet by either of those names.  But the names were very effective in setting my expectations for those villages. And the villages lived up to those expectations.


Chifley Dam - named for Ben Chifley
who lived in Bathurst

How often does that happen? For people as well as for things. I’ve heard of people who had a name picked out for their child, then changed their minds once the child was born, because “he just didn’t look like a Barry”. If they had named him Barry, would that have affected what sort of person he became?

The opposite is also true, though. There is talk around at the moment of changing the names of things as some people may find the current names offensive. One in this area is a road called “Curly Dick Road”. Sure, I had a little chuckle to myself when I saw it, but it is just a name (the road has lots of bends, and a man called Dick killed himself driving too fast around those bends). And it doesn’t change how the road is used. Why change it? Changing the name of something like that doesn’t change the thing.

What is my point? I’m not sure, really. Maybe it is just that I find names, and where they come from, and the way they affect how I think of things, fascinating.

By the way, according to Wikipedia (and I believe everything it says), Barry is probably named after a Caleb Barry who was the former bank manager of Blayney. I’m still searching for a reason for Neville.

It's a Small, Small World

Should I regret the purchase of
these as my gumboots?

I’ve often thought that it is a small world we live in, and that it’s risky to do something that I may regret because sure as eggs, someone who knows me will be there to see it. Even when I was travelling a long way from home, this thought was in my head.  I can’t say it ever really stopped me from doing anything, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if, just after I had done something, I’d heard a familiar voice call out “hey Joy!”.

My parents had an uncanny knack of running into people from Parkes, where I grew up, when travelling. They could be in Far North Queensland, or in Europe somewhere, only to run into someone who lives just up the road. Each didn’t know the other was travelling, so hadn’t arranged to be in the same place – it just happened. This was one of my first indicators that the world is small.

Then when I was working for a small company in Sydney (total employees of maybe 20?), my mother commented that the company must be going OK since we were hiring new people. Now that was information that was news to me, so how on earth did she know that? Turns out that the mother of the new employee lives directly opposite my Mum in Parkes, and they’d been chatting (as you do). I also knew the new guy quite well, because he had been in the same class at school as my little brother. Small World.

Then when I was leaving my last job to retire, I was asked to interview one of the people who had applied for my job. I thought I recognised the name, and sure enough, he turned out to be the husband of a good friend of my sister. Small World.

Turns out, Bathurst is part of this small world too.

When we moved to Bathurst, we went into the bank to change the address details on an account. We got chatting to the person who looked after us, as you do (well, we had to wait for the computer system to do stuff), and not only did he go to school in Parkes, but my father was his teacher. Small World.

Spectators at our tennis venue

Before we moved to Bathurst, we knew just one person who lived here (apart from Real Estate agents and the person we bought our home from, and they don’t really count). We’ve been here 3 ½ months now, so we know a few more, but still not a lot. Then we went to a Christmas in July dinner on the weekend, at a little village halfway between Bathurst and Lithgow. Since it was a fund-raiser for the Bush Fire Brigade there, and we were there because I play tennis with someone who lives there, I wasn’t really expecting to know anyone else. But within minutes of sitting down at our table, we discovered that the husband of one of the tennis people is the boss of that one person we knew. Small World.

Kevin Bacon has a lot to answer for (the Kevin Bacon effect – you know – six degrees of separation?). I am now convinced that the world is small, and getting smaller. I still won’t really stop from doing anything because of it, but take it from me – there is a big risk that just after I have done something, I’ll hear a familiar voice call out “hey Joy!”.

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.