# THE REDGUM HOLLOW GAZETTE ### Edition 20 — Week of Monday 15 June to Sunday 21 June 2026 *Est. the winter a sensible person would have started it and someone finally did.* **Your Community. Your News. Our Best Guess.** *Printed and distributed by Marge Holloway, who is doing her best in difficult conditions.* --- **WEATHER:** First frost Monday. Creek bed white by six. The kind of cold that reminds you the district has opinions of its own. --- ## SHADECLOTH HOLDS: HENDERSON KITCHEN GARDEN SURVIVES WINTER OPENING SALVO Monday's frost brought the town out in a way that drought and gossip combined have not managed for some time. No fewer than eleven vehicles were observed slowing at the Henderson gate — this correspondent counted — ostensibly to check road conditions, actually to see whether Ray Connelly's shadecloth had held. It held. "He planned for it," is the formulation going around, and I will not improve upon it because it is already doing precisely the work it needs to do. A man from Queensland, buying a frost-prone block in the Hollow's winter without asking anyone, installing shadecloth before the committee of neighbours could advise him against it, then being right — that is a kind of statement. It has been received as one. Ray was also observed Saturday on the south fence line with a notebook. The ute that spotted him filed this under *he's still working on it.* Correct filing. --- ## DEB AND RAY: THE FORMAL APPROACH, AND WHAT THREE LINES MIGHT CONTAIN Deb Forsythe has confirmed, through the medium of Lorraine Apps's manner at the counter — which is a primary source in this district whether Lorraine knows it or not — that a formal letter was sent to Ray Connelly at Henderson on the matter of the east boundary. Ray replied within twenty-four hours. By hand. Three lines. The café's read — "he's not a man who wastes sentences" — is among the more accurate pieces of literary criticism this town has produced. Three lines to Deb Forsythe means one of two things: he has agreed, or he has declined with such measured confidence that she cannot object without looking excitable. I do not know which. I find I am curious in a way I shall not fully examine in print. What I can confirm: Saturday the 27th of June is pencilled in for a site meeting at Henderson. *They're meeting at Henderson* has already done three laps of the district. This paper notes it for the record and will have more to say in Edition 21, assuming both parties emerge from the visit willing to be described. --- ## STEVE-O REINSTATED: COMMITTEE ACTS, TOWN ASKS QUESTIONS IN THE WRONG DIRECTION Keith Mulroney phoned Steve 'Steve-o' Mitchell Saturday morning. Saturday evening Keith confirmed at the pub: he's back in for the Currawong Flats fixture. The town's instinct — asking *what changed Deb's mind* — is, this paper is compelled to report, factually sideways. Keith's committee vote is the mechanism. Deb Forsythe's influence over selection is a thing the district has constructed and she has not, to her credit, entirely discouraged. Keith's public line is that Steve-o will need to be sharp. Correct. He will also need to be there. Three weeks. The Currawong Flats fixture is now the fixed point the district is triangulating around, and the atmosphere at the Royal Saturday evening was, by several reports, something approaching warm. For June. For this town. --- ## LETTERS TO THE EDITOR **From Norma Tait, Wattle Street:** *Dear Marge — I went to the Royal on Friday and I want to say that Gary McKenzie runs a very clean establishment and my drink was correct. I have not been in since before the new century and some things are different and some things are not. Helen Watts is responsible for my attendance. I hold her only partially accountable. — N. Tait* **From a Reader Who Prefers Not to Say:** *Marge. The bread in the box at the pub. People know where it came from. Someone should just say it. — Unsigned* *[Ed: Someone should. Someone will. When she's ready. In the meantime, "she did it without a note" tells us more than a note would have.]* **From Keith Mulroney, Selection Committee:** *Marge — just to be clear, the committee voted. — K. Mulroney* *[Ed: Noted, Keith. Printed. The district will continue to speculate regardless. That is not your fault or mine.]* --- ## AROUND THE DISTRICT **CLINIC:** Dr Priya Sharma's queue long again this week. "The drought's getting into people." Lorraine said nothing at the store, which this paper has logged as its own form of comment. **BINGO CORNER:** The six o'clock gathering is now a social institution. Norma Tait's attendance this Friday may be the beginning of something or a one-off. This paper expects the former. **MACCA AND DEB:** An exchange at the far end of the bar Saturday. Posture noted by Helen Watts. "He asked her something and she didn't say no." Helen has delivered this verdict. The Gazette receives it. **TASH'S SOURDOUGH:** Still at the store Tuesdays and Fridays. The anonymous pub box is now widely attributed. No public confirmation. The silence around it is its own kind of conversation. **FUEL:** Up again. Nobody happy. **RAIN:** Not yet. --- *The Redgum Hollow Gazette is printed when there is something to print, which is always. Back issues available on request. Founding date subject to revision upon receipt of credible evidence.*