WEATHER: Six degrees Tuesday morning. Frost on the tank stand Wednesday. No rain. Still no rain. This column has stopped making predictions and started making peace with the situation.

DEB FORSYTHE WALKS THE EAST BOUNDARY. RAY CONNELLY HAD ALREADY WALKED IT FOR HER.

The Henderson site visit completed Wednesday morning, and this newspaper is pleased to report that something has, in fact, happened. Deb Forsythe — who has been quietly running circles around the rest of us for months now — has confirmed the east boundary fencing as workable for festival access. This is not nothing. This is the first concrete, on-record, someone-actually-went-and-looked progress on the east site since the Bicentenary planning began.

What is considerably more interesting than the outcome is the preparation. Ray Connelly had the east boundary cleared before Deb arrived. Not tidied. Cleared. Twenty metres in each direction, by Bruce Patterson's account, which Bruce delivered to two people at the agency on Friday on the strength of Deb's off-hand comment to him about access preparation. Bruce was not there. This has not stopped him. We print the version that reached us.

The read at the store — which is, in this district, roughly equivalent to a formal finding — is: he prepared for it. Ray Connelly knew she was coming, understood what she needed, and made sure she could get it. This is not the behaviour of a man who wandered north from Queensland to sit on a verandah. This newspaper has been watching Ray Connelly since Edition 17 and we are now prepared to say, out loud, on the masthead: the question is no longer who is he. The question is what is he doing, and he appears to be doing it rather carefully.

Also of note: Dooley's gravity channels appear in the festival access corridor documentation for the first time. That infrastructure is older than most of the families using it. Someone has been reading their history.

DEB CHOOSES THE PUB. MACCA FINDS OUT WHAT HE AGREED TO.

Bicentenary planning sessions will be held at the Royal Hotel, commencing July 7. Deb Forsythe confirmed this via a printed note on the bar, seen by three lunchtime regulars before Macca had made any announcement to that effect. "She chose the pub" is the news. "Macca must have asked her" is the follow-on, and this has been attributed correctly to Saturday evening even if the timeline has been somewhat compressed in transit.

This newspaper will simply note that the Royal Hotel now has a formal civic function, a confirmed booking schedule, and a role in the district's centrepiece event. This is not, we feel, coincidental. Clarrie Burton was seen having a quiet coffee at the Royal on Thursday morning. He said nothing of consequence to anyone who is talking. This too we file, without comment, in the column marked worth watching.

SOMETHING'S CHANGED WITH THAT BOY

Steve-o Mitchell at the Royal on Saturday evening. Footy talk. Hartley's talk. Normal talk, at normal volume, with a normal pint. Helen Watts' formulation — something's changed with that boy — had reached four people by Sunday afternoon without anyone being able to say what changed, which is frankly more eloquent than most explanations would have been.

Keith Mulroney's line, delivered at the bar Saturday and meaning nothing specific while landing as extremely meaningful: He's back in more ways than one. The Currawong Flats fixture is three weeks away. This column will be watching the selection sheet.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

From Lorraine Apps, the Store:
Marge, I'm not saying anything about who's been through the clinic. That's not my place and I would never. What I will say is that Thursday's queue was longer than usual and it's good that people are getting looked after. Dr Sharma is a credit to this town. Also we are restocked on flour.
— L. Apps

From Bruce Patterson:
For the record, Deb Forsythe described the access preparation at Henderson as, and I quote, "better than I expected." I am putting this in writing because I think it matters.
— B. Patterson, Patterson Rural Agency

AROUND THE DISTRICT

Judy Whitford in at the store Friday. Flour, tea, soup. Lorraine's manner said more than her words. The read is that something has closed at the saleyards end. The Whitfords are moving on.

Tash Briggs' sourdough: Tuesday and Friday. Gone by noon. Bring a bag.

Priya's clinic Thursday had a long queue. "She's seeing people you wouldn't expect" is in circulation. This column wishes them well and asks no further questions.

The child's shoe on the Henderson fence has been there long enough that it's a landmark now. Ray Connelly has left it there. Make of that what you will.