Printed in Redgum Hollow. Posted to wherever you've ended up.

Weather: still nothing. The sky has been promising since August. The sky is a liar.

FESTIVAL PROOFS ARRIVE; DEB FORSYTHE SITS IN HER CAR; THREE CORRECTIONS ARE SENT BACK; AND RAY CONNELLY IS NOW IN THE ACTUAL PROGRAM

The proofs came Monday morning, which is exactly when you'd want them if you were trying to ruin someone's week early.

Deb Forsythe collected them from the counter. She did not open them in the store. She walked to her car, sat for several minutes, and drove away. This paper does not presume to know what a person does in a car alone with a proof copy. But the town has its read, and the town's read is: she opened it somewhere private, which means there was something in it she needed to see privately first.

Three corrections were returned to the printer by Wednesday. We know this because the printer's confirmation reply was sent to the committee group, which is the kind of administrative oversight that keeps this paper in business. The corrections themselves have not been characterised publicly. We note only that three is not one, and one would have been unremarkable.

What is remarkable — and what is now a printed fact in this paper, not a planning note or a rumour carried by someone's brother-in-law — is that Ray Connelly's name appears in the acknowledgements section as drainage assessment basis. He is in the program. The Henderson place ran a drain north-east across Patten Road in PVC at two thousand one hundred and forty dollars (confirmed, Edition 34), and now that work is credited in the official festival record.

Whether Deb Forsythe's three corrections touched that acknowledgement or left it entirely alone is something this paper does not know. But the question is worth sitting with, which is presumably what she was doing in the car.

KEITH ORCHARD, FOUR WORDS, AND THE SECOND TIME THE TOWN HAS COUNTED TO FOUR

Redgum Hollow defeated Narrandera 9.7 to 8.9 on Saturday. Steve-o Mitchell kicked two from the corridor, took three contested marks, and boarded the team bus at six-fifteen looking, by one account, settled. That is not a football word. It is the word you use for someone who has come back to where they belong and stopped performing the act of returning.

After the siren, Keith Orchard said four words to him: that's the right shape.

This is the second time in three weeks Keith has deployed exactly four words to exactly this player after exactly this kind of game. The town is counting. The count is now at two occasions, eight words total, and a body of commentary that could fill this paper if we let it. We will not let it.

What we will note: Keith does not repeat himself accidentally.

CLARRIE BURTON: THE RADIO, THE DOOR, AND THE THING NOBODY IS NAMING

Clarrie Burton brought a portable radio to the bench on Saturday and listened to the Narrandera call. Last week it was a thermos. The week before, nothing that anyone thought to record.

He walked past the Royal Hotel Thursday afternoon at an hour he is not generally seen walking past pubs. He did not go in. He stood at the door and walked on. One witness. The kind of account this town files without naming, which is this paper's way of saying: it's filed now.

Wednesday, when Ray Connelly drove out of the General Store car park after forty seconds and something Lorraine didn't stock, Clarrie and Ray acknowledged each other through the windscreen. Not a word spoken. An acknowledgement, which is a different thing.

Three events. A radio, a door, a nod through glass. Taken separately, nothing. Taken as a sequence — the thermos, then the radio, then whatever comes next — something is being marked. This paper will be watching.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dear Marge,
Just want to say Steve-o on Saturday was something to see. My son was on the bench and said Keith's four words were loud enough for the interchange to hear. I don't know if that means anything but I wrote it down when I got home.
— Helen Sproule, Patten Road

Marge,
Who approved the printer for the festival proofs? I'm asking generally. Three corrections on a document this size means someone was rushing. Not naming anyone. Asking generally.
— Name withheld on request

Dear Gazette,
The gate hinge situation is worse than people know. I've had mine holding on faith since July. If Ray Connelly needed reinforced hinges and couldn't get them here, that's a district problem, not just his.
— B. Hartigan, Henderson Road (number withheld)

AROUND THE DISTRICT

The school bus is being held responsible for Tuesday's rolls. No formal investigation is anticipated.

Macca's folder went under the bar again Friday. Same phrase, second occasion. Still not interpreted.

It is understood that the fourteenth of August remains in the festival program, which means it remains Deb Forsythe's problem to solve in public, in spring, in a drought, with three corrections already sent back and Ray Connelly's name in the acknowledgements whether she put it there or not.

Bruce Patterson is fine.