For as long as I can remember, there's been this accountant's office by the bridge just as we enter Moruya after we have crossed the river, and for as long as I can remember, every time we come to Moruya and I look at that peeling signage I always think to myself, "There but for the grace of God ..."
Thanks to the circuitous route on which my work took me, I never got stuck in a small country town, even though owning my own accounting practice in whatever town of whatever size would at one time have seemed like the pinnacle of my totally unplanned professional career.
And so it was again yesterday as we drove to Moruya for tea and scones at the CWA Tea Rooms and Padma's medical appointment. Moruya is a small country town of just half-a-dozen blocks on level ground and easy to walk around in, which I did while Padma saw her doctor. One block had five - and I counted them: FIVE! - coffee shops where people were queuing up for their morning fix. Whatever happened to the morning tea - or if it had to be coffee, the morning coffee - we used to have at home for a fraction of the five or six dollars they now charge for a barista-made latte? Indeed, whatever happened to International Roast?
While the local Chinese restaurant had to apologise for increasing the price of its meals by a mere dollar "due to rising costs", all those small-town shop assistants and tradesmen - and perhaps even that accountant by the bridge - seem to think nothing of spending five or six dollars on something that would give them at best an early heart attack.
And then I had my second "There but for the grace of God ..." moment as I was about to pass the local department store, nothing like Harrods but Harris Scarfe, which is more like an upmarket haberdashery with a few frying pans and electric kettles thrown in. They've been part of the town for almost as long as that accountant by the bridge, as evidenced by this plaque at the entrance which commemorates a Serge Dobson who gave them thirty-five years of his sixty-one year-short life.
I try to fashion my posts like a woman's skirt: long enough to cover the subject but short enough to hold your interest. I hope I've done both.
Oh, and before I forget to mention it: at the local Vinnies shop I also found the complete audiobook on CD of "Red Dog". I've already read the book and also watched the movie, but this beautifully-read audiobook helps me to keep my mind off the rapidly disintegrating sharemarket.
