Last night's dinner was delayed after Padma had put the pot on the stove but forgot to turn on the hotplate. The extra time allowed us to watch Heather Ewart's "Back Roads" series on ABC TV in which she travels to the many small towns and communities that make Australia so special.
Last night's episode, which you can still catch up with by going to iview, was about Braidwood. On my regular commutes from Canberra to Nelligen and back again when I was still working what now seems like a lifetime ago, I always passed through Braidwood, or rather, I briefly stopped for a drink at the Royal Mail Hotel and then called in at the small butcher's shop next door which sold all sorts of German delicatessen, from "Leberkäse" and "Bockwurst" to "Fleischsalat". I suspected the owner of being German but when I asked he told me that he had served his apprenticeship with a German butcher in Sydney.
The butcher is no longer there but "Back Roads" has shown me several other good reasons why, after an absence of almost twenty years, I should take another trip up the mountain and visit this interesting little town, not least because Keith Podger, one-time member of The Seekers, has since settled there --- and they even have a Vinnies shop now!
In the meantime, I've been watching "A Community Under Fire", a truly inspirational story about their fight against the Black Summer bushfires in 2019/20.
P.S. If you haven't an "account" with iview yet (which is free!), simply log in with my email riverbendnelligen@mail.com and the password Sproxton1 (note the capital-S), then click on the good-looking galah.
