Northern news

A buff coloured A4 size envelope appears in my letter box.     

                                                  

The hand-writing belongs to The Old Girl from northern Victoria.  I am not expecting anything from her. I inspect the envelope; there are a few small holes. Silverfish or some-one picking at it? I turn the envelope over, looking for contents clues; it feels like a thickish bundle of paper.

I open the envelope to find her local newspaper and no indication of which page I should turn to.   It’s all a mystery. A process of elimination seems to be the way to go and I start at the beginning. I turn over the front page.  I turn over the second page and then the next page and the mystery is solved.

It’s an article about Day’s Mill at Murchison, a 19^th century flour mill, whose restoration began some 30 years ago. Currently work is being carried out on the gatehouse to the property and not a moment too soon. The gatehouse thirty years ago was a neglected, small  red-brick building sitting by the entrance gate to the property.

At that time, I was fortunate enough to be chosen by Parks Victoria as one of the volunteers on a team of people who were to spend their days crawling around the mill, the homestead and the outbuildings, photographing and listing the contents.

We took tents and camped alongside the driveway; the shower block was portable and, in the evening after drinks, we sat in an open barn where the local ladies served up good home style country cooking, which was demolished in double quick time.

It was a wonderful experience and all this time later I am still interested in current happenings.

Day's Mill