February 14th, 2026Just sayin’…

Had a chat with Michelle Clifford from the Daylesford Community Op Shop last week.
Many of you would know that somehow they received a bag of clothing infested with bed bugs. Yuk. They did all the right things; made sure their volunteers were safe, shut down and then chucked out so much stuff.
Some people said they went overboard, but they’re doing the best they can to keep the community safe, which is what they do. And now the op shop crew are running a big donation blitz, because they really need money.
Of course, people jumped in to help. The GoFundMe page is going well and people like Eddie and Malinka Comelli have let them off paying rent. Loads of other people have also donated great items for a raffle, with the date still to be decided. Well done everyone for what you have done so far.
If you have a few dollars, and I know things are tight for many people, please think about donating if you can. They are so much more than just an op shop and do things behind the scenes we will never know about.
And when I say we, people who sleep in warm beds every night and don’t have to think about running from domestic violence or trying to find a place to stay. And be assured the money will stay in the region.
When they’re up and running again, if you can donate goods, that’s fantastic as well. So have a look in your cupboard, see what you don’t need. Just please make sure it’s decent quality that you would be happy to own yourself. Being strapped for cash doesn’t equal taking crap.
What else? On the ankle front, by the time you read this, I’ll be four weeks through the six week non-weight bearing period, which has been a pain in the butt, literally, because I’m always sitting.
And thanks to all the people who have asked how I am going although Kyle would rather you ask about the carer. Poor Kyle. He has done a great job – the only thing I would change is getting an adult carer, not a child. But it’s been OK.
I also want to thank the person who sent me some flowers. I have looked everywhere for contact details but nothing. They were really beautiful and certainly tsumaranai mono de wa nai yo! Arigato gozaimusu.
Another story we covered, which sort of came in per chance, was the Musk CFA organising a donation of hay for Harcourt.
That was amazing enough but they have also done a bit of a recruitment drive after some next-generation planning and have about seven new members, men and women.
We’ve got a lot of new people in the region, so if you’ve thought about giving your time back, maybe join your local brigade? You’re going to make some friends really quickly, get to know who’s who and if you are not designed for fighting fires there’s plenty of other things to do.
Also, Musk CFA has started a GoFundMe page to raise funds for a second tanker. At the moment they just have the one with a huge area to cover and when they join the strike teams it means they’re leaving their region without a tanker. Sort of. Other brigades cover them but it’s not the same.
So, again, if you can help with fundraising…
Finally I had a call from Earle Kent at Clunes. His golfing mates read an article by our tree guy John Beetham about fabulous trees around the region and reckon he has better at his home. Well, bigger. So Kyle and I popped out to Clunes and there was a massive tree. A Murray River red gum some 15 metres high, with a huge girth. It’s on the front page so you might have spotted it by now.
Earle said the tree was there when he bought the property 38 years ago and while it waned a bit during years of drought, it keeps on keeping on. He actually asked the forestry people at Creswick about it in the early days and they pretty much said to leave it to its own devices. So he did – and it is magnificent. Size does matter.
I love these stories. They are known in the newspaper game as ‘pumpkins’. In the life of all journos, well those working on smaller community newspapers, some time or another a call will come in from someone who has the biggest pumpkin/apple/zucchini ever. And you go and take a photo and pop it in the paper and then, as soon as you hit print, someone else will call with a bigger pumpkin/apple/zucchini. And on it goes.
It’s really good fun until someone then writes in to say bigger is not necessarily better and huge fruit and veggies don’t have the same flavour…stop now if you were about to write in.
When I worked on the Centralian Advocate in Alice Springs we had a dedicated journo, Crispin, who wrote about people making their way across Australia on bikes, trikes, unicycles…they always assumed they were the wackiest ever. I was deputy editor by then so it was lovely to call out: “Crispy, got one for you.” Just sayin’…