Imagine having a friend who would come over and help you do the ironing? That’s the sort of friend I would hang onto forever. Chris Ferguson writes this month about going to New Zealand for a walking holiday with her childhood friend and reflects on

a relationship that started because their mums were best friends. As Chris puts it on page 14 of this issue: “For nearly 60 years they’ve been each other’s unwavering support. Mum recalls Noelie ringing and joking that she was going to dig a hole to bury the ironing because she would never get the laundry from nine children done. Mum packed up her iron and board and drove to town and together they made that pile of ironing smaller. Their friendship not only enriched their lives, it made them manageable.” We all need a Noelie and a Chris’s mum in our lives!

As a kid, I can still remember the thrill of growing flowers and even better was picking the spinach and peas I had grown with my grandfather (well, the truth is that he really grew them and he very kindly let me help him). But spinach and peas pale into insignificance when compared to growing an apple tree from seed like eight-year-old Lukas Buscaino does. We spoke to his mum Lizzie of Piccolo Farms on page 86 about how she gets her children interested in growing vegetables. It’s all inspiration for our Harvest Table competition. See page 90 for how to enter.

Rob Ingram writes this month about the sale of Dunedoo’s White Rose Café — a place that you cannot drive through the Country Squire’s hometown without stopping at. “Paris, of course, has the Eiffel Tower. New York has the Statue of Liberty. Rome has the Colosseum. And Agra has the Taj Mahal. All important in their own way. But Dunedoo has the White Rose Café,” he says. Stay tuned for next month to hear what happens.

We of course are big supporters of shopping regionally at Country Style, so our monthly guide is a must-read on page 116. One I have on my personal shopping list is Farmgate & Twine at Adelong, in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains, an area that has been through drought and then hit by bushfires. Gina Roche has put together a selection of things that are hard to resist — take a look at farmgateandtwine.com.au and you will see what I mean. Until recently, it was Gina out helping her husband Jim in the stockyards, while lately it’s been a bit more of Jim “tying ribbon to keep up with demand”, she explains.

Until next month, Victoria Carey