Our last meeting had a wonderful attend­ance of 45 members on a sunny afternoon held in the garden of Phil and Fleur Wells.

The guest speaker was Fay Blackstock of Parkes, who spoke about succulents.

We visited her garden early this year, and together with her husband, they have an outstanding display of metal art and a huge variety of plants that made their gar­den memorable. Fay demonstrated how to make a Christmas Tree using succulents, chicken wire, sphagnum moss and potting soil. Jennifer Purdie thanked Fay and pre­sented her with a small gift.

Marg Dent conducted the business meet­ing, welcoming all and noting how nice it was to see such a great attendance. Bev Gerdus reminded all to have show flower entries ready.

Phil Wells shared the history of their garden, which featured many Japanese maples to provide shade in summer and a stone wall to prevent flooding of the river which the garden overlooks. David Sander­son thanked Phil and Fleur for hosting the meeting and presented them with a gift.

Flower of the month winners were Marie Langfield 1st (rose), joint 2nd Pam Baass (geranium) and Noel Hocking (daffodil), 3rd Carolyn Dewaegeneire (hellebore). Raffle winners were Evelyn Mahlo, Claire Haley and Noel Hocking.

When you come along to one of our meetings you will have the opportunity to view the garden, buy plants, flowers or fruit from the trading table, enter the Flower of the Month competition and have a cuppa with members after the meeting. Contact forbesgardenclub@gmail.com for details.

The next meeting will be held at Joy and Noel Hocking’s garden, 84 Farrand Street on Tuesday 23 September at 2pm. Our guest speaker Noel will talk on irises.

By Green Thumb

It’s a brisk Tuesday night as the local strag­glers appear at the netball courts, some of us dazed from the trauma of dinner time with toddlers, others fresh from work in their jeans and boots.

It’s netball season in our little town, and it’s pretty spectacular. My favourite is the banter between husbands and wives, long term friends and siblings. The two sisters paired against each other in the circle, GS and GK, pushing and barging, cracking inside jokes from their childhood. The ref doesn’t bother to pull them up on it, they are evenly matched and it’s entertaining to watch.

My sister yells at her husband, who has worn his gum boots to the match after a wet day in the sheep yards. “Mark your player!” Babies sit in prams on the sideline, and it’s part of the refs unspoken duty to rock the pram or pick up the cranky baby. Most times we only have enough players for two teams, and we don’t bother with a ref.

It’s a chaotic, unpredictable and beauti­ful game, with no tally of goals, no timers.

One of the players will usually just yell out, “surely it’s half time?!” And we will all agree and head over for a drinks break, a mere 7 minutes into the game.

To signal the end of the match, someone will just yell out “next goal wins!!”. Then we all shake hands, have a chat and head home, faces red from the exercise, hearts happy for the connection.

It reminds me of an age of primary school, where we would run around just for the fun of it, with no thoughts to calories or weight loss. Reminds me that exercise doesn’t need fancy nike shoes or the latest Lulu lemon tights.

Sometimes, it can be running around on a netball court, with limited knowledge of the rules and verbal aggression from your wife when you’re confidently (and constant­ly) in the shooting circle. Dressed in gum­boots and jeans, with a brightly coloured bib thrustover your chest with the letters “WD”.This is small town sport, and I’m a big fan.