The huge success of the Tamworth Country Music Festival, the long established Elvis Festival at Parkes, the first Dolly Parton Festival scheduled for Narromine in April and the ABBA Festival in Trundle in May has prompted a reader to ask “what music festival can Narrabri stage?’ Wee Waa’s Cotton Capital Country Music Muster is showing the way.”

Smell the rain. There is a special word for the smell of rain on dry ground – ‘petrichor.’ The word comes from Greek petra meaning “stone”, and ichor, the fluid that flows in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology. The term was coined in 1964 by two Australian scientists studying the smells of wet weather.

Veganism is gathering momentum in Australia and around the world, but cows, sheep and chooks shouldn’t start planning for the future just yet. The demand for beef etc. remains high. The interesting aspect of veganism, and indeed vegetarianism, is that plant based foods are made to replicate as much as possible the original animal based protein – with nut chops, lentil burgers and the like. Luckily, a staple Australian diet item, chips, already passes the vegan test.