Fogged windows, dead hallway heaters, RSL lights on a hill, and bakery sugar on a cold lip. This month’s textures come from tight houses, club rooms, ABC bulletins, and the quiet grind of practice. Strength is repetition, not spectacle.
Where we are
Cold weather houses.
Single-glazed windows bead at dawn, lino holds the chill, jumpers dry hard on the back of chairs. A hallway heater dies and stays dead.
RSL on the rise.
Returned & Services League clubs are the town’s adult lounge. Plate glass, carpet, smoke, snooker tables lit like small stages. Men applaud control more than noise.
Baylis Street.
Parade route, brass band, Scouts, wind that gets under coats. The smell is oil from food vans and sugar from the bakery window.
The car as waiting room.
Vinyl seats steam with breath, chips warm a lap through butcher paper, the radio gives you the world in a calm voice that never quite helps.
Everyday textures
Porridge without sugar.
Instant coffee that is more warmth than taste.
Hot chips in butcher paper, salt melting through.
Jam donuts split in two at the bakery door.
Solo lemon squash, pub-squash attitude in a can.
School and sport
Snooker culture.
On club TVs and under green lamps, it models a different discipline. Quiet wrists, measured shots, applause for precision.
Training off stage.
Push-ups on carpet, breath counted in the dark, strength learned in silence.
Speech and register
Mate: tone decides the meaning.
You’ll be right: the national balm for pain.
Don’t fold: advice shaped like an order.
Pansy: a period slur recorded here to show the harm the era normalised.
Bubbler: school drinking fountain.
Library and print culture
Ariel is on regional shelves. “The tulips are too red…” lands like fact under a doona.
The Daily Advertiser sits in bound volumes that smell of dust and glue.
A Bruce Lee obituary is cut out and kept. The quote becomes training.
Pink Floyd’s “Time” ticks from cassettes. Clocks move into dreams.
Small Australian mercies
A mint pressed into a palm instead of a lecture. A jam donut halved without ceremony. A librarian who nods and does not ask. A mother who says keep your voice and makes coffee. A bag of chips bought without questions.
A mini glossary from the chapter
Doona: quilt or duvet.
RSL: Returned & Services League club, bar and bistro and snooker tables.
Bubbler: school drinking fountain.
Longneck: 750 ml beer bottle.
Baylis Street: Wagga’s main street and parade route.
Butcher paper: heavy white wrap for hot chips.
Pub squash / Solo: lemon soft drink with pub origins.
The Advertiser: Wagga’s local newspaper kept in bound stacks.
Then and now
RSLs still anchor country towns, although the rooms glow with different machines. Solo still sells effort as citrus. Libraries have digitised their papers, yet bound newsprint waits if you ask. Schools keep ovals and exams. The language around harm has softened, but the habit of endurance remains. July is practice, not parade. Clocks, cue balls, breath. A boy learns the shape of staying and calls it training.
Questions welcome
If anything still felt unfamiliar, say where you stumbled in the comments, and I will expand this guide so the next reader can ride the current more easily.