Tourists to Bathurst must love the flowering gardens on Kings Parade and they are a credit to BRC parks and garden staff.

These visitors to Bathurst must have contributed many thousands of dollars to our city's economy when we saw the crowds that came for a soccer carnival and the motorcycle festival last weekend.

The excellent sporting facilities in Bathurst did not simply grow, they are a testament to councils in former years that planned for a busy future for a country city.

Wool's Eastern Market Indicator is now 175 cents per kilogram higher than last year at the same time.

The fine and superfine categories are showing the way and we must realise that receivals into store at present are 15 per cent down on last years receipts at a similar time.

The most dedicated wool producer at present is the man who employs a shed hand per shearer of crossbred ewes, 26 mic. and a woolclasser at $400 per day. At times, a lot of crossbred wool has been hard to sell, skirted or not.

A quick read of a special cattle sale at Ballarat last week shows us that most of the 1210 head that were offered were sold to buyers who were local to the area.

Quoted values were similar to prices at CTLX Carcoar with joined heifers, 550 to 650 kilograms, well bred Angus or Hereford $4200 to $4650, being ballpark figures for good heifers at most venues.

One buyer was quoted: "I wouldn't call the market expensive; I sold vealers on Wednesday and averaged just over $2000. We used to get around $700 for vealers and buy joined heifers for $1000. I paid $3250 today for 585 kilogram joined heifers."

Young Angus second calvers with six-month-old Speckle Park calves brought $5500 and $5100 for a second run.

The recent death of Elson Markwick in Bathurst revives memories to a lot of long time farmers in the Tablelands.

He was regarded as a Fiat and Connor Shea specialist when he worked as a mechanic with farm tractor and equipment dealers Rosconi Brothers.

Elson stayed with the Rosconis as their next generation moved on to a New Holland dealership and he is remembered as a quality mechanic and a good mate to the rural community.

There are still a few seats available for the BMA Merino Ewe Competition on Friday, March 4.

Bookings to Kirby on 0401 402351 or email bma@outlook.com.au

This week's pin-up is of former Bathurst shearer Steve Howarth holding crossbred lamb number 302 as Steve shore his first over 300.

He first shore with Peter Healey's A team some 25 years ago and his quality work was obvious as well as his ability to fit in with fellow workers and property owners. Widely known as Flowers, Steve is a real asset to the wool industry.

Most of us remember scoffing at Isuzu and Toyota cab forward trucks, little Honda cars, Mazda cars etc. as they tried their luck in entering our Australian market dominated by Holdens, Ford V8s and Chryslers.

Is anyone silly enough to scoff at the range of Chinese cars trucks and motorbikes as we see their big range of vehicles, many of they hybrids or full electric EVs?

Would you establish a major new vehicle franchise for a Chinese manufacturer?

John Davis did just that when Mazda was a small Japanese player. The rest is history.

The Perthville Development Group gratefully acknowledged the Australia Day donation from the management of the Village Metro Store and Servo.

This business is the heartbeat of the village.

The fuel is often the best value in town, the takeaway is always good and two of the staff call me Johnny - and, at 80, this pleases me.

Thank you for caring for our little community, Ramu, Sri, Bunny and Mick.

We are moving quickly towards an opening up from the COVID pandemic and premier Dominic Perrottet is being rightly credited with leading the changes.

After masks and sign-ins for the best part of two years, it's now quite obvious that our population is going to have to live with the disease.

We will all be a bit more careful with hygiene than previously but businesses will probably return to some normality quite quickly.

Meatworks that have been forced to operate at half pace (because of isolating workers) should re-activate quickly and it should be a great feeling to put our masks away in every instance.

Present day 40-year-olds will one day tell their grandkids about COVID, sign-ins and masks as they yarn on in 2060.

The Star Casino in conjunction with the Daily Telegraph has again compiled a glossy magazine titled Power 100 for NSW.

Premier Dominic Perrottet is listed as number one, Prime Minister Scott Morrison claimed second spot and Bathurst's very own Paul Toole makes the prestigious list at number 98.

Paul is enjoying a great career and we know how proud his two grandfathers would be.

They were two respected district identities, Norman Morris and Jack Toole.

As the state's deputy premier, the leader of The Nationals and the Minister for Police, our local member is wearing a lot of hats at present.

Our mate was washed up on a desert island.

A beautiful native girl lived on the island and she plied him with Scotch that had been washed up.

She looked him squarely in the eye and asked: "You like to play with me now?"

He was thrilled and answered "Don't tell me you've got a football".

She is obviously a great housekeeper; divorced three times and kept the house each time.

Free at last

Ain't Life grand

I've just divorced my old man

I laughed till I cried at the Beak's decision

He gave him the kids and none was his'n.

IN a week where we saw an offering of 46,000 bales, the EMI saw a retracement of nearly two per cent to see it finish at 1422auc/kg.

The main movers in the merino indexes were 17.5 and broader which dropped 30-50auc/kg overall. 17micron and finer were still highly sought after and saw minimal downward movement for the week. Crossbred types eased up to 20auc/kg.

Exporters are reporting larger than normal delays in their ability to ship wool, which effects their cash flow as in most cases they are being paid upon presentation of a Bill of Lading (BL) with their documents to the bank.

A BL can only be issued to the exporter once the vessel has sailed and is a necessary document required for Letter of Credit business, of which most Chinese business is.

This logistical hold up will ultimately affect cash flow.

Along with the logistical issues, an estimated 100,000 bale offering in weeks 32 and 33 saw buyers exercise caution as this extra supply may affect the market. Thus, I would imagine that only necessary orders were filled and not much stock taken.

Week 33 with an estimated offering of nearly 56,000 bales could ease as buyers are choosy in their purchases and wait for renewed demand and the coffers to fill again.