Did you see the way it changed the town and us? 

Did you, by chance, feel that Saturday washed-clean and healed feeling that comes to the old river town on soft rain and Saturdays? 

And I like to go walking under that sorta sky, like to meet the streets and fields and us in that kinda circumstance – the way the misty other-worldliness of it all appeals to me dear reader, and the way it only really happens now and then. 

And I met old Regent Street again, sleepy now except for the dull aching noise of the coal trains inexorably snaking east and south; down, down to the river’s mouth and then somehow, to the lining of too few pockets.

And there’s a grand street: her slate roofs, luxuriant hedges and beautifully crumbling concrete portions – saw her view down across the Veterans Flat and over to the church, her perfect heavens-pointing steeple. 

Saw how sleepy and beautiful she looked with a coat of soft rain – thought how, in Benhome, they might be looking up and out through such a sky, looking back through time to another long gone day such as this. 

Then down through Bulwers Hollow: a lonely and ischaemic stretch of decaying thistle-bound street, loved only by birds, dreamy cattle and wistful walkers. 

And I remembered being younger and being bicycled down there – and thought how much short cuts and quiet places mean to young Maitlanders – and kids everywhere I suppose.

And now across the street and up the rise and I’m down there in that brilliant quarter, down near two of our most magnificent hotels: the unpretentious and splendid Grand Junction, her music and steadfastness will do me for a welcome to Maitland greeting – and the old Caledonian, worn but wonderful and bulging with tales and ghosts that belong to most of us.

And the old Calooda Cafe dear reader, her chips and scallops and train weary travellers – now a place for the splendid rearrangement of coiffures – truly a corner dedicated to pleasure and beauty, dedicated to being what you want to be, to running toward – and from – things. 

And the way it all looked so pretty to me dear reader – like it always did I suppose. The way the soft rain help me people it with faces and names from way back then –saw it all like yesterday.

And the way it’s five stars for soft rainy Maitland February Saturdays, five stars for the beautiful corners and streets and stories of here, five stars for soft soil and them people that done came here and made it all so strange and lovely?

And so it goes.

Goodnight.