A recent Toodyay Men’s Shed flyer I picked up starts with “A Shed is a place for Men, who have, for their own reasons, become isolated from the community, isolated by distance, work and simply want to talk and interact with other men.

“It is a place to congregate in a safe non-judgmental environment to talk, read, play card games or use the therapeutic workshops.”

Really?

I thought it was a place where blokes could have a bit of fun making things with tools they may lack at home, chat to each other about life in general, perhaps learn a few new skills and maybe just get away from their wives for a bit of male company to talk about bloke stuff.

I reckon there’s probably a few women in Toodyay who might feel the same way – in reverse, of course.

I’ve heard there are successful Women’s Sheds in other country towns – some in the same buildings as blokes, though they meet on different days – and I wondered why Toodyay couldn’t make greater use of its Shed to reach out to more locals.

Maybe the girls can knock a few heads together.

Our son was flown to Perth Children’s Hospital and he remained there until we finally got him home just before last Christmas.

Sebastian was in a coma in the intensive care unit for three weeks before being transferred to the hospital’s high-dependency unit, followed by four months in a children’s ward.

Both Olivia and I lived at the hospital during that time and were very fortunate to get a room at Perth’s Ronald Macdonald house for the duration.

I didn’t return to work for about four months, and then had to go back to start paying bills.

Olivia stayed by Sebastian’s side every day he was in hospital, and we had a goal to get him home before last Christmas.

Olivia’s mum cared for our other children and stayed at our house so we could dedicate all our time to Sebastian.

Once the news started to break in Toodyay and surrounds, we started to get offers of help from all sorts of people.

We received food for our animals from the Toodyay Agricultural Society which delivered hay, and Caroline from Makit Hardware donated gas.

Monika arranged a Go Fund Me page which raised a lot of money that we put towards a van and to pay all the costs of not being in work and the expense travelling up and down from the hospital.

Nicole from the Toodyay Community Resource Centre got people together and organised so many things to help us keep going.

Toodyay Locals Care organiser Roz raised money at last year’s Toodyay Picnic Race Day and local monthly Farmers Market Markets, which was amazing.

We also want to thank all the totally generous people who donated to the Go Fund Me page, and all the people in Toodyay and surrounds that have helped us along the way, including our neighbours Graham and Vivienne.

We have been so blessed with the people at the local Baptist Church, Northam’s Avon Valley Seventh-day Adventist Church and many others, including people elsewhere in Australia and around the world who have been praying for Sebastian.

We published a YouTube video online at https://youtu.be/hMvfKfqLOmI to offer hope and encouragement for others to persevere with healing and recovery after a traumatic brain injury.

Toodyay has been such an amazing place to live but the community is what really makes it – I hope this letter can help people to support and care for each other.

Many thanks to all of you, and we are sorry if we missed someone special in this letter because there have been so many people that have touched our lives during this journey.

You will never be forgotten.

There has to be a much-needed correction to this inadequacy, and the Shire of Toodyay needs to become pro-active with cat laws now.

On another topic – homelessness is a very sorry sign of our time.

Equally sorry is that Roz Davidson receives the last contents of packed food that even at the IGA is not able to sell anymore (after it has sat on the shelves for sale for some time) for people to consume.

There are many people who help her out with first-class materials, not leftovers that have a use-by date on their label.

Shame, shame, shame, where is the real community spirit here?

The 2025 championships have been pencilled in for this same event.

Hopefully, things will be better for spectators’ access by then; it’s all a learning curve as well.

It’s a beautiful part of the river and a pity more people can’t see it.

This part of the river doesn’t come close to the railway so it’s very safe.

I’m still of the mind that this could be very beneficial to the Shire of Toodyay if the road was permanently opened with a controlled level crossing and access along this very scenic part of the river.

It would bring a great deal of tourism to your area.

In the eastern states, the National White Water event brings a lot of people to the area with a certain amount of TV coverage.

I did mention to the organisers to contact your newspaper to keep readers informed but this didn’t happen and it appears to have been overlooked.

I managed to find two new alpacas which needed re-homing and they arrived the following Sunday.

The next Wednesday I found all three dead and badly savaged in the paddock.

Once again, the Ranger was great but at the time of writing we have found no evidence as to which dogs may have been involved.

If anyone in the Coondle West area has any information, please contact me or the Rangers.