Bill Potter.

You don’t say ‘happy new year’ to country folk, cos, living in the rurals, is one long continuum. This is a Townie word for… without a break. You can’t say to your farm beasties, ‘We’re off on a bitofa holiday, so look after yourselves, will ya.’

Cos they won’t, you see. Once you leave urban life (where many people are perpetually on holiday), you give up holidays. The term is now just a word you find in your dictionary… It is the nearest definition to, ‘retire’.

Over the Christmas-New Year period, with a knowing smile you checked your list of fun things like meadow mowing, tree spraying, gorse mulching, animal feeding, paddock renovation, fence fixing, fertiliser application, and for a treat, watching a titch of telly. Maybe even take the kids to a movie.

Most of the above you did before breakfast. By the time Townies had reluctantly silenced their alarm clock of a morning, you had damn near re-arranged the property. That’s what I found so hard in my country days, cos I’m a night person. It’s seriously dark, even as I write this, an’ all.

Take the rooster, for example (and I would have…). Folklore has it, that it crows at dawn, heralding the new day. Wrong. It crowed at midnight, 2.00 a.m. and any time of the day in fact. It had so many reasons to crow, it just did!

On my first night amongst the urbans… I discovered the rooster’s city cuzzie… traffic! It plumb drove me crazy for a bit, even though I’m a ‘deepie’ (sleep that is). At least, you can kill a rooster! I could have invented ‘road rage’ all them years back!

Some so-called ‘economic expert’ (yeah right!) took another swipe at Rurals recently, explaining that agriculture was not the way of the future. He wanted more IT stuff for example. Um…IT is the job we gave the townies to do. Duh!

Problem was, our major telecom didn’t know the difference between broadband and a snake’s bum, forever! Our second biggie, Tourism, is also mainly done in the country. So, as ever, Rurals are doing all the work, while the Townies played on beaches or grooved at rock concerts.

Here’s the thing. The food comes from the country. So, even though a bunch of failed financial fools skulk about, pretending it was never their fault, even if this ‘recession’ thingie turns up, Rurals will still eat well. What was this guy going to eat… quarterly reports?

For we Believers, a ‘recession’ also occurs when clergy and the choir withdraw to the vestry after a church service. Some of us have been involved in recessions for years. I mention this, cos Rurals seem to have kept the faith much betterer. It might motivate Townies to pray…

Bet you didn’t expect to see it first, right here in your very own Rural Living, but… I offer the future economic model, which I call ‘Sustainable Social Capitalism’ (SSC). This model incorporates the three key characteristics of economic authenticity.

So, at the next mixed rural-urban function, lean over to an unsuspecting Townie and quietly declare, ‘Don’t you worry mate. SSC will fix it.’ Then get up and help yourself to another slice of that yummy sponge cake. Let their mother worry! Till next month then. I have a certain rooster to…