My mother-in-law gave me some money for a birthday and said to use it for an indulgence.
I bought a subscription for the newly launched magazine Next and each month got the fun of an issue arriving in the mail.
Each subscription went into a draw for a $5000 voucher from Smiths City.
We were just coming out of the ag-sag and that was a big sum.
The first $1000 went on a dog tucker freezer, a few hundred bought a stereo and the rest carpeted the house.
I kept renewing the subscription for several years in appreciation of this bounty, then swapped to another.
Each month it arrives, as it did today, I think of my mother-in-law and that long ago birthday money and I’m grateful.
Homepaddock 