Reflection seems hard - there are too many things crowding my mind at once.

Big things and small things. COVID-19. This one very big thing changes the way I think about all the small things.

Looking back, I remember things in flashes. Remember New Year's Eve? People in Bateman's Bay rushing to the beach as the bushfires burned the town. Remember Canberra in January? The smoke from the bushfires made the air quality there the worst in the whole world.

Remember lockdown? We spent two and half months in quiet, watchful stasis - not permitted to go anywhere. Waiting. Learning to wash our hands and not hug each other hello.

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Learning to be separated from people we had never been separated from in our lives. Gardening. Walking. Cooking. Missing things - like swimming, the hairdresser, the pub. Oh, the pub!

Learning new words - social distancing, the spike, the curve, the viral load. Visiting our loved ones in nursing homes - only speaking to them through the glass. Losing them.

Grieving in isolation. Postponing our weddings, our travel, our family time. Remember waking up from that? The trepidation? The euphoria? A year like no other.

This year has changed us. Taught us to cherish and value the small things - and to recognize how precious the familiar is in a world now shaped by uncertainty. Our town. No matter what is tugging at us or challenging us - the fact remains, thank God we're here and not anywhere else in the world. We are so lucky.

Take Chelmsford Place. I was talking to my dad the other day about another world - about the nights he spent as a kid in Chelmsford Place, listening to the town band play at the Rotunda that is still there.

Under the trees that are still there. The whole town would come out to enjoy the cool evening breeze, under the trees. The green and leafy Chelmsford Place we know and love.

So first, a plea to the powers that be, at the end of a year like no other - to honour the history of Chelmsford Place, preserve the trees, that give us respite from the heat, while we wait patiently for new trees to grow in their own sweet time.

If this year has taught us anything it's that we need patience and gratitude.

And finally this week, continuing the theme of patience and gratitude, I want to pay tribute to one of the really good things to come out of this year.

Leeton's very own writers collective.

What a blessing. If life gives you lemons, turn them into limoncello, lemon meringue pie, lovely lemon butter. And that's what we've done. This group is warm, welcoming and safe.

Together we have made a community. Together we have built something strong that is going to grow into the future.

On December 18 at 6:30pm at The Freckled Duck the group will formally launch its first publication.

From little things, big things grow. Come and join us for a night of stories and readings and to celebrate surviving and thriving in this year of wonders.

It will be a heartwarming way to mark the end of the first phase of our journey as a group and to lay the groundwork for next year. All welcome.