Drought, firestorm, floods, lockdowns, pandemic and now it's the Season of the Weeds.

The best Springtime growing conditions in years has seen a corresponding explosion of weeds across urban and rural areas.

All across the region the purple haze of Pattersons Curse (aka Salvation Jane) adorns the countryside; the bees love it but toxic to livestock.

But it's the common street variety weed pandemic that's a problem in our towns and villages.

To many observers it seems the weeds are creating their worst local environmental problem in years.

Council staff despite their best efforts have no chance of keeping up with the challenge without involvement by business and home owners.

Case in point all four approaches to the railway bridge in Sandford Avenue in the very heart of our CBD.

Council troops regularly slash the prolific growth only to have it again blasting out of the ground before they're even back to their depot.

The Gray Street and Railway Parade approaches are the worst but also the easiest to access.

It needs a permanent solution that should have been done years ago - like burying the weeds under some sort of paving.

Beats weed killer every time.

Meantime do your bit by dealing harshly with unwanted growth that pops up on your own nature strips.

VETERAN local sporting icon Barbara Watters phoned in to agree with last week's column about the excellent Farmers Creek walking and cycling track that now extends from the Geordie Street crossing almost to Tank Street. A resident of Bells Road for 32 years and someone who does her bit to maintain the banks of the creek in her part of town is now praying she'll live long enough to see the pathway reach Oakey Park - accompanied by a long overdue clean up the creek itself.

STILL almost two months to Christmas but copious decorations went up in Lithgow's biggest supermarket at the weekend. Even some of Coles staff members were more than a little cynical and said so. Crass commercialisation at its best.

QUITE a bit of media attention recently to the number of young men caught with knives in their possession and expressing alarm at the almost daily reports of stabbings. Hardly surprising when very evil looking knives with no obvious use to anyone except a status symbol weapon for thugs are freely available over the counter, even here in Lithgow. Clearly time for tougher regulations and a licence system for purchases.

ON the subject of weapons we'd like to think Joe Biden's first executive order would be to ban the carrying of heavy artillery in public places. It's doubtful any civilised country in the world would allow the quite horrifying scenes we've all witnessed in the USA lately with rednecks parading around political demonstrations with military rifles in full view. We thought we were in Syria.