The Tallong Piglet Race

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Tallong is a quiet, sleepy village, tucked away in the Southern Highlands, a pleasant two-hour drive south of Sydney. It’s a place where the days seem to stretch longer, where the trees sway lazily in the breeze, and where life ambles along at its own pace. Not much happens in Tallong, except when the Apple Festival comes to town. That’s when the village wakes up. The people gather, the air fills with laughter, and everything feels just a little brighter.

Yesterday, I made a new friend. His name is Arnold. He’s a piglet. Not just any piglet, mind you. Arnold is the proud winner of the annual piglet races, held as part of the Tallong Apple Festival. You’d think a piglet wouldn’t amount to much, but Arnold was something special. You could see it in the way he ran, small legs moving fast, head held high. He had heart, that little pig, and he knew how to win.

I met him after the race. His owner, an old man with a weather-beaten face and a kind smile, let me give Arnold a pat. His fur was coarse, and he grunted as if to say hello. It felt good, in a way, standing there in the late afternoon sun, with a piglet at my feet and the sounds of the festival around me. Tallong may be a sleepy village, but on days like this, it feels like the heart of the world.