Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

 Letter No. 230

Dear all,

The day after he finished school, Matthew was off to Schoolies week at the Gold Coast, a week in which all the Y12 students let their hair down with a week-long beach party. Matt was staying in a two-bedroom apartment with his best friend Mitchell. Mitchell’s mum took them down and checked them into their unit in the Chevron. Apparently it was chaos with so many school leavers checking in all at the same time. We were really quite shocked at the number of parents we knew who had supplied alcohol for their kids. If Matthew and his friends wanted alcohol, they would just have to be inventive and get fake IDs the same way we had to when we were that age! Matt didn’t seem at all bothered about drinking though. His friends are all prefects and the School Captain and are the more academic and responsible boys in his year. They seemed to have a nice time. They spent most of the time staying up ridiculously late, playing cards, sleeping in, and lying on the beach. Matt said he saw everyone he knew and it was really fun and we had “Proof of Life” texts every day from him.

That first night we went out for a Celebration Dinner at Three Girls Skipping in Graceville with some ex-BBC parents. Jessica was singing somewhere with AGC and got a lift home while we were out. Katie had heels on so she suggested we drive to the restaurant and pick up the car in the morning. The village was so busy I couldn’t get a park however so I dropped Katie off and ended up parking further away from the restaurant than our house!

The next day, Sunday, we went to A Day on the Green with a group of 12. Katie had arranged a minibus to take us all. We picked up our friends all around Graceville but had to go back to one house as one couple had left their tickets at home! The traffic was terrible getting into the event and we had to park quite a way from the main entrance. After we had walked from the car park to the entrance, the same couple had to go back to the bus as they had left their tickets on the bus this time! We found a spot to spread picnic blankets and had a very late lunch. The girls had put together a nice spread as usual so it was very civilised and we just sat on the grass enjoying the music. The bands were the Black Sorrows, Noiseworks, Ross Wilson (from Daddy Cool and Mondo Rock), Daryl Braithwaite and John Farnham. It was a good afternoon. The bus got us home by about 9:00pm. We actually left a little early as most people were not fussed about John Farnham and there was a storm threatening.

It was the AECOM Christmas party on 27^th November. It was at Prohibition in Fortitude Valley this year. We had a nice evening with my team but didn’t stay too late. The venue opens to the general public at 10:30pm and the AECOM people seemed to all slip away so we did as well. The next morning I got up at 5:30am and drove to the Gold Coast as the boys had to be out of their Schoolies apartment fairly early. I was on the beach having a swim by 6:30am and then having a bacon roll and coffee by 7:30am. I wandered over to the Chevron, woke the boys, helped them clean their apartment and we were on our way back to Brisbane before 9:00am. The boys had stayed up until 5am the night before so were a little subdued and we had to stop en route for an emergency breakfast to keep them going. It sounded as if they had had a great time. Matt had a sleep in the afternoon and went to work at Miku that evening. We thought he might fall asleep onto one of the tables he was waiting but he made it home again OK.

I went to the Property Council of Australia lunch on Friday 4^th December. It was a lovely afternoon. The lunch went for seven hours. While I was there Katie had to borrow my car, as hers was in the garage. The fuel indicator light was on so she put $20 of fuel into the car. Unfortunately she put unleaded petrol into it, although it is a diesel engine and then drove it about 5km. She did notice it spluttering a bit but thought nothing of it. The next day I couldn’t start the car at all and the day went rapidly downhill! The car was towed to the garage on Monday and it cost $500 to get it going again! While they had it in the garage they said I needed a part which they cannot get in Australia. I had to prevail on Katie’s brother Chris to order it for me and post it out! An expensive weekend!

On 5^th and 6^th December Jessica was singing with the Australian Girls’ Choir supporting Hugh Jackman at his musical Broadway to Oz, which is on a five-city national tour. She was chosen as one of a backing choir of 75 girls. We had to drop her off at midday for rehearsals and then went back to the Entertainment Centre at 5:30pm for the show. We had dinner before the show and a few drinks. Katie had got fantastic seats right up the front and the show was terrific. The choir sang with Hugh for the last song in each half of the show. They sang One Day More from Les Miserables and I still call Australia Home as the finale. They pulled a huge Australian flag over the audience while they girls were singing so our view of Jessie was obstructed for a bit of the song. It was a fantastic evening though. On Sunday we had to drop Jessie there for two more performances. Hugh called into the girls’ dressing rooms and had a chat to them all and then had a group photoshoot with them all. I went to pick her up on Sunday night. I took the ticket from the previous night with me and managed to slip inside past the security guards by holding my thumb over the date on the ticket. I found an empty seat and watched the finale song again. It was a great weekend for Jessica.

We put up our Christmas tree that morning before Jessica went to her performance. We also went to a Christmas party that evening at our friends the Case’s home in Graceville. I had to pick up Jess later that night so couldn’t have any drinks, but the party was very nice. Katie got paid out a lot from our friends about her stuff up with my car!

It was Matt’s 17^th Birthday on 8^th December. We had a family dinner at the local Greek restaurant. My sister Lisa got him the best present – a map of the world with scratch-off sections over each country that you visit. Matthew was absolutely delighted. He was almost as excited by the new i-phone 6 we had bought him!  Matt has been working at Miku a lot since he finished school. He seems to be there more than he is at home.

Katie had a WAGS (her dog walking group) Christmas dinner at the St Lucia Golf Club on 10^th December and came home a little merry. The next day I went to Straddie with the kids. Katie had elected to stay home with Molly and get Christmas organised… crazy if you ask me. We went for four days. We arrived by lunch time on Friday and went straight to the beach. We were delighted to see dolphins swimming in the surf less than 5m away from us. They were there for ages. A little later Matthew and I were jumping off the cliffs into the deep water when everyone started shouting there was a shark. We scrambled out onto a small island rock with a group of other people. We stayed there nervously for about 20 minutes. Jessica was on the beach waving at us frantically. Apparently she had seen it about 3m away from her when she was waist-deep in the water! Eventually we all made a dash for the shore. We swam quite quickly and decided to sunbathe for a while and stay out of the water. We had a lovely trip though. It was very relaxing (apart from the shark incident) and we came back on Monday afternoon slightly sunburned. Meanwhile Katie had a lovely time being home alone. The house was beautifully decorated, presents were wrapped and under the tree and she had done some preparation for our Christmas Drinks at the weekend. She is encouraging us to go away every year now. J

On Thursday 17^th Jessica was singing with the Australian Girls’ Choir at Southbank. I went over after work and met Matthew and Katie. It was a very nice evening with Christmas Markets, Jessica’s carols and fireworks. We met our dear friends the Brodie’s to watch Jessica perform and went for dinner at a lovely Turkish restaurant.

Our office closed on Friday 18^th December for three weeks. We called it a day at 1pm and went out for lunch at a local pub. I fully intended to leave about 3:30pm to make it home to help Matthew mow the lawn. My best intentions went astray however and I finally made it home from lunch at 8:30pm. Fortunately Matt had mowed it without me and left me the whipper snippering.

Matthew got his final exam results on Saturday morning, in the form of an overall position (OP) score. Matthew received an OP2 putting him in the top 4% in the state. Results are marked on a ranking of OP1-25, so he has really done extremely well and it is a fantastic end to a great school year for him. However, students who study a language or the highest level of Mathematics receive one OP score bonus, which effectively gives him an OP1.  Hopefully this will be enough to get him into Law at the University of Queensland, which is his preference. We have to wait until early January to find out.

That night we had held our annual Christmas Drinks for 40 of our closest friends. Katie pulled out all the stops with fantastic festive canapés including turkey & cranberry, a baked ham, crab & lime quiches and the obligatory devils on horseback and everyone seems to have a brilliant time! We started at 4pm and the last people left at 10:30pm. It is always the start of the Christmas festivities for us. The next day we cleaned up and then went to see the Hunger Games Mockingjay movie.

Christmas is now just a few days away. We send our very best wishes to you all for a truly wonderful Christmas, a happy and healthy new year.

Cheers

Derek, Katie, Matthew, Jessica and Molly.

AECOM Christmas party.

Last Day at BBC.

Valedictory dinner.

A Day on the Green.

The same Day on the Green.

Matthew's Birthday.

Farewell to BBC

 Letter No. 229

Dear all,

25 September I was invited to see the Broncos vs Roosters in the NFL semi-final at Suncorp Stadium. The Broncos (local Brisbane team) won 31-12 to make the Grand Final. John Haughton’s company had invited me to go with a group of eight. It was a good match and we had a great evening. The next night we went to see RiverFire with Helen & Gary Brodie. Matthew was working at Miku that night so it was just the four adults plus Jessie and Candice, who is a Chinese exchange student staying with the Brodies. RiverFire was quite spectacular. It started out with SuperHornet fighter planes flying low over the city then other military planes and helicopters, followed by an amazing fireworks display all along the river and fireworks off all the bridges. We had a drink in a bar near the river to watch the flypasts and then dinner in a nice Turkish restaurant. When the fireworks started, all the diners went outside and watched from the footpath.

The next night we went over to my sister Lisa’s for dinner. Jessica was staying with her cousins for two nights. They have started keeping bees now so we had a look at the hives and the honeycombs and got some delicious honey. The honeycombs are pretty amazing!

On 1^st October, Candice came to stay with us for a week as the Brodies were away on a family trip. Candice is a lovely girl and is super helpful around the house, which made our kids really pull up their socks while she was here. Unfortunately this was a short-lived change. While Candice was with us, we went to Eat Street Markets with three other families. It is a huge collection of street stalls selling food, plus two areas with live bands and bars. The adults all sat at the bar and watched the bands while we sent the kids off to select and bring back food to us. It was a fun place but unfortunately is only temporary as the area is soon going to be redeveloped into residential apartments.

We also went to Miku with Candice one night when Matt was working there. Matthew took our orders and then joined us for dinner when he finished his shift. It was funny being waited on by him and he explained all the different dishes on the menu patiently. Apparently he has to do practically every time as most diners are not familiar with Japanese food. We gave him a good tip at the end of the night.

The kids went back to school on Tuesday 6 October for the start of Term 4 – Matt’s final term at BBC. It was shaping up to be a busy term with a dauntingly large slew of BBC social events. The first weekend was huge with the Sounds of Scotland concert on the Friday night. This is mainly a BBC Pipe Band event, but also included some other visiting bagpipe bands, as well as invited Scottish dancers, Irish dancers and choirs. It was a spectacular concert but was ridiculously long (over 4 hours) and there are only so many times that you can hear Flower of Scotland in one night. The concert started at 7pm and Jessie and I left at the interval while Katie stayed to the end to hear Matt’s Brass Band (playing with the Pipe Band in the penultimate number) and bring him home. In the end, Matt was on stage for five minutes at 10:45pm and he said it was the longest wait ever for the shortest performance ever. They didn’t get home until 11:30pm. Several audience members fell asleep and fell off their chairs and there were lots of complaints afterwards. Half a concert was the right length as far as I was concerned.

The next day Katie and I went to an art exhibition opening at the Brookfield Garden Centre in the afternoon. They had lots of lovely champagne and cheese. We were very unimpressed with the paintings which looked like they could have been painted by a three-year-old. The metal sculptures on the other hand were fantastic but expensive so we went home empty handed. On the Sunday we went for a Canadian Thanksgiving Dinner at some friend’s Shelley & Gary’s home. They put on a huge spread for 24 people. We had a fun afternoon and evening. It was just like an early Christmas. Apparently pumpkin pie is traditional but Katie took pecan pie, which is my favourite.

On 12 October it was our 19^th Wedding Anniversary. As it was a Monday night and we had been out so much, Katie did a special dinner at home for the two of us, with Moreton Bay Bugs on a black truffle risotto and handmade rose Turkish Delight. She fed the kids early and we had a nice dinner by ourselves. The next night I went to see KISS at the Entertainment Centre with John Haughton. Kiss was the first band I ever saw in 1979 at Lang Park. I hadn’t listened to any of their music since 1980 I guess. The show was very spectacular with all the costumes, makeup, lights, fire, fire breathing and blood drinking that you would expect from a Kiss concert. The music wasn’t as good as I remembered from when I was 13 but it was still a great night out!

Friday 16^th October was the BBC Music Dinner at the Mt Cootha Botanic gardens. It is always the best school dinner as they have short speeches, musical entertainment by the boys and we are good friends with many of the parents. Matt was presented with a pair of drumsticks, along with all the other departing Y12 music boys and I won a raffle prize.

The next night we went to a 50^th birthday party for Tim and Caroline Dunne. They live in the next street and Matthew washes their car and their daughter used to be at Graceville State School with Jessie. We had a really nice night despite not knowing anyone else at the party. On Monday 19 October Matthew participated in the PMSA Music Festival which is a concert by all the selected top musicians from the private school bands across Brisbane. Katie went and said it was fantastic as the standard of music was so high. I missed it as I had a work function at the Gold Coast that same night. It was a Tiki Tiki Luau, basically a boat trip to an island with a huge feast and heaps of drinks, put on by the Property Council of Australia. It was a fun evening but a 1:00am finish is a bit late for a Monday night!

Katie had organised a BBC Y12 Parent Cocktail Party at the Regatta Hotel on Thursday 22 October, with over 80 parents attending. She has been the year rep for the past five years and has organised lots of lunches and coffee mornings and we have met some really nice parents over the years through this role. Katie had booked and decorated the room and ordered canapés and it was a great evening. She was presented with flowers and champagne for being year rep and everyone seemed to have a good time.

Jessica’s dance troupe, STAGE did an afternoon performance at St Aidan’s on 30^th September. They were the break time entertainment during a quiz afternoon at the school. They were performing a few dances including one the girls had choreographed themselves that I had never seen so I came along in time to see that one. The mums were catering and the event theme was Cruise, so the ladies did their best efforts to embarrass their daughters in Hawaiian Tropical costume.

Halloween was on Saturday this year which made it slightly easier but we knew it was going to be huge. Katie and I spent all day decorating the garage and were pretty pleased with our results.  Unfortunately Jessica had her badminton finals the same day. It didn’t finish until 5pm so we had to get a friend to pick her up. As usual it was a crazy night and we handed out over 1000 wrapped sweets. At times the queue was about 20 deep in vampires, mummies and ghosts trying to get to Katie’s witches cauldron of sweets. Katie had invited two friends Helen and Shelley to come and join her and the three of them spent a lot of time cackling and drinking their own special drink (not for children).  Matthew actually dressed up for the first time in a few years and he and Siobhan either threw plastic spiders on the kids getting sweets or hid under the table and grabbed their legs to give them a big fright. It was quite funny. I did a sausage sizzle on the footpath to raise money to pay back the cost of the sweets this year! After the marauding hordes had left, we had invited all the neighbours to come back to our house for drinks.

Sunday was a clean-up day and then Tuesday 3^rd November was Melbourne Cup. Katie had a nice lunch out with girlfriends while I had a lame chicken salad lunch at work. I was so busy that I didn’t even stop work to watch the race. I must try to organise something less lame for myself next year. That evening it was the BBC Speech Night. Matthew received the Geography prize and an academic award and played in both bands performing so he was on stage most of the evening. It was a very moving evening and some of the musical performances were quite spectacular. The Prefects all did the school War Cry on the bridge outside the Performing Arts Centre at the end of the evening which was quite emotional. Jessica had come with us as it was Matt’s final Speech night and we all went up to cocktail party afterwards and had a chat to the teachers and the headmaster. So many BBC events already and it was only week five of the term! By this stage, not only could we see the light at the end of the tunnel, it was hurting our eyes it was so bright. We are actually going to really miss these endless social occasions.

Katie had organised her final Y12 Mums coffee morning for that Friday. A large group of ladies met at the ferry terminal in Toowong and caught the CityCat into the city. They had champagne High Tea at Parliament House followed by a tour of Parliament House. It was the boys’ last official school day as all that remained was their exam block. Unfortunately Matt was not terribly well with a bad sore throat and swollen glands and Katie was making him lots of hot lemon drinks and driving him back and forth to save his energy. It was only at the very end of the exam block that the doctor suggested he had a blood test and we discovered that he has had Glandular Fever during the course of the last couple of months!

Friday 13^th November it was the Stage Dance Celebration Breakfast. Katie was there at 5:30am to set up and Jessie and I came along at 6:45am. It was a nice breakfast and Jessie won the Year 9 Encouragement Award. We were pleased but she viewed this as a negative thing for some reason. Teenage girls!  

The next day was the Australian Girls’ Choir Annual Concert. We had to drop Jessie off early in the morning for rehearsals and the afternoon matinee. We went to the evening show. As she progresses up the choir she gets to sing in more and more songs. Next year she will be in the Performing Choir which is the highest level and they get even more gigs and opportunities.

Monday 16 November was the start of Matt’s final week of school. I don’t think we have ever heard so many speeches in just one week. It started with the St Aidan’s Speech Night on Monday. It was also at Queensland Performing Arts Centre where Matthew’s had been just two weeks before. Jessica came third in her grade academically and was given an academic award. She was very pleased as she had worked really hard for it. She had been determined to get an academic award as she had missed out by a whisker in Year 8. Matt didn’t come as he was still in exam block. His final exam was on Wednesday morning. Katie took him out for lunch afterwards to celebrate.

On Thursday 19 November Katie went to the Year 12 BBC Mothers’ Farewell Lunch Party which was hosted by Parent Connections. Katie has organised this event for the last four years so it was nice for her to just attend this year and drink champagne and chat to the other mums without worrying about anything. There were nice speeches by the School Captain, the Captain’s mother and a blessing for departing boys by Rev Cole.

That evening was the BBC Valedictory Dinner at Suncorp Stadium. It was a massive event with over 600 people attending. Every boy was presented with a yearbook, a group photograph of the entire grade and a pair of BBC cufflinks. There were speeches by the School Captain (again), the Headmaster, Head of Senior School and the Valedictorian (one of the Y12 boys chosen by the other boys), who made a really impressive speech.

The next morning there was a Barbeque Breakfast for all boys and parents at school and we had to be there by 7.15am. It was a bit of a struggle to get there as it had been well after 11pm when we got home from the previous night’s dinner. The breakfast was pretty good and then we noticed the microphone. We couldn’t imagine there would be anyone left who hadn’t already given a speech but in fact the school produced the Head of Studies, Head of Junior School and finally an Old Boy, who did the best speech of the lot.  He gave the boys some great advice about university life – you will fail sometimes; say yes to things; get involved; keep your links to the school; try out for the mixed netball team. Afterwards, the boys walked down to the Chapel for the Leaver’s Service. The pipe band led the way and all the senior boys lined the path to give them a guard of honour down the front driveway to the school. It was very moving seeing the boys cheering and high fiving with the pipe band piping them into the chapel and lots of parents were in tears. While the boys were in the chapel, parents moved down to the swimming pool and fifteen minutes later the boys came running down one after another and all jumped into the pool in their uniforms. It was very funny. They made a huge whirlpool in the pool and generally had a whale of a time, trying to get their teachers to jump in with them. It was a swelteringly hot day and lots of parents wished they could jump in too. After it was over I went off to work and Katie and Matt went home and just like that his school days were over. It was a long goodbye but finally he was at the end and ready for the next stage of his life.  

Cheers

Derek, Katie, Matthew and Jessica.

The dogs waiting for Katie and her friends to finish coffee.

The queue at Halloween.

Three witches.

Our pumpkins.

The BBC seniors in the pool.

Jessica's Academic Award.

Matthew's Speech night.