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 27th 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 4th 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 5th and 6th 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 17th
Birthday on 8th 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 10th 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 17th 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 18th 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment