Sunday, 13 November 2016

Whales at Frazer lsland


 Letter No. 236

Dear all,



July 2016 On Sunday 10 July the Tods had organised a Touch Football game in the park. They invited quite a crowd. There were two teams of about 12 and about 20 spectators and ten dogs. We had a great game for about an hour. The rules were a little loose and the refereeing a little arbitrary but we had a fun time. We all went back to the Tods for cheese and drinks around the fire pit.  

The next day was the start of Term 3. It was also Katie’s birthday on Tues 12 July. We went to see the Queen musical We will Rock You that night with a big group of friends including Helen & Gary Brodie, Shelly Hillis and Gary McPherson plus quite a few others. We had a quick dinner at “The Charming Squire” before the show. The show is absolutely brilliant. It is very cleverly written (by Ben Elton) and is one of the best musicals I have been to, featuring almost all of Queen’s hits.

Katie managed to go out for lunch or dinner every day that week. We had lunch with my Mum and Dad on Thurs 14 July at the Sofitel in the city. It was a buffet seafood lunch, but it also happened to be a special Bastille Day celebration and they had a choir singing loudly in French. I think they were a bit insulted when we asked to move to a table as far away from them as possible. It was a great lunch and was nice to catch up with Mum and Dad.

The next day it was one year since Katie was refused Australian citizenship so she was able to start the whole process again. We sent the paperwork in that day. Hopefully it will go more smoothly this time. That weekend Jessica and I went to the Tertiary Studies Expo after her school volleyball game. I can’t believe that in a couple of years both kids will have left school. We looked at lots of different courses but Jessie was most interested in Psychology. 

That night Katie and I went out for dinner with our friend Pip McGlinn who I went to Uni with and we all lived in Hong Kong at the same time. We went to Fromage in Milton. The tiny restaurant had about a quarter of its floor space devoted to a cheese fridge. All the dishes had cheese in them and we had a lovely meal. Afterwards we checked out the walk-in cheese cellar. The cheese was eye-wateringly expensive. The owner gave us a detailed run down on each type of cheese and it took us a good ten minutes to get away! It was nice to catch up with Pip though even if it was quite a cheesy night.

On Sunday we went to the Brodies lunch celebration for their exchange student Candice’s 18th birthday. They had a nice lunch for a group of her friends and a select group of parents. Candice is a lovely girl and has stayed with us a few times when the Brodies are away.

Katie started work at BBC on 19 July. She was a bit nervous as she hasn’t had a “real” job since 2003. It was a bit of a learning curve. She started off five full days a week but after a few weeks it settled down to a much more manageable three days a week Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Katie got her new work computer, new work phone and new car all in the same week that she started her new job. She was quite frazzled by this as she is not good with new things or technology in general! Her new car is the latest model Toyota Rav 4 in metallic grey. We had actually ordered it quite some time ago but had to wait for weeks because she wanted a manual rather than an automatic and she also had it customised with leather seats. Katie was delighted with the car but is still coming to terms with all the new features such as keyless access, Bluetooth, reversing camera, automatic lights, automatic wipers, automatic locking...

On Fri 22 July Matt had his Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award presentation in City Hall. It was presented by the Acting Governor of Queensland, the Hon Chief Justice Catherine Holmes. It was quite a formal presentation, which seemed fitting considering the enormous amount of time and effort that had gone into it. He was the only BBC boy receiving the Gold Award and we were quite proud.

The next day we drove out to Jessica’s final dance eisteddfod of the year in Katie’s new car. It made me slightly jealous! Jess had a good day at the Eisteddfod but was a little disappointed that STAGE didn’t place in any of the dances.

We went for dinner on 29 July at Billycart Kitchen, owned by local celebrity chef Ben O’Donoghue. He was having a special London Calling theme at the restaurant, serving his contemporary “take” on traditional British food. The theme probably has nothing to do with Katie’s animated conversation with Ben about Great British Food at a recent cocktail party. Anyway Katie was keen to attend and we assembled a group of Great British Friends for the occasion. We shared entrees of scotch eggs, onion bhajis, black pudding sausage rolls and duck terrine. For main course Katie loved her poached beef fillet with mini Yorkshire pudding. Other mains were the roast halibut with zucchini chips or the lamb shank pie. We shared desserts of blackberry crumble with elderflower jelly and a Yorkshire curd tart with clotted cream. It was a real culinary trip down memory lane for Katie and was all absolutely delicious. 

We caught an Uber-Max home and went down the road to Tony and Wings’ house for a nightcap. Tony has a walk-in wine cellar with about 600 bottles of wine in it! You really have to stay to finish the bottle at their house as you know it will be good stuff! We perhaps stayed a little too long and it was another slow day the next day. I actually went to have lunch and see Tarzan at the movies with Matthew. It was really nice to go and do something just the two of us. Matt is so busy these days with Uni and his job at Miku that we hardly see him!

August 2016 Now that Katie has less time and more money she has employed a cleaner. Christine is amazing. We should have got her years ago! Katie and I went to see the Absolutely Fabulous movie on 3 August. We went after work and met there. They had champagne included with the ticket price which was nice. A very funny movie.  On 6 August Katie did yet another candle stall with Jessie at yet another school fair and had a fantastic result, selling nearly 30 candles and raising nearly $350 for Jessie’s Antipodeans fund. Jess helped set up but she had tickets to the Troye Sivan concert at Riverstage and could not stay. She went with five of her school friends on the train. They all met at our house and then caught the train back to our house by 11pm. Jessie absolutely LOVES Troye Sivan and said it was the best night of her life!

The next day Matt and I went and played tennis early on the Sunday morning. He gives me a good game now but I can still (usually) beat him – thank goodness. The next Saturday afternoon my sister Lisa and family came over for drinks and then we went down to Miku for dinner. Matthew wasn’t working so he got to eat with us. Afterwards we stopped at Lick, the ice cream shop next door, and walked home.  It is so nice having great restaurants just walking distance from home. Andrew had just got back from Las Vegas where he had been to a huge pet supplies convention and had lots of interesting stories to tell.

Jessica did the 40-Hour Famine on 19-21 August. She raised $165 for World Vision. I was astounded that she managed to go so long without biscuits! She did it without a single complaint. I was very impressed. Jessie is also thriving on her vegetarian diet. She seems to eat very healthily these days and cooks up a storm in the kitchen. She always seems to be stir-frying something or making Acaii bowls or healthy fruit-based snacks.

On Sunday afternoon I discovered Molly’s had a terrible injury. She had a huge gash on her chest about 5cm long, 2cm wide and had peeled her skin right back to the muscle! It was really horrible but she didn’t seem terribly bothered by it. Katie phoned the vet and by a complete stroke of luck it turned out that he was doing surgeries that afternoon and said to bring Molly straight in. We whizzed her there and she had a general anaesthetic immediately and was straight into surgery. She had 15 stitches and a huge shaved patch on her chest. We spent the afternoon trying to work out what had happened to her. We couldn’t find anything obvious in the garden and decided she must have run into a sharp stick at speed. When we collected her the vet said that she shouldn’t run around for the next two weeks. Despite our best efforts she was tearing around the garden again after a couple of days. I took her stitches out myself two weeks later which was surprisingly easy.

The next weekend Wings and Tony popped in to admire the red British telephone box that I have been constructing out of timber for the last year. I had a trial erection of the walls that afternoon and it is starting to look like it is almost completed, although there are quite a few finishing touches to go. We had a fire pit and nibbles by the pool which was nice.

September 2016 Father’s Day was 4 September. Katie and I went for a hike up Mt Cootha which was nice but the kids were far too busy with study etc to join us. I did get a great book called Two Brothers by Ben Elton. It is a novel based on fact about Jews growing up in Germany prior and during the Second World War. It is quite moving and an excellent read. The Malins invited us back for an impromptu Sundowners drink, which extended into dinner and we left the kids to fend for themselves.

Jessie’s birthday was 7th September. Hard to believe that she is fifteen already! She invited her whole gang over to celebrate and they went out to dinner at the local American Diner. I drove a cake over and the twelve girls walked there themselves. I just went back at the end to pay. Easiest birthday party ever!

Katie went to the BBC Fashion Parade on 9 September. She had been invited as a VIP guest of Parent Connections group in recognition of her past efforts. She had a nice relaxing time and caught up with lots of BBC friends. I came to pick her up on the way home from work at 6:00pm. I ran back to the golf club with Molly in the morning to pick up the car. The next night we went to an event called “Jurassic Jam”. It is at a music venue in Fortitude Valley and there were cover bands doing mainly 80s music. One of our friends knew people playing in one of the bands and got a huge crowd to go along. It was a really great night. We arrived at 5:00pm but had to leave quite early to pick Jessie up from Suncorp Stadium where she had been singing with Australian Girls’ Choir at the Wallabies game that evening. Probably a good idea we left a little early as the next day was not wasted. 

Katie sat her Australian Citizenship test on 21st September and passed the exam with 100% score, on 20 multiple choice questions. She had been studying hard on her Australian history and system of government, but the test questions were fairly easy. I think it is really to determine if you can read English more than anything else! There is a 4-6 month wait for the Citizenship Ceremony when she will make her pledge and then she will be a true Aussie! It is likely to be on Australia Day in January which should be fun!

Jessica had her first ever job interview at a new restaurant which is opening up soon in the village. She was the youngest person they interviewed so wasn’t very confident that she would get offered anything. A few weeks later she got a nice rejection letter, which is probably for the best as she is going to be away for most of the school holidays with her school trip to Vietnam in December and then our family holiday to Fiji.

We went to Frazer Island for four days on 23 to 27 September (school holidays). We had lunch in Noosa en route and then on to Hervey Bay in the afternoon. The next morning we caught the early ferry to Frazer Island which took about 40 minutes. We didn’t take our car as the resort is right at the ferry pier and after about 500m the paved road runs out and you can only get around by 4WD. We had two hotel style rooms which was really nice. In the afternoon we walked down to the jetty on the beach and had drinks at the sunset bar before dinner, with amazing sunset beach views.

The next day we went on a full day 4WD tour of the island. We had talked about hiring our own 4WD but in the end we were glad we went on a tour. The tracks are narrow and ROUGH with lots of deep soft sand. They are mostly one way and if you meet a tour bus going the other direction they have right of way and you would have to reverse a long way in the sand before they could pass. We had a great day exploring the island, hiking and swimming along freshwater streams, looking at the wreck of the SS Maheno. This is an ocean liner which ran aground during a cyclone in 1935 and is now a spectacular rusting hulk on the beach. There were also some light planes which took off and landed on the beach so we treated Matt and Jessie to a 20-minute joy ride flight around the Island. They flew over the many freshwater lakes in the middle of the island and out to sea. They thought it was fab. We had a nice buffet lunch at the resort on the ocean side of the island, then a lovely 40-minute hike through the rainforest. We ended up at Lake McKenzie, an impossibly clear blue freshwater lake where Matthew and I went for a swim. It was a great day trip. The following day was a Whale Watching boat trip into the bay and around the island. I was astounded at how many whales we saw. There were several young whale calves with mothers or small pods. They were not at all bothered by the boat and swam around and around us showing off for ages before we moved onto the next pod. It was awesome. There are not many things I want to do twice in my life but this was definitely one of them!

Cheers,

Derek, Katie, Matt, Jessie & Molly

Duke of Ed - Gold Award Ceremony

Jessica's 15th Birthday

Mary Poppins Statue - Maryborough

Frazer Island Spa









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