Letter
No. 237
Dear all,
October 2016 On Sunday 2 October Jessica did another stall
at Manly Market selling candles to raise money for her trip to Vietnam.
Thankfully she is very close to her final target now, as we are all a bit tired
of the candle business. In the afternoon we went to our friends the Tods for a tennis afternoon on their court and an
easy Sunday BBQ. It went on a bit longer than expected so the kids had to fend
for themselves for dinner again.
Jessie was dancing with her dance group STAGE at two events
in October, the school quiz evening and the Music Grande Concert. They were the
last two dance events for the year so I went to them both.
On the 8th October I went to Oktoberfest with our friends the Brodies. Katie was not feeling
well so she stayed at home. I was astounded how big the whole event was. There
must have been 10,000 people there. The queue for the bar was 40 deep and there
were about 50 lines! I decided to get a beer before I went and found the
others. This was a frustrating experience. After twenty minutes in the queue I
discovered that they did not accept cash in that line, so I had to go and stand
in another queue (for 20 minutes) to get a wrist band you could preload with
credit. Then another twenty minutes back in the beer line and finally I got my
first beer an hour after I started! The Brodies had a similar experience and
when we met we were all feeling quite frustrated and ready to go home. We
forced ourselves to have another few beers, then a huge feed of pretzels and
pork knuckle, then a few more beers and then a few schnapps and by that time we
were quite into the whole event and started dancing on the tables to the
chicken dance. It was a fun evening in the end.
Jessica was away that same weekend on a trial camping
weekend for her Antipodeans Abroad
trip to Vietnam. Unfortunately she was sick all night on the Saturday but somehow
she did manage to drag herself along for the five hour hike on Sunday, which we
thought was a good effort.
It was our 20th
wedding anniversary on 12th October. You get less for murder. It
was also my sister’s 20th wedding anniversary the week previously.
Well done all of us. Not many siblings can rack up twenty years each these
days! Katie and I went into town for dinner at Madame Wu. It is a modern
Chinese restaurant on the river with fantastic views of the Storey Bridge. It seemed
appropriate (as we got married in Hong Kong) and it was the best Chinese meal I
think I have ever had!
On 22 October we had dinner with our friends the Biddles
and Simonsons at a lovely Greek restaurant called Amphora in St Lucia. We
always have a great time with that crowd, although we don’t see as much of each
other now that the boys have left school.
The next few days were very busy with Katie organising/involved
in five events in five days. We had the STAGE
Celebration Breakfast at St Aidan’s on Friday 28 October. Katie had to get
up at Sparrows and be at school before 6am to help set up and prep the food. I
arrived with Jessie at 6:45am. It was a nice breakfast. Jessie was surprised to
win the Nikeisha Plumridge Award for all round dance excellence, commitment and
leadership. After the breakfast, Katie cleared up and packed everything away
and then went straight to work where they were setting up for a BBC event that
afternoon.
Katie had to call into BBC again on Saturday as there was
another school event that day, then on Sunday 30 October, we had to
set up for Halloween. Jessie and I
did most of the set up as Katie was busy with final arrangements for the
Melbourne Cup lunch which was the next day. We had bought 1000 sweets this year
and a few new decorations. On Monday night Katie supervised the trick-or-treating
to ensure most kids only took one and I ran our sausage sizzle. Matthew has a
job teaching English once a week to a four-year-old Korean boy who came over
trick or treating so he went up and down the street with the boy and his
parents. They were really chuffed that Matthew had invited them and had a great
time.
Trick-or-treating started at 5pm and we ran out of sweets
around 7:30pm. It was bedlam as usual, with hordes of kids arriving in packs.
There were some amazing kids costumes and every year more adults turn up in
costume as well; it is really like a street party. Someone mentioned a website
listing “the ten best streets to go Trick-or-Treating in Brisbane”. Matt
googled it and sure enough, there was Mortlake Road, and it said that it is
really well established with loads of sweets!! No wonder we always get so many kids
coming over. Jessie loves Halloween so she was off with her friends trick or
treating all evening and just made it back with all of them just in time to
have the last few sausages for dinner. I had saved her the last vegetarian one
(actually it was the only vegetarian one)!
November 2016 We
packed up most of the decorations that evening while Katie loaded her car for
the St Aidan’s Melbourne Cup Lunch
the next day. This event had been a bit of a lame duck the previous year and
the organisers had nearly ended up cancelling it. This year was the first one
that Katie had been involved with, so she had offered to handle the event
marketing and sales, as well as the decorations, raffle and models for the
fashion parade. With some well-timed advertising and anticipation building, the
event sold out quicker than any other St Aidan’s event in recent years. Katie
and Kylie were the first to arrive at the Brisbane Golf Club to decorate the
room and it looked fabulous when it was all set up, with beautiful flowers and
a horse motif throughout, using horses which had been kindly printed by Katie’s
brother Chris. The event was a success
by all accounts with a “Fashions on the Field” parade, sweepstakes, a raffle, a
silent auction, the race shown on the TV screens and a “Best Dressed”
competition. Katie and a group of ladies went back to Wings Malins’ house for
drinks about 4pm (Wings was one of the models) and there were some sore heads
the next day.
On 4th November we went for dinner at Tocco, a local Italian restaurant with
Katie’s dog walking group (WAGS) and husbands. Katie and I rode our bikes over
to the restaurant which was about 1km from home. Everyone thought we were mad to
cycle but it was all on quiet back streets. It was a fun evening for the twelve
of us but the waiter told us we were making too much noise which put us off a
bit. We wobbled home on our bikes about 10:30pm.
The next night we went to a Pink Party. Shelly Hillis was holding the dinner at her home to
raise money for a Breast Cancer charity. They had 24 people for dinner. The
theme was Caribbean and they had really gone to town with the pink decorations,
inflatable flamingos and huge palm trees all over the dining room and pink tables
with pink flowers in pink vases accessorised with pineapples spray-painted
gold! The meal was fantastic – three courses of delicious Caribbean-themed food.
We all made a donation to Shelly’s Breast Cancer charity the next day and she raised
around $2500. Mind you I would have paid that much to get out of the washing up
bombsite in the kitchen! It was a great evening.
The next day we went to the STAGE Support Group AGM, the final meeting for the year. It was at Helen and Gary’s home. Actually I only went to chat to Gary. We
decided to take his speedboat out for a burl on the river with a few beers. It
is really nice looking at the houses from the river. We went up Oxley Creek
until the water got too shallow and then turned back. We were nearly back to
the main river when the boat ran out of petrol! Luckily we had paddles so we
paddled over to a pontoon with a person in the back yard. Luckily I had my
wallet with me. The guy whose pontoon we pulled up at gave me a lift to the
petrol station to fill the tank. He also gave us another couple of beers. We
made it back to the Brodie’s house just as the STAGE meeting was winding up,
which was a bonus! Katie has now been elected President of the STAGE support
group for 2017.
It was the Sherwood Road
Street Festival on 11 November. The kids were both too busy to come down so
Katie and I went by ourselves. We had a wander around all the market stalls,
watched the nativity play with live camels, sheep, donkey and baby, before
having some stall food for dinner. We didn’t stay long but managed to bump into
lots of people we know in a very short time.
On Sunday 13 November we went to a Farewell Party for Candice, the Chinese exchange student who has
stayed with us a few times. Her parents were over from China to see her final
school graduation and then to have a holiday in Australia. Candice is planning
to go to Uni next year in Brisbane and is hopeful that she will get into UQ. Matt
and Jessie both practiced their Chinese on Candice’s parents as they both spoke
only a very little English. We were super impressed at how good a conversation
they seemed to have. It was the first time we have heard them actually speaking
Chinese in a conversational setting.
The next night it was the St Aidan’s Speech Night. Jessie was singing in the choir so we went
along to watch. They had a very motivational speaker – an ex-St Aidan’s student
who had had a horrific horse riding accident while in Year 11 of school. This
had left her permanently disabled, both physically and mentally. She told the
story of her road to recovery and on to the Paralympics. St Aidan’s always
manages to find old girls with the most amazing life stories to tell. We went to Wayne and Libby Penning’s home for Christmas Drinks on Sun 27 November. Christmas drinks in November is a little too early if you ask me, but it was a nice relaxed afternoon. Well, it was for me. Poor Katie had to go to work for a couple of hours that evening as BBC had another big function on.
December 2017 On
1st December we went for a special family dinner at our local Greek restaurant.
We celebrated Matthew’s and my birthdays early, as Jessica was leaving for her Antipodeans school trip to Vietnam the
next morning. She managed to make it to
her fundraising target by a whisker (and by me selling the final few candles at
my office), so that is the end of the candle business, phew. Jessie gave us
both our birthday presents and we had a lovely meal out. The next morning I
dropped her off at the airport at 5am which was a bit of a rude start for a
work day. Some of the girls were crying but Jess was quite relaxed and excited
about going on a three-week trip. I only stayed for a little while and was in
at work by 5:30am. I have been very busy at work lately and have been going in
quite early – the earliest was 4:20am! Katie was quite cross about that.
On 3rd December we took Molly for her annual beach day out. It was quiet
without Jessie but Molly does love the beach. We went to Caloundra dog beach this
time, which we hadn’t tried before. It was nice but there was no shade like at
our usual dog beach (Palm Beach Currumbin). I had a bit of a sun-screening
failure and burnt my stomach quite badly for the first time in about 30 years!
I won’t do that again. We went for a lovely seafood lunch and drove home before
the afternoon storms.
We had a busy week. On the Tuesday we went to see Coldplay. Matt’s best friend Mitchell
gifted him a ticket for his birthday and we bought two tickets at the last
minute. It was a fantastic show with terrific light effects, especially bracelets
that lit up in different colours during different songs. The band and music
were really great, although it was so loud that you could hear it in our suburb
about 8km away. The next evening Katie went to her WAGS Christmas dinner. They did a kind of Thieving Secret Santa with
$30 gifts, which was quite amusing. Luckily they didn’t break into fights and
all the girls seemed happy with the end result.
It was Matt’s 18th
birthday on 8 December. We went for dinner at the Regatta Hotel. Matthew
bought his first round of drinks at the bar. I paid though! We had a great dinner
and gave him his presents. His main
present was a Scuba Diving course and some fins which he was very excited
about. He also got some clothes, some money and an excellent State of Origin
T-shirt from Chris.
On Saturday 10 December Matthew had a birthday party with 55 of his closest friends. Matt was the
youngest boy in his school cohort and all his friends are over 18, so I bought
quite a bit of alcohol for the party. Katie organised party food with a couple
of her friends, while I went to a 50th birthday for our friend Tom
Dawes which was on the same night, just down the road. I came home from Tom’s
party early in time for Matt’s birthday cake. I had every intention of going
back but got caught up doing a bit of cleaning up. The cake was a beautiful
black forest gateau. There was quite a bit left over. Some of the girls had had
a bit too much to drink and didn’t think it would go down well with the vodka!
Katie had insisted that we provide a non-alcoholic punch and
lots of soft drinks. As soon as the first boys arrived they made up an
alcoholic punch with a full bottle of vodka in it. The next morning the
alcoholic punch was all gone but the non-alcoholic one and all the soft drinks
were still there. Towards the end of the night about ten boys and one girl
ended up in the pool in their underwear. It was very funny. The party wound up
about 11:30pm when they all went off clubbing in Fortitude Valley. Matt got
home at 3:30am so he had a slow day the next day. We cleaned up together, then
he opened his presents which were mostly alcohol! Matthew thought the party
went brilliantly. He had such a great time and was on a high for the next few
days! Amazingly he didn’t even have a hangover.
The next Friday it was my
50th birthday. I decided to have the day off. I did a bit of
pottering about, mowed the lawn and the three of us went out for lunch and I
got my presents. Katie gave me a Mystery Weekend away at the end of January. I
can’t wait to find out what it is! That evening it was the AECOM Christmas
party. Katie decided not to come and spent the evening at home instead making
lamb & mint filo rolls and other party food.
The next day was our Christmas Drinks party at home which Katie
said was also to celebrate my 50th birthday. I didn’t want to make
much of a fuss but Katie was unstoppable. We had guests from the UK arrive in the
morning, Bernard & Eleanor and their kids Robbie & Jamie. Eleanor and
Katie had shared a house together in Oxford in 1985 and she is one of Katie’s
oldest friends! They were staying with us for two nights, including the night
of our party. We had about 55 friends at the drinks party, including some of my
old friends from school and uni. Katie had made tons of canapés, ordered a large
Christmas ham and a fabulous chocolate birthday cake for me, and made a very
nice long speech accompanied by photos which was quite a surprise to me! I made a quite impromptu response. The party
started at 4:00pm and the last people left just before 10pm. It was a really
lovely evening.
We left all the cleaning up to the next day. Rather than
stay at home cleaning Matt selflessly volunteered to be a tour guide, taking Bernard
and Eleanor to City Beach and the Gallery of Modern Art and then to Southbank
for lunch, where they were meeting another of Eleanor’s friends. They made it
home by 5:00pm and we walked down to Miku for a Japanese dinner in the evening.
They were all still jet lagged so it was an early evening.
Eleanor and Bernard left the next day; while I went to work
and then on to a client Christmas party function at the
Gold Coast. I had a nearby hotel for the night so I didn’t have to drive home.
The party started at 3:00pm. It was on the beach at Surfer’s Paradise. There
was a comedian who organised games on the beach including sand-building competitions,
Frisbee-throwing competitions and the like. There were pretty good prizes like
dinner for four people! There was also a close-up magician who went around
entertaining the crowd. There was a great BBQ with heaps of king prawns. I went
back to the hotel about 11:00pm.
I was up again at 5:30pm and made it back to the office by
7:00am. That evening we went to yet another Christmas party, this time at our friends the Brodie’s. It was a
lovely party with a fantastic baked ham and some interesting Christmas Carol
singing with good company. I was out five nights in a row so was feeling pretty
jaded by this time. It was good to have a night in the next day.
Jessie comes home from Vietnam tomorrow and we can’t wait to
see her and hear all of her stories. Katie is doing our traditional Christmas
Eve dinner at home as usual and then on Christmas Day we are going to Brookfield
to spend the day with Lisa & Andrew, my Mum & Dad and Andrew’s family.
We wish you all the very happiest of Christmases and all the best for a great
New Year celebration.
Cheers
Derek, Katie, Matthew, Jessica and Molly. 
20 years ago!
Halloween.
Octoberfest.
Matthew's first (legal) drink.
At the Regatta.
Melbourne cup.
