Trip to Birdsville for the races.

Letter No. 241

Dear all,

JULY 2017 Term 3 started with the St Aidan’s Semi-Formal on the first weekend, Sat 15^th July. We had a “Pre” (drinks function) at our house for Jessie’s group of friends and their parents. Jessica had invited Tom Trebilcock to accompany her, the son of the friends we had recently gone to O’Reilly’s with. His parents came to the Pre as well and helped take photos. The girls all looked waaay older than 15 or 16 with their hair and make-up done and in very grown up outfits and shoes. We had champagne and nibbles with the girls and their partners for about an hour, then dropped them off at the semi-formal venue, Hillstone Golf Club in St Lucia. About 40 parents then met for dinner at a nearby Middle Eastern restaurant. After the event a whole hoard of the girls and partners came back to our place to get changed. Katie marshalled the boys into the Studio and the girls into Jessie’s bedroom. They all left their bags and walked around to the “Post” which was about two blocks from our house. There were two Posts – one in Brookfield and one in Graceville, so we were quite pleased that Jessie and her friends chose to go to the Graceville one as that meant we didn’t have to do late night driving all over the city. About 1.30am the whole group arrived back at our house and parents started picking up. Jess was buzzing about what a good time she had and after everyone had gone she and Katie chatted for hours before finally going to bed.

The next day Jess and I went to the Tertiary Studies Expo. It was a bit of a slow start after such a late night. We had a look at the psychology, medical, communications, journalism and arts stands. Jessica is really not sure what she wants to do when she finishes school. We spent a few hours there. I went and picked up the photos from the semi-formal and we pored over them for the rest of the afternoon.

The following weekend was a big one for STAGE. The girls performed at a school event MADD Night (Music Arts Drama & Dance) on Fri 21^st July and then their last dance comp of the year on the Saturday. They were very pleased to get another third place for one of their dance routines.    

I have been going up to my parents’ place every weekend recently, helping with their relocation to their new smaller farm. They had a clearing sale on 29^th July. I arrived before 7am and the first people started to arrive not long afterwards. I was in charge of directing traffic. It was a little slow for the first hour but by 8am there was a steady stream of trucks, cars, vans, trailers and even a semi-trailer. Dad had to open another paddock for parking. By the time the sale started at 10am I think there were around 250 cars and 400 people there. There were over 300 lots spread out all over two paddocks and one shed. There was even a hamburger catering van! The auctioneers were very clever and managed to sell everything. If there were no bids on an item, they just lumped it together with the next lot until a combination of things was sold. Mum and Dad had an enormous amount of machinery that they didn’t want anymore – quad bikes, tractors, bulldozers but also a lot of stuff that many might call junk. Everything sold and was taken away. Rusty milk drums and old machinery seemed to sell particularly well! The auction didn’t finish until about 1:30pm and then Dad and I helped load machinery onto trailers with the bob-cat. By 4pm most of the stuff was cleared up and everyone was gone. The semi-trailer driver had waited around all day to transport the bulldozer for the winning bidder! There were a few people who came back the next day to pick up the last few things and only one lot was abandoned. A very successful and profitable day. Dad was only sorry he hadn’t had time to sort more things out and get more stuff in the sale.

We had a tennis afternoon with our friends Tony and Wings Malins on 30^th July. We went back to their place for a drink to cool down afterwards. Tony is a terror for sneakily topping up your glass and opening new bottles of wine. Before we knew it, we had missed dinner, the kids had to fend for themselves again, and we had to walk home!

AUGUST 2017 I went to Mackay and Airlie Beach from 2-4 August, and then Darwin and Townsville on 7-9 August. I have been all over Queensland and the Northern Territory the last few months – a trip every week or two. It is doing wonders for my frequent flyer points!

We went to the Lebanese restaurant Beirut as a family to celebrate Matthew getting back from his trip around Europe. It was nice as we hadn’t been out all together for ages. Matt is not working at Miku any more so it is nice to have a few free weekend evenings with him while he looks for a new job. We also went to have dinner at my sister Lisa and Andrew’s on 11 August. We had missed Lisa’s birthday, Katie’s birthday and two of Lisa’s kids’ birthdays so it was a bit of a present fest!

The following week Jessie had a return invitation from her friend Tom to the BBC Semi-Formal. It was the night before the Brisbane Show Holiday and was on a boat cruising up and down the Brisbane River. It was a school day, but Katie picked her up early for an “appointment” and raced her around with hair and make-up appointments in order to get her ready in time for the usual Pre. Naturally there was a Post afterwards as well and she was dropped home about 1:00pm. She had a wonderful time. However she had been fighting off a cold for a couple of days and it hit her really hard the next day when she totally lost her voice and then had to have a few days off school with laryngitis.

On Sat 19 August we went out to dinner with a group of BBC parents. Afterwards the boys all went to watch the Bledisloe Cup in a pub in Indooroopilly. Australia got thrashed so it was a disappointing end to a nice evening. I was back in Darwin from 22-25 August. I have now eaten in every restaurant in the city and have my regular barman and seat in the hotel I always stay at!

The next weekend was very busy. On Saturday night we had a Thai dinner with Tony and Wings. It was allegedly a planning meeting for our upcoming trip to Birdsville but not a lot of planning got done! The next night was Jessie’s Australian Girls Choir Concert. She is in the top level of the choir and the specialist dance troupe now so she gets lots of time in her favourite place on stage (front and centre).

On 29 August our good friend David Sugg passed away. It was very sudden. He was only 52 and leaves behind his wife Lisa, who is one of Katie’s best friends here in Brisbane, and two teenage girls. It was an enormous shock to everyone and it rocked our social group to the core. We had partied and played tennis with David & Lisa many times this year and Lisa is Katie’s regular tennis partner in her Tuesday tennis fixtures. David’s funeral was on Tuesday 5 September and his brother and sister both came out from the UK for the service. There were at least 400 people there, with many standing or outside the chapel who couldn’t fit inside. Lisa and Claudia (their eldest daughter) both gave very moving eulogies and the shock within the crowd was very palpable. Even David’s dog Barney came to the funeral and lay solemnly below the coffin throughout the service. There was a wake back at their house afterwards which at least 200 people attended and it kicked on until 2am. It was a great tribute to a kind, gentle, thoughtful man who will be hugely missed.

BIRDSVILLE RACES I went to the Birdsville from 31 August to 3 September with my friend Tony Malins and another two mates. We left on Thursday at lunch time in Tony’s plane from Redcliffe aerodrome and landed in Yaraka in central Queensland (population 18) just before 5pm. It is 22km south of Longreach. The local pub owner picked us up at the airfield and asked if we would like to go for a sunset tour of Mount Slocombe Lookout. We stopped at the pub on the way to dump our bags and get a few beers and drove up. It is a flat-topped mountain with great views over the spinifex and desert. The pub owner told us lots of stories about the local region. The most interesting one was about how Australian farmers had been forced by the Greenies to reduce the potency of poison used to bait wild dogs around 15 years ago. The wild dog population had since exploded (as the baits are not as effective) and hence the whole region around Yaraka has no sheep farming at all. The estimate of losses in Queensland alone is over $100 million and in many areas, a complete loss of the whole industry. The pub owner was excitedly telling us that one local station was dog fencing their entire property (13 miles of 18 fenced so far) and would reintroduce sheep to the region for the first time in many years. 

We watched the sun go down and went back to the pub for dinner. The wife of the pub owner was also the local school teacher and principal. Unfortunately she had not had any pupils (or teaching pay) for four years. She was really excited as there was supposedly a family with two primary age children going to move into the district next year. I really hope they do. They were lovely people. We had a great dinner and a few drinks before going to bed. The cracks in the timber walls were plugged up with folded XXXX tins. It certainly wasn’t five star but clean and nice.

The next morning I went for a walk around the town to look at the sights. It only took ten minutes! The highlight was the end of the railway line (literally) and a few rusty bits of machinery in the main street. The local store had closed a few years ago but was also supposedly re-opening next year. 

We packed up and got dropped back at the plane and took off. We flew to Windorah to refuel the plane as fuel is really really expensive in Birdsville. We were away again quickly and landed in Birdsville about 10:30am. There were about 300 planes lined up in rows on the side of the runway, all with tents pitched under the wings. Once we had found our park, we pitched our tents quickly and went into town for lunch. We stopped at the pub, conveniently located right outside the airport, for a beer. We then walked on to the Birdsville Bakery and had camel pies and beer for lunch. A quick look around the town and visitor information centre and market stalls set up in the centre of town and it was back to the pub for a beer. We had been there for a few hours when Pauline Hanson showed up with an entourage of Federal Police Security. Pauline was whisked away to a private area where she couldn’t interact with the public but we chatted to her coppers for a while. They had flown up from Brisbane to Mt Isa and then driven 12 hours to Birdsville to meet her when she flew in. It turned out her plane was only a couple of rows from ours and we ended up seeing her all weekend!

We went back to the plane for a little afternoon nap before it was back to the pub. We had beer and pizza for dinner. We then went to Fred Brophy’s Boxing Troupe (across the road from the pub). We had tickets for the 7:30pm fight. About 7:00pm Fred came out and started banging a drum and getting the crowd excited. He spent 30 minutes bigging up his boxers before asking who wanted to fight them. We were absolutely amazed that he had more takers than boxers. A few of the guys had even had brought mouth guards. Fred asked who wanted to be the round girl (who walks around with a sign showing what round it is). A young lady was selected and promptly ripped her blouse off and paraded around in a sparkly bra all evening. After the challengers went in to get gloved up the rest of us were let in. It was quite a fun evening. There is not much mileage in the professionals completely smashing the challengers so you got the impression they were just playing with them sometimes. One of the amateurs had his nose broken with a huge spurt of blood which was exciting. There was a young girl who was fighting a grizzled female professional. Everyone had to do three one-minute rounds. Although this girl seemed to get a few good hits in, she had no power in her punches. The professional gave her a few good whacks towards the end and you could tell she was quite glad when it was all over!

After the show we went back to the pub for a while to watch the band before going back to our tents under the plane wing. The weather prediction was 17 degrees overnight but it was much much colder. I woke up shivering and had to put a few layers of clothes on to warm up. None of us had much sleep.

The next day it was curry camel pie for breakfast before heading off to the races. We were lucky we got there early and got one of the few seats in the grandstand (which seated fewer than 50!). It was very hot in the sun and generally quite dusty.  There was a hot wind blowing and lots of dust. It wouldn’t have been much fun on the racecourse unless you were coming first as the rest of the field would be eating dust. I didn’t make my fortune betting on the races but we had a fun day before we went back to the plane and flew on to Thargomindah that evening. Apparently the Birdsville airport is bedlam on Sunday with so many planes trying to leave and we didn’t fancy another night in the tent. Thargomindah was a fair-sized town but we were quite surprised to see emus wandering down the main street. We had a nice pub meal and beers before bed (rooms in the pub this time). We were off early the next day and back in Brisbane in time for lunch on Father’s Day!

SEPTEMBER 2017 Jessica was 16 on 7^th September. She had a dinner for 16 friends a couple of days later at Saint Lucy, which is a lovely Italian restaurant in St Lucia on the UQ Campus. She had a lovely group of girls there and they had a table on one side of the restaurant and ate wood-fired pizzas. Matt, Katie and I sat on the other side. Katie took in a fabulous chocolate birthday cake decorated with sparklers.

On Friday 8 September Katie was a model at the BBC Fashion Parade. She had organised that event for several years when Matt was at BBC and was quite pleased to be asked to model although she was quite nervous about it. Katie’s friend Wings was also a model; their son is in Y12. A few glasses of champagne gave her Dutch courage and she quite enjoyed herself. There were some photos of her in fabulous gowns! Tony and I came to pick the girls up around 5pm and enjoyed a couple of drinks, then we headed back to Graceville and all had dinner at Miku.

On 10^th September we went for a boy’s wake for David at Tony’s house. We had sunset drinks with Alf, Tony, Jeremy and Wayne to try and fathom the meaning of the universe. For some reason Katie came as well, which probably explains why we decided the answer to life, the universe and everything was 43.

Matt has got a new job at Tocco Italiano, a local Italian restaurant (obviously). It is much better than Miku as the shifts are longer, he gets paid more and he gets fed as well. It has turned out to be a very good move for him. On Monday 11^th September, Jessie had her interview for school leadership positions. She is applying for School Captain, Vice Captain, Sacristan and Prefect. She said her interview went well but would be quite happy with Prefect. She has a nervous two-week wait before the decision is announced.  

On 13^th September we went to the Malins once again for a farewell dinner with David Sugg’s brother and sister before they went back to the UK. It was a nice evening but tinged with sadness as it was really our final farewell to David.

Love

Derek, Katie, Matthew, Jessica and Molly.

Term 2 and Matthew's Trip to Europe

Letter 240

Dear all,

APRIL 2017 On Easter Sunday we had the family around for Mum and Dad’s combined birthday and an Easter lunch. We had a seafood BBQ again and cheated a little bit by reusing the same menu from when Mo and Dave were here the previous week. It was a nice afternoon. Jessica organised an Easter-themed treasure hunt for the cousins. Each person had a different route to follow and she was very pleased with herself when it worked out brilliantly.

The next day was a public holiday so we decided to have a family day out. It doesn’t happen very often these days, as Matt and Jessie are either too busy with assessment or too cool to go out with us. We had a great day out at the Darling Downs Zoo, which is a small zoo about halfway between Toowoomba and Warwick with a great selection of African and Australian animals, including the Sumatran tiger, Brazilian tapir and the African lion. The lion enclosure was one of the best I have seen. They also had a number of white lions (like Kimba) that I had never seen before. There was a series of feedings and talks about the animals and we just moved from talk to talk and then had a picnic lunch. The next day Jessie went back to school for another busy term, with all of her usual dance and choir commitments, as well as the Duke of Edinburgh Silver award.

It was Anzac Day on 25^th April. Jessica had to go to the Graceville Memorial Service representing her school and Katie and I went down as well. It was the first year that we haven’t had to be whizzing in different directions with Matt playing French Horn in a marching band or the parade in the City.

I have been working nights recently doing another round of inspections for Coles supermarket renovations. We have six inspectors working most weeknights for 14 weeks all over Queensland and Northern New South Wales. We then have time off in lieu for the night work. We cannot start inspections until the store closes at 9pm and can be there quite late, depending on home much work there is to inspect. I had a day off on 27^th April and Katie and I had a lovely morning together playing tennis. That afternoon Jessica was at Ipswich Dance Eisteddfod with the school dance group STAGE, so we went to watch her dance. Katie had to go on the school bus with the team to supervise the girls and I drove up in time for the first dance.

On 30^th April Katie and I went hiking around Mt Coot-tha. The kids are always studying so we decided to do a walk without them. Molly, our third child, had no study so was happy to come with us and did not complain about the length of the walk. The next day we went to see a movie called “Their Finest”; the kids were studying again so Katie and I went on Sunday afternoon. It was a movie about British film makers making propaganda films during WWII trying to entice America into the war. We met the kids for dinner at Miku after the movie. Matt had to restrain himself from assisting all the wait staff that he has trained. He is only working there a couple of nights per week now.

MAY 2017 The next weekend Matt went to his first BBC Old Boys’ event. He talked a group of his friends to go with him and they had a great time having drinks and nibbles at Wests Rugby Club. Afterwards they went on to Caxton Street and he rolled in at around 1am, so it was clearly a good night.

The following week Matthew had an interview at the Gold Coast. He has applied to be a volunteer for the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in April next year. It is quite an exciting opportunity. He thought the interview went well but it will be a while before he finds out if he has been successful.

Katie had one of her BBC events on the 12 May. It was a morning tea event for new mothers. Very similar to the ones she used to run as a volunteer, but she now gets paid to do it. It is working out well. That weekend, Matt went to compete in the “Roc Race” with a big group of his friends. It was a 5km race at the RNA Showgrounds which involved about 18 “Total Wipeout” style water obstacles. I went along to watch him. I saw him go through the first few obstacles and get drenched but then I lost him in the crowd so I went home again. There were thousands of people doing it setting off in waves of around 100. It looked so much fun, I think I will do it myself next year.

The next night Matthew had a Eurovision Party in our Studio. About twelve friends came over to watch the Eurovision Song Contest final. They are all Eurovision tragics. We moved the large TV down there for them and Katie produced a platter of food from as many different European countries as she could manage, with Hungarian salami, French & Dutch cheeses, German sausage, Greek tzatziki, etc followed by Portuguese egg custard tarts, Spanish churros and Belgian waffles with Swiss chocolate sauce. They all seemed to have a great night. 

The next weekend Jessica was a big song and dance weekend for Jessie with a dance eisteddfod and the St Aidan’s annual Music Concert. After that it was the Rowing Cocktail Party that evening. One of Katie’s friends organises the event and we get roped into going each year. Actually it is really a fun event and a big group of our friends go along, many of whom are not rowing or even St Aidan’s parents. I won one of the raffle prizes which was a lovely food hamper. Drinks finished about 10:30pm and we stayed on for a while before going home. Katie had made me promise not to get her any drinks all evening (learning lessons from last year’s event), so I didn’t, but she managed to get quite a few by herself anyway and we still had a slow day on Sunday.

We went to the Africa National Day celebrations on 27^th May. It was advertised in the Brisbane City Council newsletter at a park near where we live. When we showed up there was no sign of it, so we looked it up online and discovered it had been moved to a park on the other side of the city. We went anyway for a couple of hours; there were market stalls selling African crafts and food and African bands singing and dancing. There can’t be many Africans living in Brisbane as it was fairly small.

JUNE 2017 Friday 2 June was the St Aidan’s Foundation Lunch at Gambaro’s Seafood. Katie went along with some of her friends. The speaker was Laura Geitz who is one of the Queensland Firebirds & Australian Diamonds (netball teams) and she spoke very well.  It must have been a good event as lunch was still going at 6:30pm. I realised the chances of getting any dinner was slim so picked up some takeaway on the way home for everyone.

On 16^th June our friends Graeme & Yurie Tiltman came to stay for a night from Christchurch. They came at short notice as it was for the funeral of a good friend of theirs, but it was good to see them. They arrived at our place about 5pm after the wake. We had a quick drink and then went to the Hundred Acre Bar for dinner. We had a lovely evening catching up and finding out about old Hong Kong friends and how the kids were all doing. They stayed the night in our Studio. We had a leisurely breakfast the next day before they set off for a day of sightseeing in Brisbane. They had a late flight home. Brisbane to Christchurch is not a high volume route!

The next day we went to a tennis party at the Tods. Our tennis is improving, but is always better after a couple of drinks. It was a lovely warm evening for mid-winter and we played two to three sets each.

Katie did a First Aid course for her work at BBC so she is now qualified to administer first aid, give CPR and use a defibrillator. These skills may be useful as we get older!

Jessica went to sing with the AGC at the opening of the Wallabies vs Italy Rugby match at Suncorp Stadium on 24^th June. We watched it on TV but as usual the cameras focus on the players singing the national anthem rather than the girls’ choir, so we could hear them but not see them. Jessie says they always get to meet the players though.

On 28 June was the start of Matt’s solo trip to Europe. After a lot of saving up and planning, Matt went for a four-week trip travelling via Shanghai. He really likes Shanghai and had one night there on the way, which gave him just enough time to go up the Pearl Tower and see the Bund. When he arrived in London he had one night with Katie’s friend Eleanor, before taking the train up to Yorkshire to stay with Katie’s brother Chris and family for a few days. Chris and Julie showed him a great time, taking him to the York Dungeon, a riverboat Cruise on the Ouse followed by afternoon tea at Betty’s, plus the Harewood Hill Climb with a picnic and a couple of nice evenings out. Matt really enjoyed seeing his cousin Edward again (who is now in the RAF) and catching up with Julie’s daughter Gabriella (who is doing Japanese Studies at York University and heads off to Tokyo later in the year). It doesn’t seem too long since we were all having lovely family summer holidays together in Dorset and Cornwall and they were all playing on the beach together and now they are all grown up and independent. J

Next stop was Hale where we used to live, and Matt stayed at the home of some good friends of ours in Hale (Sarah and Millie Rose) just around the corner from our old house. He saw all of his old school friends, visited his old school, tried out all the new local restaurants in Hale and Altrincham and even went clubbing in Manchester. He had a great time and was very grateful to Sarah for letting him stay and Kate for driving him around.

After that Matt flew to Berlin for one night before meeting up with the group for his BusAbout tour of north-eastern Europe. BusAbout is an Australian company that mainly caters for students, but even so he was quite surprised that the first person he ran into in the Berlin Youth Hostel was a girl from Brisbane who he knew as she worked in the Ice Cream shop in Graceville next door to Miku where Matt works. Small world. The BusAbout tour was a two-week guided circular trip through Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and back to Germany. He had a fabulous time and did some wildly varied activities including visiting the Abba Museum in Stockholm, swimming in the Baltic Sea in Norway, a cruise from Stockholm to Tallin, making Polish pastries in Warsaw, a bicycle tour in Berlin and a ride on an Olympic bobsled run in Latvia. He particularly loved Copenhagen and Riga, tried out the nightlife in various European cities and made loads of new friends.

Matt flew back to London to stay with Eleanor and family for a few more nights, and had a great time with them visiting the Natural History Museum, a modern production of Macbeth in the centre of London and also caught up with Katie’s friend Julia and family. He headed back to Brisbane having had a fantastic trip and is a convert to “Bus About” Tours -- he is already planning the next one.

While Matt was away Katie, Jessie and I went up to O’Reilly’s up in the hills in the Lamington rainforest with our friends Mel and Derek Trebilcock and their two boys. Jessie invited her friend Gabby along with us and the Trebilcock’s also brought a friend, so there was a nice group of kids with us. We stopped at a winery for a Cellar Door wine tasting on the way. We arrived at 2:00pm which was the earliest available check in time. Unfortunately our room was not ready and they told us to go for a short walk in the rainforest and it would be ready in 30 minutes. After coming back and being asked to wait for half an hour another three times I started to get a bit short tempered. To appease us the manager gave us a 24-hour free pass for all activities at the resort! This was in fact quite a good deal, so I immediately booked us into lots of activities including a glow worm tour that evening at 6pm, bird of prey show and zip-lining (flying fox) the next afternoon.  

The next morning we did the 5km walk to Moran’s Falls waterfall. The kids all loved the ziplining activity next day which was quite high up, and both Mel and I joined in while Katie and Derek T were on photo duty. We had everyone over to our apartment for dinner that night which was hilarious. The next day we did a full day 16km hike to Bithongabel and back. The walk goes along the top of the cliffs which separate Queensland and New South Wales and has spectacular views. The kids were all so busy chatting that they barely noticed the distance. We were all quite tired when we got back though, so we tried out the spa bath on the veranda watching the sun go down, then had drinks at Mel and Derek’s villa this time and to the O’Reilly’s restaurant for dinner.

On the final morning we did a 5km hike to Python Rock which had more spectacular views of waterfalls. We drove down the mountain and had lunch in Canungra before going back to Brisbane. It was a great mini-break but our legs were a bit sore afterwards.

JULY 2017 Our friends Ian and Cathy Muir were in town on 8^th July. We went over to John and Karen Haughton’s for a BBQ dinner that evening. It was really great to catch up. Once again, it was quite a shock to see how much the kids had all grown up.

I went to Mackay for work on 11^th July and then on to Airlie beach the next night so I missed Katie’s birthday. She was OK about it as she was super-busy with work. I was working two nights again with free days, so spent the day at Whitehaven beach snorkelling. I saw the largest fish I have ever seen – a Humphead Wrasse which was about 1.4m long. It was enormous and very friendly and came so close I could have touched it if I had wanted to. Amazing! I also saw turtles, whales, dolphins and sharks, so it was a good day on the wildlife front.

Katie did the BBC Careers Conference on 13 July. This is a huge annual event and it is the fourth year she has organized it. Consequently her birthday passed as a non-event on the 12 July, with her doing a long day at work and Matt and I both away. We celebrated belatedly the following day and she had a couple of dinners with girlfriends the following week.

Love

Derek, Katie, Matthew, Jessica and Molly

Our old house in Manchester