Forbes Family Blog: Term 4 - The End of School

Letter No. 248

Dear all,

It was school holidays at the beginning of October. Katie, Jessie, Molly and I went to Currumbin Beach for the Swell festival one day. It was an art exhibition with around 50 huge sculptures erected in the sand along a length of the coastline, using all sorts of different media – metal, glass, plastic traffic cones, shopping trolleys etc. We spent over an hour walking down the beach looking at each sculpture. Some of them were really clever. We walked back along the nice shops on the road fronting the beach and then on to Molly’s favourite dog beach for lunch and an afternoon swim.

I was invited to a 30-year Engineering Course Reunion at the University of Queensland on Saturday 6 October. When I walked in I initially felt pleased that I had been aging well, as there were some pretty old buggers in the room and I didn’t recognise any of them. Strangely there were quite a few more than my class of 35. I then realised it was a 10^th, 20^th, 30^th, 35^th, 40^th, 45^th and 50^th year reunion since graduation, not just the 30^th. There were about 12 from my year, some of whom I had not seen for 30 years. We had morning tea, a tour of the engineering labs, a sausage sizzle and a few beers.

The next day we had a BBQ with our BBC friends the Biddles, Rasmussens and Simonsons. We usually have a weekend away at this time but couldn’t manage it this year so Katie invited everyone to lunch instead. The weather was warm and fine and we had a lovely long lunch.

Monday 8 October was the start of Term 4 – Jessie’s final term of school – a short and crazy six-week term with lots of events ahead. It was our 22^nd Wedding Anniversary on 12^th October. We went to a fusion Middle Eastern restaurant in Milton. It had only recently opened under new management and the staff were very involved and enthusiastic. It was a fantastic meal and we were given free champagne to celebrate our anniversary. The following Friday 19 October we went to the Mates in Construction Dinner, which was a fundraiser highlighting mental health issues in the construction industry. Katie had a big concert at BBC that night too so spent the day setting up, then changed at work and met me at the dinner venue. We had a fun night with a big group from CTBUH (Council of Tall Buildings and Urban Habitats), an organisation I am involved with.

The following Friday was the St Aidan’s Y12 Mums’ Lunch. About 50 ladies went to Boucher in Graceville, so it was easy to get there. I had caught the train to work that day and as I walked past the restaurant at 6pm on my way home, they were mostly all still there. Katie was still at the bar and a few of the husbands had turned up by then as well, so I decided to join them. We had a few drinks and chips and then one of the couples invited the remaining stayers back to their house. They have a really cool basement cellar lined with wine racks all around the walls, candles, a table and chairs, bar fridge and an awesome sound system. We had more drinks and I took over the music but the lack of dinner started to tell and we all ended up having a singalong and some rather random dancing. It was a really fun night but we were a little slow in the morning.

Weds 31 October was Halloween and as usual we put in a lot of effort setting up our witches lair. We moved it to a different part of the garden this year where we could string up a really large spider on a pulley string and drop it onto unsuspecting kids queuing for sweets. Katie had huge fun scaring kids standing in the queue and even more fun scaring a few Mums as well. Katie also had a new witches costume this year and had a few “witchy” friends to help her and I did a BBQ on the footpath which just covered the cost of the sweets. This year we got the most ever -- 1350 sweets – and it was the first year that we didn’t quite run out. After it all slowed down about ten people came over for cheese and wine. It was a great evening. Halloween is a lot of fun in our street.

I had to go to Townsville for work on 2 November and flew back to Brisbane just in time to get a taxi straight to St Aidan’s for their Glow Festival. This was an exhibition of arts, crafts, drama and dance by the students. Jessie and her dance troupe STAGE did two routines as their final school performance. We have loved watching her dance over the years so it was quite sad. The Home Economics students provided canapés to the audience and we spent an hour or so wandering around looking at the art. Some of the students’ work was really fantastic. The next day Katie and I went to see the Queen story Bohemian Rhapsody at the movies. Freddie Mercury’s life was very interesting but ultimately a little sad despite all his wealth and fame. The actor who plays him was amazing.

Matthew did the Noosa Triathlon on Sunday 4 November. It is a 1.5km ocean swim, 40km bike ride and 10km run. There were five of his friends doing it as well. Last year they did it as two relay teams but this year they had all entered individually. Matt rang us shortly after he had finished and his first words were “Mum, I won!” We were a little surprised as there are some pretty serious athletes competing. However it turned out that he had won out of his group of six. He had done lots of swim and run training but almost no bike riding. We were a little worried, as he was using my racing bike and had hardly ever ridden with his feet clipped in. Surprisingly he managed not to fall off or crash and found the ride the easiest part of the triathlon. The ocean swim was difficult as the sea had been very rough and there were so many people in the water. Matt was very proud of himself having “won” the Noosa Triathlon.

We went to the St Aidan’s Melbourne Cup Lunch on Tuesday 6 November. Katie was the main organiser for the third consecutive year (and her final time). I dropped Katie off at 8:00am with a pile of raffle prizes and went home to do a sport of gardening before the event. I was back in time for champagne at 11:00am. Katie and her team had done a lovely job decorating the room. About 150 people attended for a champagne reception, lunch, selective raffle, sweepstakes, Fashions on the Field / Best Dressed competition and a brief live auction. I was quite pleased to win the Best Dressed Male but the credit must go to my personal dresser (Katie) who gave me the shirt and jacket for our wedding anniversary. My prize was a bottle of Mumm and Katie was also presented with a magnum of Moet during the event as a thank you for her organising effort, so there is now no shortage of bubbles in the house. We didn’t win any raffle prizes this year but I did break even in the sweepstakes and manage to avoid buying an auction item. Nevertheless the event raised $13,000 for the school so Katie was very happy. Our group was the last to leave about 6pm, when we went back to a bar in Graceville for snacks and a few more drinks. We made it home about 8pm; I then had a brief swim to freshen up and fell “asleep” on the pool lounger. Jessie woke me up later and made me get out of the pool… such a responsible girl.

The next week and a half was a blur of St Aidan’s end-of-year events with something happening every day. We went to a Special Awards Assembly on Thurs 8 November at which Jess was announced as having achieved an Academic Award for being in the top 10% of the grade and also won the Joyce Barrett Memorial Prize for academic achievement and leadership, plus the Spirit of STAGE award for leadership and commitment. We were very proud although none of us actually knew what the Joyce Barrett prize was for at the time. The next morning (Friday 9 Nov) was the STAGE Celebration Breakfast, another event that Katie had helped to organise (it was a huge week). Both she and Jessie had to make speeches and hand out awards/flowers to the girls and committee members. It was a nice morning but a little sad to be at the last ever STAGE event. Katie’s speech was a bit emotional and she made all the girls cry too. Katie has been “Mumma Katie” to some of the girls for five years. She was presented with a beautiful Pandora bracelet as a tribute for all her work with STAGE.

Jessie went to the last St Aidan’s School Dance on the Saturday and then on to a party afterwards. On the Sunday we went to the informal Thank You Drinks for Jessie’s year level school coordinator Jen Crome. The next day (Monday 12 Nov) was the formal School Speech Night at QPAC, when Jessie received her awards. She was a little disappointed that she didn’t win the economics prize. She had been topping the subject all year but one of her close friends beat her at the final exam by 0.01 of a mark. The Speech Night is always a nice evening though with some excellent speakers.

On Tuesday the girls went on a day trip to Wet’n’Wild water park, which gave the parents a day off from socialising! On Wednesday they all jumped into the pool in their school uniforms. Katie had to work but I managed to get there and videoed the pool jump and then went to work afterwards; there were a few parents there too. The following day (Thurs 15 Nov) was the Valedictory Eucharist in St John’s Cathedral at 2pm; Katie attended the Eucharist with Jessie and they went straight on to the Valedictory Dinner at the Convention Centre. I met them there and we sat at a table with Jessie, two of her friends and their parents. As this was a formal school event the girls all wore their white dresses. There were some lovely presentations and speeches by the form teachers, year coordinator, girls and past school captains. There were also a few surprise presentations including a song by the Y12 girls to their parents and then a return song by the parents to the girls. It was a bit soppy but nicely done.

The next day, Friday 16 November was Jessie’s last day of school. The girls were allowed to decorate their white dresses for the final morning and many of them had stayed up all night being creative or dying their costumes in bright colours. The result was an outrageously colourful display of costumes with flowers, pom-poms, tutus, feathers and a range of themes including Toy Story, Wonderwoman, MarioKart, ice princess, ballerina, cats, Barbie, watermelon, pirate, angel, sunflowers etc. One girl who is a talented artist had hand-painted a replica of Monet’s water lilies on hers. Jessie had stuck colourful flowers and butterflies all over her dress, and looked fantastic, despite a minor accident with the hot glue gun that morning. The assembly was a fun celebration with lots of laughter and tears and ended with a version of the One Republic song I Lived presented by the choir girls accompanied by the five Y12 STAGE girls doing a beautiful lyrical dance. It was lovely and just like that her school days were over.

The next morning Jessie was off to Schoolies at the Gold Coast. She seemed to have a wonderful time. Staying up to watch the sunrise most nights and sleeping all day – bliss for a 17 year old. She was staying on the 39^th floor of a hotel in Surfers Paradise right in the thick of it, in a small unit with three other girls. We asked her for Proof-of-Life photos every day. Some days they weren’t very satisfactory – just a foot or elbow but at least we knew she was alive. I went down and picked them up the following Saturday. The girls had gone to bed at 5am and had to check out at 8am so they were pretty useless packing up! I helped them clean up and get checked out then I went for a swim in the ocean and we made it back home for lunch. She had managed to obtain three new ear piercings but other than that was unscathed.

On Weds 21 November one of Katie’s childhood friends, Suzanne Stoner (nee Pownall) came to visit with her husband Andrew. Suzanne is the daughter of Katie’s godmother Annette and Katie had not seen her for at least 15 years and was absolutely thrilled to catch up. They were on a three-week tour of Australia taking in the cricket while visiting Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. They had tickets to see the T20 test cricket (Australia v India) that evening so I didn’t actually see them until the following day. They enjoyed the game and Australia won so that was a good result. The next morning Matthew left for a three week trip to Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. He went with his friend Wilson and was meeting up with a friend from the UK he had met on his trip to Sri Lanka earlier in the year. On Friday we had dinner with Suzanne and Andrew at the Regatta. Our friends Leona and Jeremy Tod came as well. It was a fairly rowdy evening with a decent amount of red wine and a slow day the next day. Luckily I didn’t have to work but that was the morning I had to drive to pick up Jessica from Schoolies.

Suzanne and Andrew went to stay in Noosa for a couple of days; we were envious as we haven’t been up to Noosa for ages. That Sunday I was supposed to be going to a concert with my friends John and Shaun. Unfortunately Shaun fell 4m off an escalator on the previous Thursday afternoon. He was in hospital with critical injuries. We only found out about it when his partner emailed us. He was in hospital for about a month and seemed to be making a slow recovery. Unfortunately Shaun had the concert tickets so we didn’t end up going. We had a couple of nice dinners with Suzanne and Andrew before they left for Sydney on Wednesday 28November. They were supposed to head straight on to the Hunter Valley but there was a huge storm in Sydney resulting in major flooding so their plane was delayed. Australian summer weather at its unpredictable finest!!

The next day Matthew called us from Thailand to tell us not to panic, but he had had a motorbike accident and was in hospital getting stitches. It was quite concerning; however it transpired that they had been going at fairly low speed, hit a large pothole in the road and fell off without hitting anything other than the road. Matt had been driving with Wilson riding behind. They both had badly skinned their elbows and knees and Matt had a huge bruise on his thigh. They went to the local hospital, got themselves cleaned up, Wilson got two stitches and they both got tetanus shots and antibiotics before being released. If you have to have a motorbike accident, this was probably the best kind and it is a good lesson about how easy it is to get injured on one of them.

There were still a few final AGC choir engagements to go, including the Lighting of the Christmas Tree. Katie and I went to King George Square that night and found a nice table overlooking the stage where we had dinner and watched the singing and lighting of the tree. Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk was there and also singer Samantha Jade. The next night it was the AGC Annual Concert at QPAC. Another opportunity to see Jessie on the QPAC stage! We had front row seats with a great view. The finale was a medley from The Greatest Showman. It was a really fabulous musical theatre number with all of the Y12 girls in amazing circus costumes, Jessie doing a couple of impressive dance jumps and leg mounts and some fabulous singing. They finished with a combined choir of 400 girls on stage singing Come Alive, which was just awesome. It was a fantastic finish to Jessie’s seven years with the Australian Girls’ Choir. At the end the Y12s all came out in tears and there was a lot of hugging and crying before we could leave. Katie has been “Queen Katie” to the senior choir girls and had to join in some of the photos too.

Katie and I went to see Bon Jovi on Thursday 6 December. It was at Suncorp Stadium and Birds of Tokyo were supporting Bon Jovi. I had tried to see them in Hong Kong in 1993 but there was a Typhoon and the concert was cancelled and never rescheduled! They put on a great show, leaping around the stage, posing and disappearing into the crowd, and played all their 80s classics. We had a great evening.

Saturday 8 December was Matt’s 20^th birthday. He managed to call us from his hostel in Laos so that we could wish him a happy birthday. The next day we went to my parent’s farm Hilltop with my sister’s family for a pre-Christmas family lunch. We had a huge feast of seafood, ham, and chicken and spent the afternoon chatting. We went down to the dam in the morning just before lunch and found a sheep stuck in the mud. The poor thing had been there for some time and was quite exhausted. We had to pull it out of the mud and up onto the bank. The dam is getting quite low and the poor sheep have to venture into the sticky mud to drink. They really need rain.

It was the AECOM Christmas party on Friday 14 December at the newly opened Howard Smith Wharves underneath the Story Bridge. Our team met up and had drinks together on the terrace next to the river before going inside properly. It was a great venue with fantastic views of the city and the Storey Bridge which was lit up with red and green lights for Christmas. The band was good and we had a nice time dancing. The event was supposed to run from 6:30pm to 10:30pm and is usually at a venue where everyone stays on once the free drinks have stopped and just buys drinks afterwards at the bar. On this occasion we were all a little disappointed that the venue actually closed at 10:30pm with bright lights on and everyone kicked out. There was a bar right next door and it was heaving, especially when the 800 people from our event piled into the bar. We decided it was too busy and walked into the city. It was a bit too far for Katie’s high heels and also started to drizzle rain; the Pig and Whistle was also very busy so we decided to just have one drink and then head home. In the meantime Jessie managed to check her academic results online at midnight and called us excitedly to tell us that she had an OP2 (Overall Position 2). OP scores are from 1 to 25. An OP2 puts her in the top 6% of the state school leavers. It was the same result that Matt received three years previously so Jessie was delighted.

The next night we were invited to the Tod’s Christmas party. They live in the next street so it was very convenient. There were lots of our friends at the party but we were a bit jaded from the night before… not to mention the social whirl of the previous few weeks. Unfortunately it rained quite a lot (outer edges of Cyclone Owen) so we had to stay indoors. It didn’t stop all the kids swimming in the rain. The next day (16 December) was my 52^nd birthday. Again it was a bit quiet without Matt, now in Cambodia. We had presents over breakfast and I then spent the morning teaching Jessica to park in a very empty car park. She is progressing with her driving but parking is not one of her strengths. I would be a bit nervous if we were in a car park with any other cars in it.

Matthew arrived back in Brisbane on Tuesday 18^th December. Katie went to pick him up from the airport and we did belated birthday presents that night. He had to work at KWM the next day which must have been a bit of a shock to the system after a three-week holiday. That night we all went out for a combined birthday celebration at Madame Wu, a very smart Chinese restaurant in the city on the river. It was a nice evening and we caught up properly on all of Matthew’s adventures.

It was my last day of work before Christmas on the 21^st December. Our team went out for a long lunch in a nearby pub and didn’t make it back to the office. Everyone kicked on and it probably got very messy but I went into the city to watch Jessica singing Christmas Carols in the Queen Street Mall. Her very last ever AGC event. We had our Christmas Drinks on Saturday 22 December with about 50 people. Katie did heaps of canapés and a ham followed by Christmas cake and mince pies. We started at 4pm and the last people left about 11pm. It was a fun night and a good start to the Christmas break.

We hope you all have a fabulous Christmas and New Year. My New Year’s resolution is not to get so far behind with this letter next year. Best wishes to you all.

Derek, Katie, Matt, Jessie & Molly