Merry Christmas

 Letter No. 254

Dear all,

On 28^th September we went to the Forget Me Not Ball which was raising funds for Dementia Australia. Our group had been organised by our friend Wings whose husband Tony has dementia. About 30 of us went to her house first for pre-dinner drinks. Tony was there but I don’t think he recognised anyone which was sad. The venue was the Calile Hotel in Fortitude Valley which is a fairly hip new hotel. It was a lovely dinner and drinks evening. One of the organisers gave a very moving speech about how dementia had stolen her childhood when her mother developed early onset dementia. The band played on until midnight and we caught a taxi home in the rain.  

The next day we had a group of friends over to watch the Bledisloe Cup Rugby (Australia v New Zealand) and amazingly Australia won. We did a repeat over the next few months with various groups, watching the Rugby World Cup in our studio. It was great fun until Australia was knocked out.

Matthew had all four of his wisdom teeth surgically removed on Tuesday 1^st October. Two of them were quite impacted. Katie took him in to the hospital in the morning. It was meant to be morning day surgery but the dentist was running late so they were there most of the day. Matthew was very hyper and a bit fuzzy that evening so probably the drugs hadn’t worn off. He was a bit swollen and sorry for himself the next day but coped pretty well considering.

On 5^th October we went for a Tennis Party at the Tods house. As usual there was more eating and drinking than tennis playing. The next day we went to Palm Beach with the kids and the dog. Jessica’s boyfriend drove up from Ballina and met us on the beach. Unfortunately we left directing him to where we were up to Jessica, who is somewhat geographically challenged, and she directed him to the wrong beach. Eventually he found us and we had a nice morning on the beach paddle boarding. We put Molly on a paddle board and took her out. She sat in the middle of the board quivering so we thought she didn’t like it very much and took her back in. Surprisingly she ran down the beach and hopped back on to the other board and spent the rest of the time paddling around with us. We had lunch at our favourite restaurant and then Jessica and Bryce went back to Ballina while we went home.

On 11^th October we went out to Hellenika Restaurant at the Calile Hotel for our 23^rd Wedding Anniversary. It was a Greek restaurant we had seen when we went to the Dementia Ball. It is a very cool place and a nice celebration. Greek food is a real favourite of ours.

The next day we went to an Orchid Show at Bellmont. Katie loves orchids and we often have them in the house then plant them out in a garden bed when they stop flowering. We are getting quite a collection so we’ve decided to put a bit more effort into it and find out about the different types and how to look after them properly. We had a nice morning and came home with some more knowledge and quite a few more orchids. I liberated a few hardwood hollow logs from a nearby National Park and we rearranged the garden and made a feature of them. It is looking quite nice.

On 26^th October Katie was helping to run an Outback Futures Fundraising Dinner and by definition that meant that I was also involved. Outback Futures is a small grass-roots charity that provides wellbeing and mental health programs for people in outback Queensland. It has been extremely tough in parts of western Queensland in recent years with the ongoing drought, flooding and bushfires, so these kind of services are much needed. Katie was invited onto the team because they knew she was good at events and this dinner was pulled together in just five weeks, with 120 people attending for cocktail reception, drinks, dinner, speeches, raffle and an auction.  Naturally I spent most of Saturday up a ladder setting up fairy lights and doing other jobs. The dinner was being provided by the chef from a local restaurant (Three Girls Skipping) and was at the local Bowls club. The event had accidently sold double the number of tickets that the restaurant could hold so it had to move to this bigger venue! It took about three hours to set up the lights then we went home for a while and were back at 4pm to set out tables, chairs, flowers and prizes. 

The symbol/logo for Outback Futures is a windmill. We have a small 8ft windmill in our garden that originally came from my parents’ farm Sherana, so I took this down to the venue as a decorative feature. Katie added the charity’s logo and more fairy lights. It was a really windy night so it was going round like the blazes making that lovely windmill noise. Usually the windmill is fixed down but I hadn’t expected it to be so windy. Unfortunately it blew over towards the end of the evening and was damaged so I was fairly unhappy. We also accidently won a quite expensive painting in the auction when Katie nudged me to put in a bid just to get the bidding started! I was not too pleased. The dinner was lovely but we had to pack up after everyone left and then go back the next day to clean up and take down all the fairy lights. It was a lot of work all up but the event raised over $20K for Queensland farmers doing it tough so that made it all worthwhile. In the afternoon I took the windmill over to my brother-in-law’s place and he helped me weld up the broken bits so it was as good as new.   

We did Halloween again this year. Some people at the other end of the street wanted to do a BBQ this year so I had a year off. We did our usual witches lair and I set up a large spider to drop on people waiting in the queue for sweets. I controlled the spider and had a great time scaring people. I particularly liked to scare the Mum’s of little children. It was very funny.

On Saturday 2^nd November Katie and I went for a Sailing Weekend with our friends Mel and Derek Trebilcock. There was a group of twelve people on an organised Learn-To-Sail camping weekend and we were in two smallish yachts. We met on the jetty at 9am, packed the boats and just as we were launching them it started to rain torrentially. We all got soaking wet which was not a good start. Fortunately the rain stopped after about 30 minutes and the sun gradually came out and the weather was great for the rest of the weekend. It was about a five-hour sail to our bush camp on North Stradbroke Island. We all took a turn on the tiller, mainsail, gib sheets etc, so we actually did learn something. We had a late lunch, set up our tents, went for a walk along the beach and through the scrub before having drinks and nibbles while watching the sun go down. We then had dinner and sat around the fire until about 9pm chatting. All of the food was provided and prepared for us. We decided that camping is so much easier when you don’t have to buy or cook the food and only have to wash up your own plates!

We had a reasonably sleepless night, as you usually do with camping, due to curlews screaming outside the tent all night. There was a fabulous camp breakfast and we then packed up the tents and hiked up to the top of the sand mountain behind the beach to admire the view. We had to wait until the tide came in and the boats floated which they did about 10:30am. We loaded the boats and set off sailing again. It was a lovely sunny day. We sailed around Coochiemudlo Island and back to Victoria Point for another late lunch. A really fun weekend.

Katie went to a Melbourne Cup Lunch on Tuesday 5^th November in the city with a group of girlfriends. She had a fun lunch and very merry afternoon and went on to Howard Smith Wharves at sunset. Eventually she rang me on someone else’s phone telling me she had lost her mobile phone which had been on the table next to her handbag. I used the tracking app Find my Friends to see where it was. It appeared to be at the place she had lunch so she went back there with a friend to look for it. She couldn’t find it so we decided it must be in the bar downstairs. I called the phone but the bar was too noisy. Shortly afterwards I noticed on the tracking app that the phone had started to move along Coronation Drive heading towards our side of town. I rang it again and it wasn’t answered, so then we knew that it had been stolen and we guessed that someone was now in a taxi heading home with it!

I decided to drive out to follow the phone while Matthew directed me. Luckily it went to a suburb only five kilometres from our home and I arrived there shortly afterwards. It appeared to be in a block of townhouses but the tracking app couldn’t show which one. I noticed that there was only one house with lights on and it was the only one that had not brought in its bins, so clearly the occupants had been out all day. I rang the doorbell and a young teenage boy answered the door. I asked if his parents might have “accidentally” brought home my wife’s phone he close the door on me and went back upstairs. A few minutes later he showed up with Katie’s phone. On my way back home I saw a police car and pulled over to let them know what had happened. They advised me to report it via the police help line in case the people at that house were connected with other offences. I did report it, which took ages, but am doubtful that there would be any follow up investigation. At least I got the phone back though with minimal trouble and Katie was delighted.

The next week Katie and I went to see U2 at Suncorp Stadium with our friends John and Karen. It was a fantastic concert. There was a huge movie screen behind the band. It was ridiculously big, the full width of the football field and it was higher than the second tier of seating. I has seen them once before, in Sheffield in the UK but this concert was better.

The next weekend I went to Warwick for a family weekend with my Mum, Dad and sister Lisa. Lisa picked me up and we drove to Mum and Dad’s by 7:30am. There were lots of bushfires around and the main road to Warwick was closed so we had to take a very long detour to avoid the fire. It took nearly three hours to make a 1½ hour trip. We went to a small village just outside Warwick first for my Aunt Beryl’s 80^th birthday party. The village was actually just a hall and no other buildings on a very hot and dusty plain. It was surprisingly nice and we met a heap of relatives who we had not seen for 20 years or more. Some Lisa and I had never met! It was a pleasant day with live country bands, a great lunch and a nice afternoon chatting. We left about 3pm and went to our hotel in Warwick. Lisa and I had a swim before getting ready for dinner. We just ate in the hotel which was supposed to be the best restaurant in Warwick anyway. It was very nice and was a long time since just the four of us had had dinner together.

In the morning I went for a run before breakfast at the Coffee Club and a tour around Warwick visiting all of Dad’s old haunts – my Grandmother and Uncle’s houses and the city centre. We then went and visited old family friends, Lionel and Dorothy, at their wonderful farm. I always loved going there as a child, as they always had the most ridiculous number of baby animals – cats, dogs, peacocks, sheep, goats, chickens and other assorted creatures around a higgledy-piggledy farm house. We had morning tea with them before going on to visit my cousin Shirley and her husband Peter and family on their farm on the other side of Warwick. I also used to go there for visits in the school holidays from when I was about eight years old. They have done the old farm house up nicely and it was great to see the scene of many happy childhood Christmases. Lisa and I drove home together after lunch – another three hour drive on the back roads to avoid the fires.

We all went to see the musical Chicago on Wednesday 20^th November at QPAC as an early Christmas treat. We went to a nearby restaurant, Maeve for dinner first. Jessica looked up the menu on the internet before we went and berated Katie for picking such a terrible restaurant. She said she couldn’t find anything she wanted to eat. When we explained the menu was in French she was slightly mollified. After translation we ended up having a delicious dinner. The show was terrific as well. Katie and Matt thought it was one of the best shows they have seen at QPAC.

The following week I got a promotion at work -- the first one I have ever had without moving company or country. I am now Group Leader – Structures and Façades. Basically the same job, same direct reports, same pay, different title, and more things to do! Anyway it was a nice surprise.

The first weekend of December was Matt’s 21^st birthday.  On the Saturday night he had a party at Little Big House in South Brisbane. It is a restored old Queenlander in a great location which has been turned into a very hip pub. He had about fifty friends in a private space and we had invited around ten adults. It was much easier than having a party at home. We just showed up at 6:30pm with balloons and a very large cake, set up the screen with a slideshow of photos of Matthew from birth to the current day and enjoyed ourselves. It was a very good evening. Three of Matthew’s friends gave lovely speeches about him and then I followed suit. We sang Happy Birthday, served the cake and it wrapped up around 11pm. Katie, Jess and I took all his presents and leftover cake home while he went on clubbing with his friends. He got home about 2:30am. The next day was Matt’s actual birthday. He managed to get up in reasonably good time and opened a few family presents before we all headed to Hillstone Golf club for a family lunch with Mum, Dad, Lisa, Andrew and their girls. Mum had brought along a portion of Matthew’s christening cake which had been in her freezer for the last 20 years. Matt had no idea and to tell the truth, we had also forgotten it was there until Mum reminded us. It was a very nice fruitcake and was still delicious. It was a lovely lunch and a great weekend for cake.

It was the AECOM Christmas party on Friday 13^th December at Howard Smith Wharves underneath the Storey Bridge, as last year. My 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. Katie had been at her work Christmas function at Eagle Street Pier for lunch and then wandered up and changed into her cocktail frock and heels in a nearby hotel bathroom. She arrived a bit late and quite merry. We had a nice evening but it had been a long day for Katie so we went home around 10:30pm.

That Sunday we were invited to the Mortlake Road Christmas Party. The Trews were hosting it just a few doors up. Everyone took a plate and drinks and we had a nice time with our friends from the street. The next day was my 53^rd Birthday. We went to the Greek restaurant Café Meze where Jessie works. She really enjoyed being a customer rather than a waitress.

It was my last day of work before Christmas on Friday 20 December. I made it home at 7:30pm after a long lunch in a nearby pub. On Saturday 21^st December it was our annual Christmas Drinks with about 50 friends. As usual Katie had excelled herself with Christmas decorating and baking over the previous few days, and served Christmas canapés, a glazed ham, Christmas cake, stilton and mince pies. We started at 4pm and the last people left about 11pm. An excellent start to the Christmas festivities.

Wishing you all a merry and magical Christmas and all the best for 2020.

Derek, Katie, Matt, Jessie & Molly

Carnival of Flowers

 Letter No. 253

Dear all,

Mum and Dad took Katie and I out for Katie’s belated birthday lunch on 18 July. We went to the Sofitel for their lunch buffet which is pretty special. I had at least two dozen oysters which really ruined my diet but was worth it!

The next day, Friday, we went to City Hall with Jessica for the Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award Ceremony. There were about 40 young people from all over South East Queensland receiving their awards from the governor of Queensland. There was an afternoon tea afterwards and we stayed and chatted to some of the other parents. Jessie then had to rush off to work but Katie and I stayed in the city for a few drinks in a bar overlooking King George Square.

On Saturday it was Jessie’s driving test again. It was third time lucky and she has finally passed. Thank goodness but look out Brisbane. J

The next night we went to the St Aidan’s Signature Ball at the Howard Smith Wharfs. We were invited to sit with a group of people from Jessie’s year but most of them still had younger daughters at the school. There was a lovely cocktail reception on the veranda overlooking the river and Storey Bridge and then we moved inside for dinner. We had a really nice night and knew lots of people and we also scored an excellent table right at the front next to the VIP table (Katie was very happy about that). The only downside was that the band was very average so we didn’t dance at all.

I had to go to Alice Springs on 25-26 July for work. There are very few direct flights so I had to fly there through Sydney and back via Adelaide. It was a very long trip for about two hours of work and less than 24 hours on the ground in Alice Springs. In the evening I went for a run through the town and ran up Anzac Hill for the view. I had dinner in Todd Street Mall and got chatting to some Austrian tourists and had a nice evening. The view from Anzac Hill was pretty good so I got up early the next morning and ran up again to watch the sun rise. It was a little cold but a great sunrise. Then back to the hotel and on to the airport for the trip back to Brisbane.

We went to our friends the Malins to watch the Rugby on Saturday 27 July. Wings made a great Chinese meal for us all before the game. Australia beat Argentina so it was a good result! In more rugby news, we had a few friends the Tods and Grahams over to watch the Bledisloe Cup game on Sat 10 August. Everyone bought a dish and we had a quick meal before the boys went to the pool room to watch the rugby and the girls stayed on the verandah to chat. The boys went back up for dessert at half time. It was a nice evening made all the better by the surprise result of Australia beating New Zealand.

On August 25^th we went to friends Thao and David for dinner. Katie had been working all weekend and has had a crazy month. She raced home just minutes before we had to leave so did a quick turnaround. Thao & David have a vertical house perched on the cliffs of the river bank in Corinda which they call the Treehouse. Their top veranda (of three) is about 50m above the river and looks directly on to the top of huge red gum trees. It was just sundown as we arrived and it was lovely watching the sun go down and all the birds chattering to each other in the top of the trees. Jessie is best friends with their daughter Porsche so she came too as our driver for the night!!

On 31^st August I flew to Hong Kong. I needed to go to Shanghai for work so decided to go via Hong Kong and take a few days annual leave for a little holiday. I arrived about 7:30pm on Saturday evening and stayed with Ian and Cathy Muir for a few nights. On the Sunday morning I went for a 2.5 hour run in the country park behind the Muir’s flat. It was a really lovely run around water reservoirs avoiding the baboons. I made it back to their flat and got changed before we went out to Sai Kung to meet Diane Powers for lunch. The Muirs came as well and drove and we had a lovely and very long lunch on the beachfront before wandering around Sai Kung town. We made it back to Kowloon Tong by about 4pm and Ian and Cathy dropped me at the train station. I caught the train to Tsim Sha Tsui and wandered around looking at the old haunts – my office, the Weinstube and the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront. I then caught the Star ferry to Wan Chai and went and had a beer in The Wanch for old times’ sake before going home.

On Monday I went into Central. I walked up Cotton Tree Drive past St John’s Cathedral where Katie and I were married and stopped in the church for a while. I then caught the Peak Tram up to the Peak and did the walk around the Peak. It is a lovely walk with great views of the harbour which takes about an hour. It was raining (there was a Typhoon Signal No. 3 in force and a Yellow Rainstorm warning). I managed to get around and back into Starbucks for a coffee just as the torrential downpour started. I waited for the rain to subside a little before catching the tram back down and getting a bus to Stanley for a walk around the markets and lunch on the beach. After lunch I went for a swim at Stanley Main Beach. The PA was announcing that people shouldn’t go into the water due to the dangerous wave conditions. As the waves were less than knee high I decided to risk it and had a nice swim. After a shower I caught the bus back to Wan Chai and went for a beer in Carnegies – where Katie and I had our first conversation – before catching the train around to the United Services Recreation Club near Sham Shui Po to meet Ian and Cathy for a nice Indian dinner.

The next day, Tuesday, I spent the morning in Mid-levels, wandering around all the places we used to go and to see if all our old flats were still there. There were heaps of new coffee shops, bars, restaurants, deli’s and supermarkets around where we lived in Caine Road. I also went to Hong Kong Park and the Botanical and Zoological Gardens before walking down through Hollywood Road and Lan Kwai Fong and then on to Central MTR station. I caught the train to Tung Chung on Lantau Island and spent the afternoon at The Big Buddha. It was just about the only Hong Kong tourist site I had never been to, as it is fairly remote. They had built a cable car to get there since we had left but it was closed for maintenance unfortunately, so I shared a 45-minute cab ride with some similarly stranded tourists. The Big Buddha is pretty impressive and I wandered around the monastery and village before catching the bus back to Tung Chung which was one tenth of the price. I went back to MongKok on the train and walked through the Ladies Market and Temple Street Markets picking up a few things before going back to the Muir’s. Katie said afterwards that I had managed to pack our entire 10-years of life in Hong Kong into just three days!

While I was in Hong Kong there was lots of trouble with the protestors and rioting. There seemed to be one or two MTR stations shut every day as there was rioting going on outside the station. It did inconvenience travel a little. One day while I was there they blocked the road to the airport and people had to walk 5km in the rain to make their flights! Luckily I was not impacted.

On Wednesday 4 September I flew on to Shanghai. I arrived about noon and caught the Maglev train most of the way into the city centre. There are two trains, one goes 430km/hr and the other 300km/hr. Unfortunately I got the slower train and it took 8 minutes to travel 40km. I caught a taxi the last little way to my hotel. That afternoon I went for a walk around Shanghai and also visited the Shanghai Museum which was quite good but small and took about an hour. I met my client and the steel factory owner (Chris) for drinks and dinner. As the oldest person in the group and the most honoured guest I got all the best portions of the dishes such as fish heads, goose feet, brains and other delicacies. I need to make sure I travel with older people next time I go to China. Chris was determined to entertain us in style with shots of rice wine. I was pleased to get back to my hotel for a lie down after dinner.

The next day we had a long drive to the steel factory on a massive freeway, driving for three hours up to 160km/hr and never really getting out of suburbia. It was all industrial estates or other cities.  I was also quite surprised at how clean everything was. We spent the next two days inspecting the steel and quality documentation for the steel for our project in Brisbane. That night we went to Taixing City about 30 minutes’ drive away, including a car ferry across the river. It was a massive city. My room was on the 43^rd floor and the view was amazing - huge buildings, sports stadiums, gardens and roads and buildings as far as the eye could see. We had another spectacular dinner and again I got all the good bits like the turtle head and chicken gizzards! After dinner we met up with a few of Chris’s friends and went to a karaoke bar where we had a private room with pool table, massive TV screens, darts and heaps of games. The waiter brought in a case of beer and opened every one of them before we found out they were warm. The Chinese didn’t mind but the three westerners wanted (and got) more cold beers. The amount of waste was quite appalling. We managed to avoid the karaoke by playing pool. Around midnight Chris bought a bottle of Scotch and insisted that we all drank shots until it was gone. There were only eight of us, so it was a struggle to get out of bed and go back to the factory the next morning.

I had to leave at 2:00pm Friday for the 3.5 hour drive to Shanghai airport and the overnight flight back to Brisbane via Taipei. Luckily I had a lie flat bed so got a fair bit of sleep. Matt met me at Brisbane airport and I made it home by 11:30am on Saturday morning. It was good that I made it home that day as it was Jessie’s 18^th birthday that day and her party was that night. I had already set up the fairy lights a week or so earlier and bought the drinks, but we all had to spend the afternoon setting up.

Jessie had about 60 friends over and Katie was quite worried about whether the party would get out of control so she did a lot of food. Matthew was the bartender which was quite a good idea as he had control over the size of the shots the kids were putting in their drinks. Katie and her friend Thao were in the kitchen producing food all night and I handed it around and cleaned up. Jessie had requested Asian food, so Katie did rice paper rolls, sushi, spring rolls and gyoza on platters followed by noodle boxes of vegetable curry and rice. All-in-all the party was quite a success. No-one threw up (at least in our house), there were no knife fights and the kids all seemed to enjoy themselves. They sang happy birthday dutifully when we produced the cake and scoffed the chocolate cake enthusiastically. Jess had been thinking about clubbing in the Valley but in the end decided not to. We got to bed about 1am. We spent the Sunday cleaning up and putting the house back to order.

On Friday 13 September Katie and I went for dinner at the Spanish Tapas place in the village and saw Downton Abbey in the local cinemas. It was really good if you like that type of period drama. The next night we went to Hillstone Golf Club for our friend Caitlin’s 50^th birthday.

The next weekend Katie and I went up to Toowoomba for the Carnival of Flowers. We left about 8:30am on the Friday and made it to Picnic Point Parklands at the top of the range for morning tea and a short hike in the bush. We went to the Orchid Society Spring Show and the Toowoomba Bonsai Group Annual Show in the Rose Cottage of Newton Park. We bought a lovely orchid which was planted inside a hollow log and a bonsai fig in a lovely blue pot. We went on to look at the roses in Newton Park. 

We were staying in Potters Hotel, about 800m from the centre of Toowoomba, which was quite a good location. In the afternoon we went to Laurel Bank Park where the gardens were spectacular with lots of lovely flowers and some very colourful flower beds and fantastic topiary. In the evening we had a couple of drinks at the George Banks Rooftop bar, a very funky and contemporary bar with a lovely view over the city. We wandered around the lanes looking at the street murals for a while and then had dinner at Fitzies in the centre which was heaving.

On the Saturday I went for a run and went back to Laurel Bank Park. Even at 6.45am it was still quite crowded! We had coffee in the GPO Café located in the historic old post office building, before walking on to Queen’s Park as we had all day tickets to the Heritage Bank Food and Wine Festival. We wandered around Queen’s Park first looking at more fantastic flower displays and had a ride on a quaint little ferris wheel. We had a nice lunch at the food and wine festival and found a great bar table to prop ourselves up at for a few hours listening to the bands playing. At 2:30pm we walked back into town for the Grand Central Floral Parade. A squad of Super hornets and Black Hawk helicopters from Oakey flew over to start the parade. There were lots of colourful floral floats although many of them seemed to be advertising aged care homes and had minibuses covered in flower pots and all the residents inside the van dressed up for a nice day out. When we went back to the festival we somehow found ourselves a brilliant space to put our picnic rug down close to the stage with a great view. We took turns wandering around buying a large cheese platter and an olive platter and a couple of bottles of wine for dinner and watched the bands. There was a great funk band Electrik Lemonade followed by  Queen Forever with an amazing Freddie Mercury singer with all the moves and costumes, then an Abba tribute band Bjorn Again. There were fireworks and then we miraculously managed to get a cab back to the hotel.

Unfortunately I managed to leave my phone in the cab. We realised quite quickly and Katie called it and luckily there was a girl sitting on my phone and felt it vibrate (it was on silent). We arranged to pay the taxi driver to bring my phone back after he dropped them off for $20. I was very relieved to get my phone back. However the girl who had found my phone had mischievously set the phone alarm for 3:00am and 3:05am with the reminder “Don’t leave your phone in a taxi”. So funny…NOT!

Sunday morning we went to Cobb and Co. Museum, a collection of beautiful antique horse-drawn carriages. Bill Bolton, the grandfather of one of our close friends, had collected most of them and set up the museum in the 1960s. It was a very nice collection. He had initiated and completed a stage coach ride in 1966 which covered over 3700km from Port Douglas in North Queensland to Melbourne in three months. It is the record for the longest horse-drawn coach ride in the world. It was a very nice weekend, both colourful and floral.

That’s all for this month.

Derek, Katie, Matt, Jessie & Molly

Telephone Box Opening

 Letter No. 252

Dear all,

While Katie was away in England I started work at 5:30am each morning and worked until 4pm. I made it home before the peak hour’s traffic and then did all the domestic stuff like washing, ironing and cooking. It seemed to work pretty well and I really liked the early starts and finishes!

Matthew and I went to a 21^st birthday party for a family friend Claudia Tod. I went in the afternoon to help set up the lighting. It was a lovely party. Matthew actually had two 21^sts on that night and the other was for one of his closest friends. He stayed much longer than he had intended as he was having such a good time. Actually I was having such a good time I stayed much longer than I intended too. I stumbled into bed at 2am. It is a long time since I have been out that late. It was a slow day next day.

On Easter Sunday the kids and I went to SeaWorld. We hadn’t been for many years and it was pretty much exactly the same. We had a nice day looking at the penguins, seals, dolphins, polar bears, sharks and other sea creatures.

Katie arrived home from the UK on Tuesday 23rd April at 6:30am. We had pretended that we wouldn’t be able to pick her up and surprised her at the airport. I took the morning off work and had a nice morning catching up on her news and gossip from the UK. It was a short week actually with Anzac Day Public Holiday on the Thursday after Easter. It will be a bit tough going back to a five-day week after all the recent public holidays.

It was Jessie’s driving test on Friday 26th April but sadly didn’t pass. I was a little surprised as she is a fairly good driver. There is a long wait time for tests and the earliest she can get now is six weeks away.

I went to a Stag Party for one of the guys who work with me on Sat 27th April. It started with barefoot bowls at noon. We played until about 3pm then everyone went back to a fantastic Airbnb apartment they had rented in West End. We played beer pong for a long time. It got very messy, especially when they started mixing rum in the beer which was horrible. About 8pm we staggered into taxis and went into the city. I lasted about an hour before the long day of drinking got the better of me and I slipped out and went home. The others kicked on until 3am. The stag made it to work on Monday but said he still felt drunk. Matthew went to the UQ Law Ball on the same Saturday night and had a big night as well.

On Friday 3 May Katie and I went with Matt to Dugald Graham’s 21^st Birthday Party. He is the son of some family friends. The theme was 70s Glitz and glam. I went as Elton John in a sparkly jacket and glasses. I was quite pleased that quite a few people recognised me. Katie wore Jessie’s Mamma Mia dance costume which was very retro and sparkly. She was delighted that she could fit into her 16-year-old daughter’s dance dress and told quite a few people about it. It was a great party and we danced to 70s music until after midnight. Matthew had two 21^st parties on that night. He went to the other one first and arrived about 11:30pm, so he kicked on much later than us.

On 4th May I went for lunch with my friends John and Shaun. John is in training to swim the English Channel in September this year. He had to qualify by doing a 10-hour cold water swim; the water has to be lower than 16 degrees temperature. He is hoping to do it in 14 hours. You have to do it without a wetsuit, as that is the way it was originally done. Part of his training is to actually put on weight so he has a layer of fat to keep him warm!

The next day I went hiking at Mt Maroon with my friend Derek Trebilcock. We left home at 5:15am and drove to Boonah and met up with our guide and another seven people who were walking with us. We drove a further 50km on to Mt Maroon on the NSW border. We were doing a traverse of Mt Maroon and had to leave some cars at the end point of the hike and then drive around to the start. We started off at 8:30am and it took us three hours to reach the summit. It was a very steep climb up the mountain. We were scrambling up on all fours for quite a lot of the time. It was quite tough. The 360⁰ views were spectacular. We went down the back face of the mountain which was much less steep but still quite rugged without any track down an unmarked gorge. We would have never found the route without our guide. We made it back to the cars by 4:30pm – it was quite a long walk – and then had to drive back to Brisbane. A very long, exhausting but enjoyable day.

Katie and I went out for dinner at the Rocklea Night Market on 10th May. It is a copy of a similar concept on the other side of town, with an Eat Street which has loads of lovely food stalls plus a live band. It was OK but not as well designed or as lively as the original. We did enjoy the band though. There was a torrential thunderstorm just as we got our dinner so we stayed undercover and watched them for a bit longer than intended.

We saw a few movies in May and June – All is True (clever but slightly depressing true story about the end of Shakespeare’s life); Rocketman (slightly confronting life story of Elton John with great music) and Men in Black – International (just fun). We have given up waiting for the kids to be free to come with us and Katie and I just go when we want. We often go to the little boutique cinema in Graceville. It is so nice to have a cinema in our own suburb so we try to support it … plus we can walk home afterwards.

We went to Billy Kart Kitchen for Mother’s Day lunch. It is run by some “celebrity” chef I have never heard of. They have two restaurants and I booked for one in West End, forgot and we went to the other one in Annerley. I was a bit confused when they had no record of my booking but luckily they managed to fit us in on a very busy day.

Katie and I went to the Queensland Pops Concert at QPAC on 18th May. They had used the BBC College Hall that Katie manages for a concert rehearsal and gave her some free tickets. They were great seats and it was a nice variety concert with Scottish and Irish singing, dancing and bagpipes plus the BBC pipe band. We had planned to just go for the first half and then slip out at the interval if we wanted, but it was so good that we stayed to the end.

The next day Jessie’s boyfriend Bryce came over for Sunday lunch. He was a bit nervous as it was the first time he had properly met Matt and I. He was an ex-BBC boy and took Jessie to her Formal last year so we had met him before and Katie had seen him a few times around the halls of the school. He lives in Ballina now so they can only see each other every two weeks or so. We had a nice family lunch together, which is rare these days as the kids are so busy working/tutoring/studying and seem to be rarely at home.   

That night was Matt’s annual Eurovision Party. He had about 20 friends over and they all picked a country and dressed up and also brought food or drinks from their chosen country. Their costumes were hilarious and they had a fantastic smorgasbord of European dishes and desert which Katie and I helped to reheat and serve at appropriate intervals. The kids all piled into the pool room and it was actually quite a fun night as we spent quite a bit of time chatting and eating with Matt’s friends.

On 25^th May the date had finally come to move my telephone box to the street to fulfil its original purpose as a Street Library. I had spent the last few weekends preparing for the move. I cut a hole in the fence and prepared the foundation. The telephone box is incredibly heavy – it weighs about 200kg -- so the move had to be carefully planned. I asked four friends to come over on Saturday morning to help me. I had borrowed a fridge trolley and bought a whole heap of straps and ropes. To move it we had to lay it down almost flat to get it under the front stairs. I was a bit worried that the dome roof (which is made of concrete and weighs about 100kg) might peel off when we tipped it back. I had not intended to ever move it when I built it and hence the roof was mainly held down by its great weight. I strapped the roof down and we started the move. At one stage I was right under it as it tilted back and was worried that we might drop it and I would be crushed! It was a pretty hard task and five of us only just managed to get it moved between us. Even though it was hard work it only took half an hour and Katie missed the whole thing as she was doing a Pilates class! Probably for the best I guess.

The telephone box looks pretty good in its new location. It is inset to our fence line, so that the door can be opened from the outside without anyone having to come into our garden. I spent the rest of the weekend patching up and repainting the fence and putting books in the library, while Katie dropped off invitations to everyone on our street to the official “opening” the next weekend. I was a bit concerned that we might not manage to move it, so didn’t want to send out the invitations until we were sure. 

On Sunday 26^th May Katie and I went to Barefoot Bowls. It was a fund raising event for the butcher in Graceville who supplied a heap of meat and food for a lovely BBQ. We had a group of ten people and spent the afternoon playing bowls in the lovely autumn sunshine. It was quite a lot of fun. The bowls club is only a short walk from home. They were on a big recruitment drive for new members but we decided to give it another ten or fifteen years before signing up as the average age seemed to be early 70s. We had a really fun afternoon and loads of drinks so the kids had to fend for themselves for dinner.

The next weekend I went to see The Reds (Rugby Union) at Suncorp stadium with a group of guys. We went to the Newstead Brewing Company for drinks and a pulled pork rolls before the game. The Reds lost so we went to Caxton Street to drown our sorrows afterwards.

Sunday 2nd June was the Opening Party of our Mortlake Road Book Exchange. I had spent the previous week putting the final touches to it and stocking it with books. I even had a special stamp made with a picture of a telephone box and our address. We invited the whole street and a few select friends from adjacent streets for 4pm and Katie made cheese platters and we served drinks. Pretty much the whole street came, even people we hadn’t met, and most people brought nibbles and drinks and donated books too. At 5pm I gave a little speech telling everyone about how I had made the telephone box and how long it took. Most people were astounded that I had made it myself and thought it was a real one imported from the UK. After my speech the Queen arrived and Katie (wearing her tiara) helped her cut the ribbon to “officially” open the library. The Queen was having trouble with her cardboard arms so it was lucky Katie was there to help her. It was a really lovely community event and the library is well stocked now. Books really do bring people together.

On 12^th June Jessica sat her second driving test. Unfortunately the tester deliberately tricked her (again) and asked her to do a really difficult manoeuvre of turning right from the left hand lane (well that’s what she told us)... Unfortunately, it was another fail so we’ll keep our fingers crossed for the third go.

We went to a new restaurant in the village on 22nd June. It is called Botellon and serves great Spanish tapas and paella with a good range of Spanish wines.  We went with the Tods and the Cilentos; the food was delicious but the seats are mostly outside and it was a cold night. We had to retire to our house for a nightcap to warm up.

The next weekend we went to Stanthorpe in the Granite Belt for a couple of days with our BBC crowd the Biddles and Rasmussens. Katie had booked a lovely farmhouse on the outskirts of town with a fireplace and lots of cosy spaces. We drove up on Saturday morning and met for lunch in Stuttons, a famous apple nursery with a nice restaurant and roaring fire. In the afternoon we drove down to Ballandean to visit a few wineries. We had a nice afternoon driving around to three wineries and had to buy some wine at each. We had dinner and a movie back at our farmhouse next to the roaring fire.

The next day we had booked a winery minibus tour and over the course of the day we visited six more wineries and also had a lovely long lunch. The driver was very entertaining and the wine got better as we went along. Of course we all had to buy wines at every one so our bus was really clinking on the way home! It was a long day of sampling wine and tripping around. We were all quite pleased to get home and have dinner and a bit more wine with another movie! The next morning everyone headed back to Brisbane relatively early so Katie and I took our time and went for a nice hike in the rainforest at Cunningham Gap. There were great views from the top of the range out towards the coast.

We had a busy weekend the next week. On Friday night we went out for dinner with some ex-AECOM colleagues. We went to West End and started at La Luna wine bar for wine and oysters, then on to Billykart Kitchen for dinner and then on to Covent Garden Gin Bar. The Gin Bar had a wall of over 400 different gins and a gypsy jazz band playing with heaps of people dancing in the aisle between the bar stools. It was a very cool place and we stayed longer than we had intended. The next night I went to see The Radiators and Mental as Anything with John Haughton and Ian Muir who was visiting from Hong Kong. It was a fun evening. On Sunday we had lunch at Southbank with the Haughton and the Muir families.  I had to have a sleep on the sofa on Sunday afternoon!

The next weekend was Katie’s birthday. We went out for dinner on her birthday with the BBC parents crowd. We decided to go to Café Meze where Jessie works so that she could serve us. Jess finished her shift and then sat down with us and helped us finish off our platter of food. This was great as we subsequently got a 25% staff discount! The next morning we went to the village for family brunch. This was the only time we could all get together at the same time. The kids are just too busy with their hectic jobs, tutoring and study schedules.

That’s all for this month.

Derek, Katie, Matt, Jessie & Molly

Katie's Trip to the UK

Letter No. 251

Dear all,

Back to real life after our holiday to Western Australia... On Friday 18^th January we were invited to a party for Jack Biddle’s 21^st birthday. This year is Matt’s “Year of the 21sts” and Jessie’s “Year of the 18ths” and it feels as though the kids are constantly out partying with their friends.  Jack’s mother Carolyn had invited us along for moral support and security – not that we would be much use against a group of drunken 21 year olds. Luckily all of Jack’s friends are well-behaved ex-BBC boys. We had quite a nice evening and there were some interesting speeches so we are getting some ideas for Matt’s birthday at the end of this year.

We were back at the Biddle’s house the next weekend for an Australia Day BBQ with a group of ex-BBC parents. Jessie had been up to Caloundra for the weekend with a friend and we drove up the next morning to collect her. We spent a morning on the beach but it was almost too hot and Katie even went swimming! We had a nice lunch at a beach side café but when we went back to the car the alarm went off and we couldn’t make it stop it or get into the car. After a lot of stuffing around we realised the battery in the car key was flat. We managed to get into the car eventually and had to drive to a shopping centre with the alarm going on and off intermittently and get a new battery. It was a bit annoying. Jess drove home as she is still counting the hours towards her learners permit (100 hours required).

Meanwhile Matt was having his own Australia Day BBQ party at home with a group of his friends. They spent most of the day drinking champagne in the boat in the pool. They had a BBQ and made pavlova and had a nice afternoon sitting in the pool in the sun. Amazingly they cleaned up most of their mess and had gone on to another party by the time we got home. A few days later we went for drinks with our next door neighbours who used to own our house. Our neighbours from the other side also came so it was a very neighbourly evening. They keep native Australian bees and have five hives spread around their garden. The showed us the hives which was really interesting. I would get a hive myself but there may be enough bees in our area now.

I have joined a hiking group with a friend and we went on a Larapinta Falls Hike on Sunday 10^th February. There were 10 people and a paid guide going on the 16km hike. We drove down almost to the New South Wales border, to the end of Christmas Creek Road and then to a dead end road up the valley. There is no trail to the Larapinta falls and we were just bashing uphill through the forest, criss-crossing the creek. It was a very hard hike! After three hours we made it to Westray’s Grave, the burial site of one of the initial survivors of the Stinson plane crash in 1937. He was walking out from the crash site for help when he fell off a cliff and succumbed to his injuries in the forest. He was buried close to where he died. After another hour of rock-hopping up the creek we made it to the falls. There was a wonderful swimming hole at the base of the falls and we spent a pleasant hour and a half there, swimming and having lunch. Then it was a four-hour walk back through the forest to get back to the car. I was pretty knackered when we made it back and happy to sit down in the car! There is no way we could have made it without the guide. The forest is almost impenetrable in places. It took eight hours of walking and I got a leech on my ankle which was still itching over a week later!

Katie and I went for a Weekend in Noosa by ourselves from 15^th to 17^th February. I took Friday off work and we drove up in time for lunch. We had a nice studio apartment in Hastings Street which was a great location and we enjoyed time on Noosa main beach, a couple of hikes around the Noosa coastline and some lovely meals out. On Saturday night we went to Locale, probably the fanciest restaurant in Noosa, for a very upmarket dinner. We left after lunch on Sunday and drove straight home as we were invited to a Chinese New Year Party that afternoon at the home of our friends Tony & Wings Malins. The theme was Crazy Rich Asians so we had to dress up like one of the characters from the movie (which we hadn’t actually seen yet). Katie rummaged in her wardrobe and dragged out a couture Shanghai Tang cheongsam that had been hand made for her about 15 years ago when she was slightly slimmer. It still fitted although she couldn’t sit down! She looked fabulous and we had a lovely afternoon and fantastic Asian feast before playing a Chinese dice gambling game into the evening. We only lost a small amount!

The next day, 18^th February, I took a day off work and went to Wet’n’Wild with Matt and Jess for a day of watersliding. School was back so it was very quiet with no school age kids and we got more rides than we ever had before! That week was also Orientation Week at Uni. Jessie went to the market place and signed up for lots of different societies that we didn’t know existed: The Vegan & Vegetarian Society; Yoga & Meditation Society; Chocolate Lovers’ Association; Social Volleyball group; Journalism Club; Psychology Society. We are a little concerned that she may forget to study.

The next week was a bit of a St Aidan’s throwback week. On Tuesday 19^th February we went to the St Aidan’s Honours Assembly for high achieving academic students. Out of 110 students, seven got OP1 (the highest) and three (including Jess) got an OP2. It was so nice to see Jessie in a small selective and high achieving group. The girls were honoured in a whole-school assembly to all current students. They each had one minute to give advice to the current students. Jessie’s message was about being kind to others; she said “the prettiest girl in the room is always the one with the kindest heart” which is a lovely thought. She also got two laughs in her one minute so we (unbiased) thought she was the best.

That Friday night Katie went to a Y12 Mums’ reunion dinner at Hunter & Scout in Graceville. There were about 40 mothers there who clearly can’t let go of the school years. The next night we went to a St Aidan’s Parents & Friends Cocktail Party, for current parents plus a few ex-parents (like us) who obviously can’t let go of the school years... Actually it was really good and we still knew heaps of people and had a nice time. It was also an art show featuring local and student artists. Katie bought a painting of a black orchid from one of Jessica’s school friends who is a fantastic artist.

The next weekend we went to the Sunset Cinema, a pop-up outdoor movie theatre in the Botanic Gardens. It was the opening night, but sadly the organisers were having trouble with their liquor licence so it was a dry bar. They had a lovely food truck and we had reserved bean bags in the front row. We really enjoyed our evening watching Crazy Rich Asians (finally) under the stars, a very funny movie.

We went for dinner at My Thai on Sat 9^th March with our BBC parent friends. I love Thai food – we haven’t been to Thailand for so long. The next day, Sunday I went to see The Eagles with my friend John at Boondall Entertainment Centre. I have wanted to see them for so long and thought they would never tour Australia again. When the tickets came on sale, there was a bit of a mix-up and for some reason I had forgotten we had tickets. John reminded me about a week before the concert so it was a really pleasant surprise and a fantastic concert!

Katie and I had tickets to see Kylie Minogue at Sirromet Winery the following Sunday and it was rather eventful. Kylie is not really my favourite Aussie singer but Katie felt that we should go to see her perform as she is a bit of an Australian icon. It had rained heavily all weekend and Katie predicted (correctly) that the field where the concerts usually take place would be a muddy swamp. On Sunday morning Katie got an email saying that the event would only be open for 4WD cars, not regular cars, as parking is on a slippery wet grass slope. They were putting on free shuttle buses for anyone without 4WD cars from a far distant shopping centre! Sirromet is already a 40-minute drive from Brisbane so we were not at all keen on the shuttle bus option as there would now be thousands of people waiting for buses at the end of the night and it would be a long journey home.

I rang my sister Lisa and asked if she or Andrew had any spare 4WDs lying around their property. Luckily they had an old Toyota Landcruiser which we could borrow. It was quite old with no air-conditioning and the windows were also broken, so they couldn’t be wound down, but we were not complaining… at least not until we hit the traffic jam 2km from the event. It took over an hour to go 2km and I almost expired in the humid heat with the windows up and no AC. Katie ended up getting out and walking beside the car as it was so hot. We made it to the car park, got a brilliant parking spot near the exit and just made it through into the grounds as the heavens opened once again. As predicted, the grounds were like a bog but we were not too fazed; Katie had dressed in best Glastonbury style with her green Hunter wellies, mini skirt and a good waterproof jacket and I was also in boots and a waterproof. We were astonished though at the number of people who had cluelessly dressed in thongs (flip flops), long floaty trousers or high heels, all of which were getting ruined or lost in the mud. Luckily we had tickets to the VIP tent so we headed straight there and then enjoyed the free food and private bar securely under cover while it absolutely bucketed with rain and the rest of the patrons got soaked. We watched the support acts and then the rain stopped just in time for us to go to our seats at the front. So lucky lucky lucky… Kylie put on a great show; very different to the other rock bands we’ve seen there and more like a stage show with backing dancers and lots of outfit changes, but we had such a fun evening and we knew all the songs. We started walking out as the final song was playing and made it back to the car and out of the car park in record time. I dropped Katie home by 10:00am and returned Andrew’s car and made it back home before 11pm. Some friends who had opted for the bus didn’t get home until nearly 2am so we were very lucky. Thanks Lisa and Andrew.

On Friday 22^nd March I went to a Zero Latency virtual reality game evening with my work team. It is a warehouse scale, free-roam, multiplayer VR game and is near my office. We had a few drinks before walking over, then had a briefing and got kitted out with virtual reality goggles, headset, headphones, backpack (containing a computer) and a weapon. The room was an empty warehouse with a black floor and white painted lines in a 1m grid. We were in four teams of four. In the first game eight of us were defending a fort against attacking zombies. It was very realistic and almost like being in the Holodeck on Star Trek. You could look around in 3D and see your friends in Avatar format fighting the zombies. They would attack from different sides and you could go and help on any side. If you died you had a 15-second time out while you were resurrected. At the end the headphones told us to fall back for evacuation and a platform raised us high above the zombies. It all felt so realistic; I kept trying to grab the (virtual) handrails and it really felt like we were going up. In the next game we had two teams of four attacking each other on a space station. We had to run up ramps, go up and down lifts and through a maze to steal the opposing side’s flag. If you died you had to go back to the start and be resurrected. It was very intense. I really enjoyed it. It took about an hour to play three games. We finished about 8:30pm and then went on for drinks at The Green Dragon nearby. A very fun night.     

Katie and I went to see the Book of Mormon on 27^th March at QPAC. We were planning to meet for a nice dinner beforehand but the traffic was absolutely terrible and it took Katie over an hour to drive what usually takes 15 minutes. We had a slightly rushed meal; the show itself was very funny but we both thought it was unnecessarily crude in places so not one of our favourites.

The next night, Thurs 28^th March we went for a dinner cruise on Kookaburra Queen to celebrate my parents’ birthdays. It is Dad’s 80^th birthday this year so we wanted to do something special. We had a quick drink in one of the lovely cafés on the riverbank before setting off on the boat. It was a buffet dinner and there was a singer entertaining us during dinner.   A lovely evening was had by all. After dinner we went out to the bow and watched the lights of the city go by. Mum and Dad had a night at a hotel in the city and it was a lovely memorable evening for everyone.

On Monday 1^st April Katie left heading on a trip to Europe and the UK. Over to Katie…. My first stop was Copenhagen, a city I had never been to before, intended to conquer the jetlag before arriving in the UK. I absolutely loved the elegant city, Danish design and the healthy outdoor lifestyle – bicycles everywhere (actually more bikes than cars), pavement bars with burners and blankets to sit and watch the world go by (even at 6⁰C). Highlights were Nyhaven with its pretty colourful houses lining the wharf; Amalienborg, home of the Danish Royal family (Queen Margrethe was at home); a cycling tour around the historical parts of the city; Danish pastries; Fisksuppe and an evening at the Tivoli Gardens.

Next it was straight to Oxford for a girl’s weekend with all the girls I shared a house with back in 1986-87 in my Oxford days (Julia, Eleanor, Mei-mei, and Nikki). We have kept in close touch over the years, getting together regularly at times at each other’s weddings, pregnancies, with toddlers, then teenagers etc, but it was so nice this time to meet up back in Oxford. We drove past Oxford Brookes, visited our share house and lots of old haunts/pubs, plus iconic Oxford places like the Covered Market, Botanical Gardens, Broad Street, Bridge of Sighs, Turf Tavern, and afternoon tea at Browns. A lot of talking, laughing, drinking, eating and falling into bed at 2am … just like old times. So nice that everyone made the effort to make more fantastic memories.

Only one day in London, but I still managed to fit in a very nice lunch in Covent Garden with Suzanne (the daughter of my godmother Annette), some shopping and then a theatre trip with Julia. And then it was on up North to Cheshire (Hale, near Manchester), where we had lived from 2003-2010. I had great fun packing seven years of Hale lifestyle into four days, which meant a tour of all the new restaurants with old friends – lots of lunches, dinners and breakfasts; a magical early morning walk around Dunham Massey admiring the wildlife; plus a visit to the kids’ old school and our old house. Managed to catch up with so many friends … too many to name here. Sandra hosted a lovely glamorous girl’s night party on the Friday and it felt like I had never left, but was so nice to see everyone again and as always so hard to leave.

My final stop was Yorkshire to spend a week with my brother Chris and wife Julie in their home near Tadcaster. The main purpose of my trip was to celebrate Chris’ 50^th birthday … with the opportunity to speak at his party and embarrass him with lots of childhood photos and stories. After the celebrations it was great to spend a few days together in York and Leeds, as well as Bramham village where we grew up. I managed to fit in visits to my two godmothers Annette and daughter Liz; and Margaret with Jill and Peter; both looking extremely well. Highlights included a lovely day out in Whitby with Chris & Julie for proper Yorkshire fish & chips and a fantastic day at the rugby with Chris watching the Leeds Rhinos beat Huddersfield (in the Director’s Box of course), plus a surprise lunch with my cousin Karen and Steve. By the time I left the sun was shining and I crashed a lovely lunchtime garden party (thanks Chris & Sharon, Caroline & Jon, Julie & Peter) before heading to the airport for the long return flight home.  Farewell England and thanks for a great trip down memory lane.        

Love Katie (Derek, Matthew and Jessica)

Mum and Dad's Birthdays