Dear all,
On
28th 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 1st 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
5th 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
11th October we went out to Hellenika Restaurant at the Calile Hotel
for our 23rd 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
26th 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 2nd 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
5th 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 80th 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 20th 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 21st
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 13th 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 53rd 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 21st 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
