Merry Christmas!!!

Letter No. 257

Dear all,

JUNE, JULY & AUGUST We had an uneventful few months during lockdown. Stupid COVID sums up my feelings! The only social events were socially distanced Sunday cocktails at our home bar or socially distanced dinners out with just one other couple when allowed. We did our best to support our lovely local (and very international) range of restaurants in Graceville.

We had Sunday cocktails regularly either with family or with invited friends (just one couple at a time). Our current favourites are Moscow Mules, Cosmopolitans, Espresso Martinis and Lemon Sours and of course we keep discovering new ones.

We had local dinners at Kafe Meze (Greek), Il Viale (Italian), Botellon (Spanish) and the Hundred Acre Bar which has a lovely new putt putt course which is great fun. Jessie served us at Kafe Meze which is always entertaining for us. We also went to dinner at my sister Lisa’s house on 5^th July (just yum) and visited Mum & Dad on 7^th June for morning tea and lunch to belatedly celebrate their April birthdays.

On 16^th June Jessie went into the Mater Private Hospital for her Tonsillitis Surgery. She was a little in the wars as she still had her cast on from her broken wrist following her roller-skating mishap. She had to stay in overnight and Katie picked her up the next day. The next ten days were hell for the whole family. Jessica was in severe pain and we all suffered along with her 😊. The poor little thing. I think her advance internet research into how painful a tonsillectomy would be decreased her pain threshold substantially. She also joined a worldwide chat group of post-tonsillectomy sufferers and they all fed off each other’s misery. She couldn’t eat anything at all and lost nearly 7 kilos. Eventually after about ten days she finally felt well enough to eat again and then recovered quickly. Hopefully that will put an end to her constant bouts of tonsillitis. Two weeks later she got the cast off her wrist so she was finally a normal healthy girl again. She hasn’t been game to go roller skating again yet though!

Katie has been talking for a while about having new living room bookcases built in. She got a quote from a professional cabinet maker which was ridiculously high. Subsequently she happened to mention it to an architect friend and next thing he was around for dinner and drawing up plans for bespoke cabinetry over a glass of wine. After several weeks of thinking, I decided I could probably build them myself following his plans. We had to get rid of the existing freestanding shelves first which we had originally bought in Macau and subsequently moved with us to the UK and Australia. I put them on ebay for quite a high price and thought that if they didn’t sell then the whole concept would (thankfully) get forgotten. Much to my surprise, the darn things sold in a day, so I was committed. I spent the next six Saturdays constructing new shelves and am quite pleased with the result. The lamps Katie ordered got stuck in a Melbourne warehouse for weeks due to the second COVID lockdown in Victoria, but it’s all finished now.

It was Katie’s Birthday on 12^th July. We went to Howard Smith Wharf in the city and had cocktails at Mr Percival’s overlooking the river and then pizza at Felons Brewing. It was a little rainy but we had a nice evening. Matthew gave Katie a “voucher” for a night out with him so the next Friday night they went out for a bar crawl and dinner in some cool city bars.

I went to Cloncurry via Mt Isa on 20^th July. It was the first time I had flown anywhere for quite some time. We are building a drone testing facility there. It is designed for high tech military grade drones the size of small cars and smaller commercial drones. It was a 90-minute drive from Mt Isa and I arrived on site just past noon. I spent four hours inspecting construction before heading back to Mt Isa. I could have flown to Cloncurry directly but they have no hire car companies there, so it is easier to fly to Mt Isa. I was quite surprised that lots of restaurants in Mt Isa were still closed due to Covid, even in central Queensland which has recorded no cases. I had a great steak in the Mt Isa hotel, a run in the morning and then flew back to Brisbane. It was so good to get out of Brisbane and go somewhere – anywhere really!

The next weekend Katie went up to Peregian Beach on the Sunshine Coast for a Girls’ Weekend, staying at a friends’ beach house. They had a few nice walks on the beach, long lunches and a boozy night in. I had the house to myself as the kids are always out these days. I had pizza by myself and fell asleep on the sofa in front of a movie – the perfect night in. Katie also discovered a new cocktail (French Martini) at a friend Sue’s house on 9^th August. It was so nice we had to buy the ingredients and try it ourselves the following week – Vodka, Pineapple juice and Chambord (raspberry flavour – yum).

There was some tragic news in August. Our close friends lost their son who was just 18. We were all so very shocked and saddened when we heard the news. Our kids had grown up together as young children in Hong Kong and then seen each other in locations all over the world – Manchester, Spain, Germany, Singapore and Brisbane. Jess took the news particularly hard. His funeral was on 23^rd August in Hong Kong and we had a minute’s silence for him while it was going on.

I did another DIY job in August. Our front fence was installed 35 years ago and most of the fence posts had rotted considerably under the ground. I am not sure how the fence was standing up as many of them were completely gone. Every winter I replace two or three of them. This is very hard work as I have to jackhammer out the old concrete post mix first, and it is never as straightforward as it sounds. This time I was working on the eighth post (of thirteen) and then decided I needed to widen the hole at the base a little bit, to straighten the angle of the post. On the final crowbar strike I caught what I thought was a tree root. Sadly, it turned out to be the incoming copper water main. I was not game to bend it back in case it burst, so had to stop work and arrange for a plumber to come a few days later which was very frustrating. The plumber found that the huge tree nearby had really mangled the pipe and it was very displaced so he decided to totally reroute the water main away from the tree which turned into quite an expensive exercise!

On 28^th August we went to Moda Restaurant in Petrie Terrace for dinner with our ex-AECOM group of friends Sigrid & Nathan and Phil & Anne.  It is a Spanish-style Tapas restaurant and is very highly rated. We decided to have the degustation menu which comprised five starters, three main courses and three desserts. The dishes were all tiny, but even so it was a lot of food!  It was one of the best meals I think I have ever had. The chef Javier Codina is very well known in Brisbane and the restaurant is highly recommended if you are in town.

The next night our friend Lisa invited us to Firepit Drinks at her house. Social gatherings were still limited to ten people, outdoors only, and luckily we were just a group of ten. The evening was to meet Lisa’s new partner Simon. I was really surprised when we arrived to find out that I already knew him as we had worked together on a big project in Toowoomba about six years previously! It was very pleasant evening with drinks and a curry around the fire.

SEPTEMBER The first weekend of September was surprisingly busy. Katie went for a girls’ night on the Thursday night with a group of BBC ladies; then I had a boys’ Backyard Drinks the next night with a group of five local dads; then Katie went out on Saturday night for a foot massage and cocktails in the city with her girlfriends to use a birthday gift voucher. On the Sunday morning we finally went out all together for a Father’s Day brunch at the café next to the restaurant where Jessica works. We had a lovely meal and stayed drinking coffee until it was time for Jess to start work at 11am.

It was Jessica’s 19^th birthday on 7^th September and she made it into a three-day celebration. She went out with friends on Sunday night, we had a family dinner at home on the Monday night and on the Tuesday night she went to her restaurant Kafe Meze with a huge group of girlfriends. She loves the food there but never gets to eat it!

Matt gave me a “voucher” for Father’s Day for a visit to the Stone & Wood Brewery in Fortitude Valley. He is always discovering cool new places in the city and the valley that he wants to revisit.  He and I went there on 13^th September for a few rounds of taster beers and then went on to a fusion Chinese restaurant, Happy Boi, for dinner. It was a really nice present and a great place. I was so impressed with it that I arranged a work drinks function there a few weeks later. It was the first work drinks we’ve had for a very long time. AECOM used to do Friday works drinks every fortnight but there have been none since February. My team at work is pretty fed up with working from home and not having Friday drinks anymore.

OCTOBER Katie and I went to Hamilton Island for a long weekend on 8-13^th October. We had been invited by our friends David and Thao to stay on their boat which was berthed at the Marina there. Thao is the mother of one of Jessica’s best friends Porsche and we know Thao and David quite well through the St Aidan’s community, but had never been on their boat before. Katie’s friend Lisa and new partner Simon were also invited, which was great. We flew up on Thursday. It was a short five-minute drive from the airport to the Marina and that was when we discovered that the boat is completely amazing and is straight out of a film star lifestyle!  It is a glossy 24metre motor launch with five double bedrooms, three with ensuite, plus a full galley kitchen, dining area, enclosed indoor sitting area and three lovely outdoor sitting areas on the bow, stern and upper deck. They also have a jet ski and a small tender/speed boat. It was all pretty fabulous. Our bedroom was at the bow and had a hatch directly over the bed which we opened every night to gaze at the stars.

When we arrived, Thao had arranged a fantastic seafood feast with oysters, prawns, Moreton bay bugs followed by fish and chips all washed down with champagne while we watched the sunset and admired all the other luxury yachts and motorboats in the marina. The next day I went for an 8 km walk around Hamilton Island with David and their dog Asha before breakfast. We then took the tender out to a secluded beach on the other side of the island and had a picnic lunch on the beach. In the afternoon we cruised over to the beautiful long white sands of Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island, where we anchored for three nights. We had a lovely long weekend there swimming, snorkelling and going for walks on islands and along the beaches. One afternoon we went oyster hunting, prised them off the rocks, took them back to the boat and ate them with lemon in less than two hours. They don’t get much fresher. We sailed back to the marina for the final day and spent a few hours at the pool in the Hamilton Island resort. On the final night we all dressed up and took David and Thao out for dinner at a great Thai fusion resort restaurant. It was also our 24^th wedding anniversary that day, so it was a fantastic way to celebrate and a fabulous holiday.

Matt went to a Law Dinner on 17^th October with a group of his Law friends. They had a Pre at our bar beforehand. It was black tie and they all looked very smart. The pre went on for quite a long time, so they probably didn’t need many drinks at the event! It was Carolyn Biddle’s 60^th birthday on 23^rd October. Katie had arranged dinner, balloons, guests etc at another Graceville restaurant – Boucher (French). Our second 60^th birthday party this year and there are more to follow which is a bit worrying. 

For our wedding anniversary, Katie had bought tickets for the Opera Queensland grand reopening event at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC). It was their first performance since January and the first per event held at QPAC in a similar timeframe. Due to COVID restrictions they only had sold 50% of the tickets and there were two empty seats between everyone, all seated in a checkerboard pattern. It was great for seeing the stage but a little sad for the performers that their grand reopening event was playing to a half empty hall! They seemed happy to just be back on stage though. We went over the road to the Charming Squire for dinner afterwards. It was the AFL Grand Final that evening, (playing to a capacity crowd of 40,000 at the Gabba (oh the inconsistency with indoor and outdoor events!!) and the streets and pubs were all very lively. Still no Covid community transmission in Queensland at this point though; we have been very lucky really.

We were in a dilemma about Halloween this year and Katie had lots of discussions with our neighbours. Every year we have more and more people and last year we estimated about 1300 kids, judging by the number of sweets & lollies consumed. In the end, Katie led the decision for our street to not to do anything. The official guidelines restricted us to small gatherings of max 30 people and it would have been impossible to impose any restrictions of social distancing or take contact details. We still felt a bit sad on the evening, as there were quite a few kids walking up and down in costume and we felt compelled to apologise as they went past.  

NOVEMBER The next day we went for a final boat trip on our friend David’s boat. He had brought it down from Hamilton Island to the Gold Coast as he plans to sell it -- and buy an even bigger boat!! There were about 16 of us and we all arrived first as a big surprise for his 60^th Birthday (third 60^th birthday party this year). Matt came as well so that he could drive us home. We went to South Stradbroke Island which was about a 40-minute motor. We anchored at a beach and spent the day swimming, lunching, jet skiing and going for a hike over to the surf side of the island. It was a lovely day.

It was Melbourne Cup on 3^rd November. We were still only allowed small gatherings outdoors, so Katie had arranged a nice lunch for 12 girlfriends, poolside at home and they watched the race on the big TV in our Studio. It worked very well. I was at work and some loser had arranged a Teams meeting at the same time as the race. There was no official work function this year either. We usually have a lame chicken lunch but not this year due to Covid. I came home a little early and the ladies were still going hard, so I started whipping up Espresso Martinis. Katie had mentioned to quite a few friends that they might like to pop in after their events finished. Surprisingly, we ended up with quite an after-party as people started arriving. Some of them were falling out of taxis at our front gate at 7:30pm, so things kicked on for quite a while!

I went to the Bledisloe Cup at Suncorp Stadium on 7^th  November. I went with four mates but one had a family crisis and couldn’t make it (but did meet us for pre-drinks at the Regatta Hotel). It was a great game. We were very pleased that Australia beat New Zealand, especially after the thrashing we got in the previous match. The stadium was almost full, circa 50,000 people. It was great to be out at a big event again. Afterwards we tried to go to the Caxton Hotel, but the line was more than 200m long! Everyone still had to sign in with the Covid App. It is so ridiculous as there have not been any community transmission cases in Queensland for months. We gave up and caught the train back to Graceville and had a final roady at the local bar instead. Meanwhile, Katie went to a 21^st party for one of our friend’s daughters, Tara.

My team has started organising our own Work Drinks every month now. We went to the Osbourne hotel in Fortitude Valley on 13^th November and most of the team turned up for a very big night. Katie went to a couple of girls’ parties. One of them was a dinner with the St Aidan’s mums from Jessica’s year. She had a good chat with all the Mums and got the gossip on what all their daughters were doing now. School days seem so long ago already!

On 21^st November Katie and I went for a farm gate day trip to Tommerup’s Dairy on the new South Wales Border. We were a bit old to walk around the farm and pet and feed the chickens, sheep, calves and pigs but it was quite fun. We went for a walk down to the river, had morning tea and bought some lovely meat from their butcher. They also had some tiny and very cute five-week-old Jack Russell puppies. It was very hard to tear Katie away from them and she immediately wanted one.

There were a few more social events in November. Jessie had a pool party with about 35 friends with pizza, a fire pit, volleyball and general partying. They were all in the pool for ages then warmed up by the fire. I went to another dad’s Backyard Drinks, which have now been renamed the “Square Mile Drinks” as you have to live in the immediate streets! Alf hosted this time and really raised the stakes by providing a delicious roast beef dinner as well rather than our usual nibbles and pizza. He also did a blind wine tasting with seven different bottles of chardonnay to make it really difficult. We had 14 bottles of wine between seven of us. It was a good night. We also went for another lovely boat trip from Sanctuary Cove on the Gold Coast with some friends of Thao & David’s who have a similarly spectacular boat. It was another lovely day on the water with champagne and oysters for lunch and a disco on the top deck of the boat in the afternoon.

DECEMBER AECOM didn’t have their usual big Christmas cocktail party this year due to Covid restrictions in function spaces. Instead we were allowed to go out in smaller team groups. I took my team out to the Plough Inn in Southbank for dinner and drinks. I left the stay-hards at 1am and they didn’t finish until 3am so it was a pretty big night.

The kids completed their fifth and second years at Uni respectively in November and they are now both doing internships. Matt has a four-week placement at the Department of Public Prosecutions. He is finding it really interesting and spends a lot of time in the Magistrates and Supreme Courts assisting the prosecution. He has been to a high-profile rape case, which had a hung jury, and also a double manslaughter case which got lots of media coverage and his team was filmed leaving the court. It was also his 22^nd Birthday on 8^th December and he spent most of the day in court! Jessie is working for our local councillor Nicole Johnston doing a signage project for a local park. Katie has also been spending a bit of time on academic study and has completed two graduate certificate courses -- one on Philosophy, Literature & Socio-cultural change through the Wesleyan University, USA and another one on Film, Images & Historical Interpretation from the University of London. She is planning a move back to the publishing world next year.

We had a much reduced Christmas Drinks party was on Sat 21th Dec. We just kept it to people in the neighbourhood that we had been seeing quite a lot anyway as there are still restrictions on number of people at indoor events in your home. Although it was not quite as big as we usually make it, it was nice to have the opportunity to raise a glass with our friends after this very difficult year.  Katie went all out with baking and it was the usual feast of ham, mince pies, cake and cheeses. Wishing you all a wonderful happy and healthy Christmas and sending positive thoughts and hopes for 2021.

Cheers, from Derek, Katie, Matt, Jessie & Molly

Hospitals and Cocktails!

Letter No. 256

Dear all,

FEBRUARY Katie and I had tickets to see Queen with Adam Lambert in concert at Suncorp Stadium the night after I arrived back from South Korea. The forecast was for a wet night so we went prepared for rain but had no idea how bad it would actually get. Unfortunately, the heavens opened just as we arrived and there was absolutely torrential rain for the rest of the night. People a bit further back were undercover and therefore remained dry, but we had fantastic seats right at the front of the stands, out in the open, and got soaked immediately. The rain was so heavy it was like being in a shower all night with the water full on. It was not fun. Queen continued bravely on with an amazing concert, under hastily rigged up canopies, but later described it as the wettest concert they had ever given.  After two hours of this total downpour Katie decided she had enough of being wet and cold and caught the train home by herself while I was at the bar. I stayed on as I was wearing my drizabone and thought I was dry underneath, but when I got home I discovered that I was wet through as well, as the water had been dripping down the back of my neck.

The next weekend we went to Sue Evans’ 50^th birthday party. Sue and Jason live in Graceville on the next street to us but have a hobby farm in Boonah, so they had the party up there. There was a bus option taking people to and from Graceville, but we decided to stay in Boonah for the night and drove up on Saturday morning. It was not far from Mum and Dad’s farm so we dropped Molly off for a one-night sleepover on our way there. We drove up to Mt French Lookout first which was a short walk and a fantastic view over the wonderfully green Boonah valley, after all the rain of the previous week. Such a huge change from the drought conditions just a few weeks earlier! The bus picked us up at 6pm and it was a lovely party with a large marque on the grass next to their house, with a great meal, band, and lots of dancing. There was also a bucking bronco for people to ride which spins and bucks faster and faster until it is impossible to stay on. It is surprisingly difficult. I only gave it one try and lasted quite a long time. The operator made it buck faster or slower depending on the age of the person having a go and made it faster for the young adults which was very entertaining for everyone watching.  Maybe he went easy on me. The bus picked us up at midnight and dropped us back to our hotel in Boonah. We were quite glad we didn’t have to sit on the bus all the way back to Brisbane.

On 28^th February we had a work team Darts Night with partners. It was organised by one of the people in my team and around 20 people came along with partners. Katie came too. We had a three-hour booking for a darts “bay” which had an electronic program offering dozens of different darts games, keeping score and telling you whose turn was next. We were matched up by the computer into ten teams of two. Wait staff brought drinks and food to our bay and it was great fun and it never seemed like a long wait between turns. As the night wore on we all started to lose track of whose turn it was to throw next and what the score was. Lucky that the computer was doing that for us. Such a fun evening.

MARCH On Tues 3^rd March Jessie caused a bit of a health scare. Katie was running a work function that night and I was driving home when Matthew called me and said that Jessie was really ill. She was comatose on the sofa by the time I got home. After a phone discussion with the local GP we decided to call an ambulance as her temperature was extremely high. They showed up about 30 minutes later and put her on a drip immediately. They asked if any of us had been overseas recently and without giving it any thought I said that I had been in South Korea 21 days ago and Matt had been there and in the Philippines 19 days ago. Things rapidly went downhill from there and suddenly Jessie was a potential Covid-19 case. The Ambos said that it was most likely that she had Tonsillitis, but of course they didn’t want to take any risks. The Covid-19 situation was very new to Australia at this point and nobody quite knew what to do or how to treat this interesting new turn of events. The Ambos phoned around to find a hospital to admit Jessie. The Wesley and St Andrews (nearby private hospitals) both refused to accept her, but Greenslopes Hospital eventually agreed to admit her.

While this was going on another ambulance arrived as the first one was just a paramedic car and could not transport anyone.  Jessie was loaded into the ambulance and they took her off to Greenslopes Hospital under lights and sirens while I followed in the car. Meanwhile Katie was still at work in the middle of an event and had no idea any of this was going on. We arrived at the hospital about 8:30pm. Before we left home there had been a long telephone discussion with Greenslopes Admissions about how Jessie had Tonsillitis, but I had been overseas three weeks previously. Sadly, this information did not make it to the doctor who was treating us. As soon as he heard I had been to South Korea he backed out of the room and came back 15 minutes later in a full Hazmat suit. He made us all put on masks and move to an isolation room immediately. About an hour later he came back, still in Hazmat suit, and reported that the hospital couldn’t treat us as they only had one positive pressure room and it was already in use, so Jessie would now be transferred to the Covid-19 ward at the Princess Alexandra Public Hospital. All discussion that she actually had Tonsillitis was ignored at this point and we were left to wait for another ambulance to transfer us. I asked if we could drive ourselves (it was only 10 minutes away) but we were told that was too risky.

After another hour I told them I was just going to leave and drive ourselves so could I just have the necessary paperwork. I think they were glad to get rid of us, so the paperwork arrived quickly and we made it to the PA hospital by 11pm. I decided to take a different tack this time so I told them Jessica had already been diagnosed with Tonsillitis and needed IV antibiotics but our night had spiralled out of control due to the fact that I had been in South Korea three weeks ago. Nevertheless, we were immediately put in masks and placed in the isolation room. A nurse and doctor arrived in full Hazmat suits (again) and examined Jessica. After five minutes they announced that she had Tonsillitis (surprise) and put her on an IV antibiotic drip. By 1:30am, Jessica was feeling a lot better. The nurse said we just had to see the doctor and we could go home. Unfortunately, an emergency car accident case arrived just at that point so our doctor couldn’t come back to see Jessie until 4:30am. We were finally discharged at 5.30am with a doctor’s certificate and prescription for a course of antibiotics. Jess had managed to sleep a bit but I had not slept at all! I bailed out of work the next day and spent the day sleeping.

Matthew and I went to see Parasite on 7^th March. It was a South Korean movie which had won the Best Picture at the Academy Awards. We were keen to go due to our recent trip to South Korea. It was a good movie but very quirky and unexpectedly gory. On Sat 14^th March we all went to Jessica’s restaurant, Café Meze for dinner, which turned out to be our last dinner out before lockdown. Jessica really enjoyed being a guest at the restaurant rather than serving.

A few weeks earlier Katie had resigned from her job at BBC. She had been finding it challenging to manage the daily operations of an increasingly busy full-time venue when she was only employed on a part-time basis and she was also ready for a change. In hindsight her timing was excellent as she spent her final week cancelling all booked events until August. Katie’s last day at BBC was Friday 20^th March. She went to the Regatta for drinks with a few work colleagues about 3pm and I came along after work, stayed for a few drinks and a snacky dinner before pouring her into the car to go home.

The next night, with more lockdown restrictions rumoured, we had a group of friends over for a socially isolated drinks night around the fire pit next to the pool. Katie made separate cheese platters for each couple. We ended up ordering pizza and it kicked on for quite a while. It was a nice relaxed evening and the last time we saw any of our friends socially for quite some time. The next night Premier Scott Morrison announced in the first of many press conferences that we would be in lockdown from the very next morning.   

 Jessica had another acute bout of Tonsillitis on 31^st March and ended up going to hospital by Ambulance again. She went to the GP in the morning with a sore throat and was diagnosed with Tonsillitis again and prescribed antibiotics. As soon as she got home, her temperature spiked very quickly, up to 41 degrees. Katie had impending eye surgery the next day, so she was not allowed to take her to hospital and I was still at work so Matt called an ambulance. Within a very short space of time, Jessie was on an IV drip and antibiotics and was raced to the Mater Private Hospital under lights and sirens (again). There was some concern (again) about the possibility of her being put in a Covid-19 ward due to the sore throat and high temperature, but Katie explained that she had already been diagnosed by her GP with Tonsillitis just a couple of hours earlier, so things worked out much better this time.  I picked her up at about 8:30pm. She is now booked in to have her tonsils removed in June due to this repeated severe reaction.

Katie had eye surgery on 1^st April. It had been booked in for late April, but they pulled her surgery forward to the very last day that elective surgery was permitted in Queensland. She had cataract surgery and lens replacement on both eyes, done on the same day due to the rush. I dropped her off at 11:30am and they told me to come back at 3pm. As usual Katie took a long time to wake up from the anaesthetic (she is terrible with any kind of drugs) and we did not get out of the Queensland Eye Hospital until close to 6pm. Despite the slow recovery time, Katie was delighted with the result and said that her vision was better than it had been since she was 14. A huge success. The surgeon was extremely pleased as Katie officially had the most complicated vision problems that he had ever corrected and now doesn’t even need glasses. He is going to write a study on her for the Lancet! Katie now has 2020 vision in 2020. 😊

APRIL was really a bit of a non-event due to the Covid-19 Lockdown. Luckily I was able to still go to work, sitting in a bay of 18 people by myself. Katie, Matt and Jessie were all at home; the kids doing Uni work online. Matt continued at KWM doing Paralegal work from home, but Jessie’s waitressing was hit hard. She only got one two-hour shift per week taking phone orders and packing the takeaway food. We had takeaways every Friday night from one of the local restaurants and Katie and I played tennis most weekends. I also did lots of gardening and carpentry jobs around the house, and one of my first projects was to reconfigure the Studio  kitchen into a bar. Katie and Matt had great fun planning our weekly family cocktail nights in the Studio Bar and Katie bought cocktail glasses online while Matt researched classic cocktails. Naturally, we had to wait until Jessie was legal to do this. 😊

Easter and Anzac Day were both very different this year. We usually have a birthday lunch for my parents on Easter Sunday but due to the restrictions we ended up just having Sunday lunch by ourselves. Naturally, Katie went to the same amount of effort, with Easter decorations and a fabulous slow-cooked lamb and pavlova. In the afternoon I did an Easter hunt for Katie and the kids. Katie has organised it every year but it was the first time she had done one herself since she was a teenager. Anzac Day was also very different. We all stood in our driveways at 6am. I brought out a music speaker and broadcast the dawn service from Canberra to the eight houses around us. There were people lined up all along the street.

MAY We had a social weekend when the first stage of Covid-19 restrictions lifted mid-May and we were allowed to gather outdoors in small groups up to 10 people.  Our Studio Bar was the perfect venue for this so we had four consecutive nights of cocktails. Matt had six friends over for Espresso Martinis on the Thursday evening, I had a few mates over for firepit drinks and red wine on Friday night, Jessie had a girlie night on the Saturday and Katie had a girls cocktail evening on the Sunday. One of Katie’s friends brought kumquats from her tree so I played barman and made them Frozen Kumquat Martinis which were delicious.

On 20^th May Jessica decided to try out her new lockdown purchase -- a pair of retro roller skates. She went roller skating on the local netball courts. She got home around 5pm with a sore wrist where she had fallen over. It got more painful as the evening went on, so we decided to get it X-rayed. We went to the Mater Public Hospital. This time she was seen by the doctor, X-rayed, diagnosed, treated and home by 10pm. She now has two fractures at her right wrist (she is right-handed). She had a half cast initially and had to go back ten days later for a full cast. The thing she was most worried about was whether she could get a black one! I have had a lot of bonding time with Jessie this year during these long hospital visits. Following her extensive research of leading Brisbane hospitals Jessie has reported that she likes Mater Public the best. Handy to know. 😊. I hope you are all coping well in lockdown. That is all for this time. 

Cheers,  

Derek, Katie, Matt, Jessie & Molly

South Korea

 Letter No. 255

Dear all,

CHRISTMAS & NEW YEAR We had a fabulous Christmas Day as usual with Lisa & Andrew, Mum & Dad and Andrew’s extended family. Three days later we set off on our summer holiday; this year a week at Noosa over New Year as we had international trips planned later in the year. We had a lovely two-bedroom apartment on Noosa Sound a short walk from Hastings Street. We had a day on the beach and a family dinner at Ricky’s Bar and Grill on the first night. We spent a couple of evenings teaching Jessica about alcoholic drinks and cocktails. She had been having trouble never knowing what to order at bars as she didn’t know what she liked (or even what drinks were called). We ordered different drinks for her to try and Pina Coladas and Cosmopolitans got the thumbs up. On Sunday we went to Peregian for the markets and beach and then to the Boathouse for dinner. It was a lovely bar and restaurant with fantastic views over the Noosa river to watch the sun go down.

The next day we hired a speed boat and cruised around the river and the canals looking at all the mansions. We walked to Hell’s Gate in the Noosa National Park the next morning which was New Year’s Eve. There were quite a few of our friends up at Noosa and we kept bumping into people we knew. On New Year’s Eve we were invited to Kylie and Alf’s house in Sunshine Beach. We caught an Uber to Sunshine about 5pm and managed to get a lift back at midnight. Matt and Jessie both had plans with friends in Brisbane at New Year, so they drove back that afternoon. Katie and I had a couple of quiet days at the beach before heading home. It was a lovely summer break.

JANUARY On Sunday 5^th January we went with a group of friends to the Magic Millions Polo at the Gold Coast. There was a minibus to take us there and back. We were in a private marquee with lunch and drinks included so it was a merry afternoon. There were three polo games and it was great fun to watch. They were apparently using a “slow” puck and real polo is faster; it was very impressive though.  There were a few celebrities including Zara Phillips (who was playing), Mike Tindall, Rebel Wilson (who is married to a famous polo player), Jet Kenny and Billy Slater. We are not really into celebrity spotting, but Katie is always excited to see a member of the royal family.

MATT’S TRIP On 9^th January we took Matt to the airport and said goodbye as he set off for his exciting six-month trip overseas, with six weeks travelling and then a semester at Shanghai Jiao Tong University studying law and international relations. Matt was so excited about this opportunity to live and study in China after nine years of learning Mandarin Chinese at school and Uni. His first destination was Hong Kong to catch up with our friends Paul Hart & Diane Powers and their kids, Ian & Cathy Muir and kids, followed by a few days in Macau. Matt had an absolute ball in Hong Kong and was very well looked after by everyone. After that he was flying on to Tokyo to meet a group of friends for a week’s skiing in Hakuba and then 10 days touring around Japan, followed by ten days in South Korea with me (I was also bringing his suitcase with all his stuff for his uni semester) before he flew on to China.

Back in Brisbane, Katie and I had two days at the Brisbane International Tennis. The tickets were my Christmas present from Katie. It is only a five-minute drive to the stadium in Tennyson. Jess dropped us off (useful at last) and we Ubered home. There were three games each day in the day-time session. They were all women’s matches and we saw lots of the women’s greats (Madison Keys, Karolina Pliskova, Petra Kvitova, Naomi Osaka, Kiki Bertens). Sadly Ash Barty had crashed out of the tournament fairly early but we had a great two days. We felt inspired so played tennis ourselves on Sunday morning.

On 18^th January Katie and I went to see Elton John at Sirromet Winery. It had been quite wet so the organisers decided to make it a 4WD only event. Luckily we were going with a friend Libby who had a 4WD and was happy to drive. We arrived at 4pm and sat in the car until it stopped raining. We went in with just enough time to eat, have a drink or two and get to our seats before Elton came on at 7pm. He was fabulous and there was hardly any rain at all during the concert so it worked out well. A really great evening.

Matt had a fantastic time skiing and touring in Japan. Meanwhile the world was just beginning to hear rumours about an unknown virus in Wuhan, China which was a bit concerning. Wuhan is 1000km from Shanghai and at this point there was not much known about the virus which sounded a bit like SARS. The next weekend was the Australia Day weekend and we went to a nice barbeque party at our friends Nathan and Sigrid. It was on the day before Australia Day (politically correct so as not to offend Aboriginal people). Nathan had smoked a huge pork leg and we had delicious pulled pork for a late lunch about 5pm before ubering home. I cycled over and picked up my car the next day.

Over the next ten days some big changes happened. Brexit took place in the UK on 31 January, somewhat anti-climactic after four years of waiting. This was overshadowed by the emergence of Coronavirus which was now clearly a major problem in China, although not anywhere else at this point. Matt had an email from Shanghai JT University saying that the semester start date would be delayed. Two days later the Australian Government introduced travel restrictions to China and the next day UQ emailed Matt to say that his study semester in China had actually been cancelled. Matt was devastated. He phoned us from Kyoto to discuss what to do. After a lot of soul-searching and several phone calls, we agreed together that he should continue on through Japan with the boys and then on to South Korea as planned. I would still fly to meet him for our planned ski trip (obviously minus his suitcase ☹). Matt would have to cancel his flight from Seoul to Shanghai and then fly back to Australia after the ski trip with me, avoiding China at all costs. In the end he had to get a flight routed through the Philippines which was the only viable option at the time. He would have to re-enrol into UQ for the coming semester if possible. It was a challenging few days.

FEBRUARY – Trip to SOUTH KOREA  1-12 Feb 2020

Day 1 - BRISBANE TO SEOUL.  It was a nine-hour flight followed by a two-hour train and taxi ride to my hotel. I didn’t arrive till 8:30pm. The room was small but traditional - mattress on the floor, wet bathroom, crappy plumbing and no storage. I went for a walk around. There was a street market all around the hotel. It was mainly selling winter coats. I found a little local restaurant and had dinner before heading back to bed.

Day 2 - SEOUL.  I woke up at 5am and decided to go for a walk. It was pretty cold. About a block from the hotel I found the Dongdaemun History & Cultural Park. It is an amazing freeform building which is also a museum. The building itself was really amazing with curved surfaces, arches and spectacular cantilevers. I also walked along a section of the Seoul city wall, portions of which were built in the 14th century. I decided I wasn’t dressed warmly enough and went back to get more clothes.

After breakfast I caught the subway to the Korean War Memorial. The building was surrounded by a huge collection of boats, planes, helicopters, tanks, missiles and other military hardware from the Korean War. There were also some spectacular statues and memorials so it took me over an hour to look around the outside. The memorial is also a very good and well-organised military museum. There is a marked route around the building tracing every war the Korean people have been in since 3000BC. They seem to have been in a constant state of war for 5000 years! The Korean and Vietnamese Wars were the most interesting. I was there for over four hours.

After a coffee I caught a cab to Namsan Seoul Tower. There is a cable car to the top of Mt Namsan in the middle of the city but I caught the bus up. The tower is 240m tall and has unrivalled views across Seoul. It was a little foggy but still worth the visit. After a late lunch and wander around the peak I decided to walk down. I asked the tourist desk. The lady was convinced I was mad and said I had to catch the bus. She told me it would take more than 30 minutes and was too far! I set off without directions and managed to find civilisation after an easy 3km downhill walk.

That evening I went to the apartment of Beth Cave & Rob McBride who are friends from our Hong Kong days who have recently relocated to Seoul. I admired the views over the Korean Palaces before we went out for dinner in a nearby nightlife district. It was a cool area with funky restaurants in old buildings in twisty narrow lanes. After dinner we went to a wine bar for a nightcap before cabbing home. It was so great to catch up with Beth and Rob.

Day 3 - SEOUL.  Beth took me on a walking tour of Seoul today. We walked 21km setting off around 9am and wandered around the business district and looked at the embassies, Town Hall, Rob’s office building, around the outside of the historic Palaces, the President’s house (Blue House) before getting to the Bukchon Hanoi Village. This is an area of hundreds of traditional Korean houses (Hanok) many of which have been transformed into cultural centres, coffee shops and shopping districts in quirky, winding, hilly streets. We stopped twice, once in a cafe and the second time in a tea house at the top of a hill with fantastic views over the tiled roofs back to the city.

We kept walking up the mountain until we made it to the Seoul Fortress Wall. The inner wall is mostly complete and 28km long. It has castellations along the full length and follows the ridges of the hills. It has very good views over the city all the way. We got back to the city by 2:30pm and has a quick lunch from some street stalls before walking back to our respective apartments. It was a long day but very interesting and I got to see parts of Seoul the typical tourist wouldn’t. Thanks tour guide Beth.

Matt arrived from Japan in the afternoon, having travelled from Hiroshima that morning and we met in the lobby of our hotel. That night we went on for a traditional Korean BBQ Food Tour which Matt had bought for me for my birthday. We met the tour guide and one other person at a nearby subway and after a short walk were in the restaurant. The host was very amusing and gave us lots of information about Korea and BBQ etiquette. The meal was BBQ pork cooked on a tray with heat supplied by a pot of red-hot steel bolts. Surrounding the tray was a groove in which there was a mixture of garlic, onions, eggs, kimchi and other vegetables. We also had traditional Korean milk beer which looked like fizzy milk but tasted like beer. The food was delicious! After an hour or so we were surprised to find out we were going to another restaurant. It was a short walk away and from a street stall we selected a huge variety of seafood and other Korean foods such as pancakes. These were given to the staff and we then went through a “secret” door and upstairs to a pub. This time we had two types of Korean Sake – this is nothing like the Japanese type and nowhere as near alcoholic. We were quite full but the food showed up about 15 minutes later and was delicious with a few more rounds of Sake.

Day 4 - SEOUL.  We caught the metro to go to visit some Korean Palaces that the Royal Family lived in from 1600s until 1910. We were visiting the “second” Palace of Seoul as it has a fabulous “Secret Garden” behind the palace. When we got out of the subway, Matthew noticed a sign for the Constitutional Law Court of Korea. We had to take a diversion to see it and get a selfie. Matthew proceeded to tell me about the impeachment of two previous Korean Presidents that had happened in that court. He knew a ridiculous amount about it!

After this slight detour we got to the Secret Garden tour and had an hour and a half wandering around the gardens and looking at the beautiful wooden buildings hidden in the trees. It was really great, even though winter is the worst season to visit as many trees have lost all their leaves. All the ponds were frozen with the poor fish swimming around under the ice. After the tour we spent another hour wandering around the huge palace buildings before a coffee to warm up! I was a little surprised when Matthew said he wanted to visit the “First” Palace as well as I was feeling quite palaced out.  It was only a short walk but unfortunately for Matt it was closed on Tuesdays.

We wandered on a bit further and found a traditional Korean restaurant for lunch. We had an unintended but great vegetarian meal of rice, vegetables and a kimchi pancake.  We wandered on into the city, past city hall and accidentally found a huge underground museum which told the story of the Korean King who invented the Korean alphabet. There are a ridiculous number of museums in Seoul and all the ones I have been to were brilliant. We went home for showers and a rest before catching a taxi out to meet Beth and Rob for dinner at an excellent and very quirky pizza and beer restaurant. Beth and Rob hadn’t seen Matthew since he was about eight! We had a really nice evening chatting about everything with lots of discussion about Coronavirus!

Day 5 – Demilitarised Zone (DMZ). Today we had to get up early for our full day tour to the Korean Demilitarised Zone. It was minus 12 degrees! We were on a tour with one other couple. After picking them up it was a 50-minute drive to the DMZ and we were not allowed to cross into it. Sometimes you can go further into the DMZ but this changes on a day-by-day basis depending on political tensions. We stopped at The Bridge of Freedom and the Peace Bell on Donkgae Bridge first. There were interesting displays about the DMZ and a half-completed bridge the South Koreans had built waiting for the day the DMZ can be demolished. There was a barbed wire fence with manned watch towers every 500m for 248km and lots of heavily armed South Korean soldiers everywhere.

Next we went on to North Korean Life Observatory. This is basically a huge four-storey building built with banks of binoculars to look over the DMZ into a North Korean village to watch the peasants going about their daily activities. The North Koreans have built a huge monument to Kim Jong-un in the village facing South Korea. There are also heavily fortified and manned watch towers on the North Korean side. Behind the fence the peasants go about their daily lives farming the land watched by tourists. It was fascinating and also quite disturbing. We watched for ages.

Back to Seoul we went to the Korean War Memorial. I had been a few days earlier and thought I had seen everything however the guide took us to a new portion I had not seen which was even better than the bits I had seen. We went into a movie theatre where the seats shook and moved and it took you through the American invasion of Incheon during the War. It seemed very realistic! We only had an hour at the Memorial and I didn’t see anything twice.

We had a late lunch of Korean Chicken BBQ which was by far the best chicken I have had in a restaurant before wandering around the city centre for a while. Matthew decided to get a Korean haircut so went off to do that while I wandered around the streets looking at all the interesting shops. That evening we went to Myeong-dong Street markets. It was only a short subway ride and we had dinner from the street stalls. I had lobster thermidor and garlic prawns - yum. Unfortunately you had to eat on the street and take your gloves off to eat and it was still minus 12 degrees! You couldn’t leave your gloves off for long! We had a nice wander around the markets but it was too cold to linger so we went home to bed.

Days 6-10 – SKIING in PYEONGCHANG. It was an hour and a half train ride to the PyeongChang Ski resort where the 2018 Winter Olympics were held. We arrived at the Intercontinental Hotel in Alpensia about 1pm. Alpensia is about a five-minute cab ride from the main ski resort in PyeongChang. We had tried to stay in PyeongChang but couldn’t get accommodation there. The Intercontinental was quite luxurious though and our room was huge. We spent the afternoon organising ski gear and having a look around the resort. It was very easy to get a cab in the morning and were on the ski slope by 9am. The first day skiing was a Friday and very quiet so there were no queues for the ski lifts. There were three main mountains to ski from and we had four full days of skiing. By the last day we were managing to ski every run in the one day. It wasn’t a huge ski resort but fine for the amount of time we were there.

The restaurants in PyeongChang were better than Alpensia so two evenings we took a change of clothes and went straight out at 5pm after skiing. One night we did ten pin bowling which was great fun and another night we had Korean BBQ again. You can never have too many Korean BBQ dinners in Korea.

Day 11 – PyeongChang to Seoul to Brisbane

On our last morning we caught a taxi over to look at the ski-jump stadium and the cross-country ski course. Sadly it was closed on Mondays so we couldn’t go to the top of the ski-jump. It didn’t really matter as we could walk around and see everything anyway. We walked up to the top of the ski jump hill to see the view before walking through the snow back to our hotel. We took a train back to Seoul at noon and I went straight to the airport, leaving Matt in Seoul for a couple more days. I flew overnight and arrived back in Brisbane at 6am on Wednesday 12^th February and went straight to work.

Matt’s flight home was routed via Manila in the Philippines. He decided to stay a few days in Manila and was even considering going to a beach resort in Palawan for a while. In the end he decided not to as he didn’t really have the right clothes for a beach holiday and also had to get back to sort out his next semester. He arrived home on Tuesday 18^th February.  Luckily we both left South Korea about one week before the heavy restrictions on travel from Korea were introduced. Interesting times.

Cheers

Derek, Katie, Matthew, Jessica and Molly.