Letter No. 261
Dear all,
OCTOBER was quite a social month. We also went to one of our favourite local restaurants Botellon for dinner for our friends Sue and Carolyn’s birthdays on Friday 22 October. They have their birthdays on the same day. A week later, our friend Libby had her 50th birthday party. She only lives about five houses down our street, so it was pretty convenient. She did a sit-down dinner for 50 people and a live band. She did all of the organisation by herself which was a big solo effort. It was a nice evening with all the usual fun stuff – dancing, drinking & eating.
Matthew finally finished his six years at Uni on Thursday 28 October. He completed his double degree and now has a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws from The University of Queensland. He then went up to Noosa for a fun weekend to celebrate with all his mates, and to do the Noosa Triathlon (on Sunday 31 October) for the third time, as part of a relay team. Sadly, he had a rather catastrophic accident during the triathlon bike leg. He hit something, went over the handlebars and absorbed his full body weight with both hands. Without realising how badly he had injured himself, and thinking that he had possibly broken a finger, he still managed to put the bike chain back on, finish the race, see the medic and get the finger strapped, then go for lunch with his mates, have a shower and drive himself home!! None of his friends can drive a manual car so there wasn’t much alternative. As he headed home he started to realise that the problem might be worse than he’d initially thought. He drove straight to our house, by which time both hands, knees and left shoulder were all swollen and bruised, with lots of cuts and scrapes. It was a bit of a shock.
I took him straight to the PA hospital about 7pm, expecting casts on one hand and strapping on the other. The PA was fantastic and he was extensively x-rayed, MRI-d and CAT scanned. He even had his head examined. It seemed that he had been very lucky and had escaped any damage to his head, and only had bruising to his knees and shoulder, which all turned interesting shades of yellow and green afterwards. The outcome for both hands was bad though, with multiple fractures especially his left ring finger, left wrist, right thumb and right hand, which would require bone graft, wires, pins/screws and multiple surgeries to come. A bit more of a shock. At midnight he was admitted, and they told us they would operate on both hands in the morning. However, by midday the next day he was still 10th in the queue for surgery and they said he wouldn’t get seen that day (there had been some car accidents, so he had been bumped). They then bounced us into the private system, as we have private health insurance, and made an appointment to see a specialist hand surgeon the next morning at the Brisbane Hand & Upper Limb Clinic. Katie brought Matt home, with enormous temporary plaster casts on both hands, and then started the strange new experience of having our grown-up, highly independent 22-year-old living back at home with us for the short-term, unable to do anything whatsoever with his hands – including all the things we take for granted like using a knife, picking up a kettle, tying his shoelaces, driving etc. Interesting times.
NOVEMBER The next day was Melbourne Cup Day. Katie and I had tickets to an event at the Doomben Racecourse in Ascot. The event didn’t start until 11am and Matt’s appointment was at 8am so I took him in and we thought there would be plenty of time. The surgeon said he didn’t want to operate while Matthew still had open wounds on his hands, due to the risk of a bone infection, so it would now be at least two weeks before surgery! We then went into the Rehab Physio place so where his hands were properly cleaned, bandaged and splinted. It took forever! I dropped Matt home, had a quick change and headed off to the races. Katie had already left with a friend and I met them at the racecourse around noon. We had a really nice day, sitting right next to the finish line which was quite exciting, and there was glorious spring sunshine. Somehow Katie managed to back the winner on pretty long odds, and we seemed to pick a winner on most races! It was most unexpected and very lucky, and we came out at least $500 up! I had to have a little nap when we got home, after such a stressful and exciting day.
That weekend, 5-7 November, I went Hiking in Girraween National Park for two days with my friend Derek. We took a day off work on the Friday and drove down. It was a three-hour drive past Stanthorpe. We stopped at a few wineries on the way before getting to the Girraween Environmental Lodge. It was fairly basic and there had been a camping option, but as it was bucketing down rain, we were glad we hadn’t selected that option. After checking in we went to the campground and sympathised with the rest of tour group setting up in the rain, before going to Ballendean Tavern for dinner and a few games of pool.
We then had two days of hiking in the park. The first day was 18km covering Mt Norman (the tallest in the park) and the underground creek. The country is spectacular with massive granite boulders and slabs. There had been a lot of rain in the previous few weeks, so all the creeks were running, and the wildflowers were in bloom. It was a great sight. We were quite knackered by the time we got back. It had been predicted to rain quite a bit during the day, but we only got a few spots in the afternoon. This was lucky as it is almost impossible to walk on the granite slabs if it rains, as they are so slippery. We had a night in at our lodge with a beef ragout and a few red wines and listened to the rain. We were again thankful we had not camped. The next day it was predicted to thunderstorm by midday, so we started early and did a shorter walk of only 8km to the Junction and the Granite Arch. We had lunch back at the campsite before heading back to Brisbane. It didn’t end up raining during the day anyway!
In the meantime, Katie and Jessie both worked like mad on their final assignments and finished Uni for the year on 8 November. Katie had been slightly derailed by having to complete her last two major assignments in her final week while driving Matt around to additional X-rays and bone density scans but managed it anyway. It was a great relief to all.
Matthew’s surgery was scheduled for Wednesday 10th and then Friday 12th November but kept getting pushed back as his skin wounds hadn’t healed enough. It was a bit galling that both times the surgery was postponed so late in the day that he already had his bag packed and was “nil by mouth”. It finally took place at 7pm on Monday 15th November at St Andrew’s Hospital and was a 3½ hour surgery in which he had a bone graft, screws and wires. Katie collected him next morning with massive plaster casts again, and he then went straight on to appointments at the Brisbane Private Hospital and then the Physio afterwards, where he was fitted with new splints. We are starting to feel that we are on a mission to survey every hospital and x-ray/physio establishment in Brisbane. Matt has remained incredibly positive throughout the whole process though. He was still smiling and determined to do everything he had planned, including starting his PLT (Professional Legal Training) course the following day, and discovering that you can still type with only five working fingers. His work colleagues at KWM have been fantastically supportive too.
We had Backyard Drinks at my friend Derek’s house on 19th November. It was a lovely warm evening with a total eclipse of the moon that night. We sat on his front deck and watched the show with a glass or two of red wine. The next day we went to see the latest James Bond movie, “No time to Die”. The ending was a surprise. I won’t spoil it for you but will definitely be going to the next movie to see what happens next! Worth seeing if you haven’t.
On 22nd November Jessica went to the Liveris Academy Summer Camp on Stradbroke Island for four days. They spent four days doing a role-playing activity, working in four groups and writing business plans for a fictitious struggling start up. They even had actors who the kids had to “fire” in a real-life simulation activity. It was apparently fairly intimidating for 23-year-olds to fire a fairly belligerent 40 year old, even if he was acting. One group was so intimidated that they decided not to fire him, which nearly stuffed up the whole exercise! On Friday night we were invited to the Liveris Academy at the University of Queensland to see the students present on two topics, working in small groups. Five teams presented their strategies for revitalising the economy of Gladstone after a predicted downturn due to the future transition away from coal and gas. Three groups presented ideas to minimise micro plastics in the oceans. There was a winner in each group and we were very pleased that Jessica’s team won the plastics section. There was a drinks function afterwards in the Liveris Academy function space. It was a doubly pleasant evening for me as I had led the structural design team for the Andrew N. Liveris Building at the University and had never seen it fitted out. I had only been to site when it was bare concrete. It is actually a very impressive building, with several structurally difficult bubble pods hanging off the building everywhere. We had cursed the architect when we were designing them, but boy they looked good! You can see more information about the Liveris Academy and a video of the cool building here: https://liveris-academy.uq.edu.au/
On the Sunday Jessica was in a Cheer Leading Dance Competition. Jess is one of the people called flyers who get thrown up high and caught by the others. Jessie didn’t want us to go and watch, and Katie would have been too nervous to watch anyway. Amazingly Jessie’s team won the competition in their own category and were the overall Grand Champions. She was thrilled. A huge week for her!
DECEMBER On 1st December the UQ semester results were out. Everyone did very well, with the family GPA of 6.5 (out of 7). Katie was the family top scorer with straight sevens (again). Both Jess and Katie received Dean’s Commendations for Academic Excellence. The next few weekends were big. Katie went to see the Queensland Ballet performing Dracula on Friday night with some girlfriends while I went to works drinks. Saturday was a 60th birthday party for our friend Jeremy Tod. It was a great party. They were planning to have cocktails on their tennis court but a massive thunderstorm came through just as the party was starting so they had to quickly relocate undercover. There was a massive lightning strike to a house in the next street about 8pm and everyone screamed – it was quite a shock! Katie lost track of time and made a good effort to beat her record of 13 glasses of champagne (led astray by Liz Redfern many years ago in Hong Kong). She didn’t manage to set a new record, but I had to drag her home at 2:30am which is an extremely late night for us! Sunday was a sloooow day.
On Tuesday 7th December we had a family dinner at home for Matthew’s 23rd Birthday which was nice. He spent his actual birthday (the next day) at the Ashes test match between England and Australia. The England team has not covered itself in glory thus far. The following weekend we spent several nights out at various Christmas cocktails and Christmas drinks parties. There were two parties in our street on consecutive evenings hosted by different sets of neighbours, with many of the same guests at both, which we all found very entertaining.
On Monday 13th December it was Matthew’s Graduation Ceremony. We had a fabulous long lunch at Greca, a Greek restaurant at Howard Smith Wharves, which has a lovely view over the river. Afterwards, we went back to Matt’s place for afternoon tea before going to the university for the ceremony. Matthew’s two housemates were in the same graduation ceremony, so it was quite a household celebration, with all parents in attendance. We drove to Uni, picked up his gown and trencher, and then wandered around the Great Court and the Law Building taking photos before the ceremony. It was about two hours of speeches and presentations, followed by drinks in the Great Court afterwards. Matthew is the proud recipient of a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Chinese and International Relations. He starts as a junior solicitor at King Wood Mallesons (KWM) in January. He has been working there for the last three years as a part-time paralegal, so it will be a relatively smooth transition to full time employment. https://www.kwm.com/au/en/home.html
The following few days featured more drinks, my birthday and my work Christmas party, for my immediate team of 25, which I was hosting (so I had to stay until the bitter end). I wish all the partying could be spread out over three or four months rather than all being in December! On Sunday 19th we had an early Family Christmas with my sister and her family and our parents at Lisa’s house. It was a really nice afternoon and good to catch up, as we haven’t seen each other very much this year due to Covid. We are heading to Far North Queensland on Thursday for Christmas at the beach but that will all have to wait until next letter.
Cheers, from Derek, Katie, Matt, Jessie & Molly
