Merry Christmas Friends!

 

 Letter No. 265

Dear all,

SEPTEMBER For Father’s Day I got to take everyone out for lunch at Massimo’s at Waterfront Place. We picked Matt up on the way and had a lovely Italian seafood lunch together. Then on 7^th September it was Jessica’s 21^st birthday. How time has flown. It seems like only yesterday she was learning to crawl!

Jess had a party at home for 70 of her closest friends on Friday 9^th September. I took the day off work to set up while Katie was intending to ice Jessie’s birthday cupcakes. Sadly, we heard the news that the Queen had died when we woke up that morning. That threw a real spanner into the preparation works as it was at least an hour before Katie stopped crying and two hours before she could face doing anything. Meanwhile, I had been watching the weather forecast carefully as the predictions were for heavy rain all day and storms in the evening. I had borrowed some large tarps to string up in the garden, but I held off as long as possible as I didn’t want to set them up in the rain. Luckily, it stopped raining over lunch and by 12:30pm the forecast had changed to fine with no storms! It was a lovely warm evening and rain free.

The party went well. I made two cocktails – Lime Mojitos and Raspberry Gin Fizz. I made 40 litres and most of it went, although I did have to drink lime mojito leftovers for the next few weekends. Katie and her friend Thao cooked up a storm and fed everyone. Katie gave a speech followed by Jessie’s friends Lilly and Kyel. Jessie also said some words at the end and was a little giddy by that stage and was quite funny. There was quite a bit of dancing afterwards, mostly with a large group of girls dancing on the pool filter box. I was a bit concerned it might collapse but I obviously built it well! The party wound up about 1am. There was some talk about going clubbing in the Valley but Jess wasn’t really up to it thankfully. There was a long day of slowly cleaning up the next day, then on the Sunday we had a family 21^st lunch for Jessie, with Mum & Dad and Lisa & Andrew and the girls. We went to a great little Italian restaurant in Paddington. It really was a party weekend.

On Monday 19^th September Katie was glued to the TV watching Queen Elizabeth’s funeral. Katie wrote at the time: “A life well lived with a legacy of longevity, institutional stability, devotion and duty. An era of change is ahead; there will never be another like her.” 

A few days later Katie and I went to see “Ticket to Paradise”. It was a fairly predictable rom-com which had been filmed in Brisbane and the Great Barrier Reef. It was funny to see bits of Brisbane Airport which was supposed to be Los Angeles.

OCTOBER On 8^th October we went to a 50^th Birthday party for our friend Sigrid. She had a nine course Degustation Dinner at home for 40 people and did all the catering herself (with a little help from friends)! It was really amazing. They had a long trestle table next to their pool. We sat down to the first course at 6pm and didn’t finish eating until 11:30pm. Their teenage kids (plus partners) were waiters / waitresses. Each course had a matching wine! Nine glasses of wine was quite a big effort, and then there was dancing around the pool until about 1am. It was a great party and a fantastic event by Sigrid and Nathan!

Our 26^th wedding anniversary was on 12^th October. We celebrated with a nice dinner at home as we seemed to have been out quite a lot! It was our Winosaurs (Wine Club) on the 14^th, and on the following night we went to a new gin distillery Nosferatu for its opening night with a group of friends. On Sunday 16^th we went for a mystery picnic to Burleigh Heads. It was organised by Amazing Co as a wedding anniversary present from Katie. We had to download an app on Saturday night with a puzzle to solve that guided us to our first destination, which was the Bam Bam Bakery in Burleigh Heads, where we stopped for coffee and pastries. Our next clue led us to a nearby national park for an hour-long walk. We had to find and solve the next clue during the walk. We then went on solving clues and picking up nice food packs from lovely boutique foods stores before solving the final clue and ending up at our picnic destination. It was a really fun day. After our picnic we went and had an hour on the beach before heading home.

I had a quick trip to Darwin from 24-27^th October for a new project we have picked up there. I haven’t been to Darwin for a few years but it was still the same. Luckily the Oyster Bar where I eat most of my dinners survived Covid and was still serving delicious oysters!

We celebrated our friend Sue’s 60^th birthday twice – on the weekend before and after I was in Darwin. The week before with a small group of ex-BBC parents at Amphora, a Greek restaurant in St Lucia, and then again the weekend after at a party at her house in Moggill. The party was nice and her daughter (who is 22) did almost all the catering. It was quite impressive.

Meanwhile, Katie had spent September and October intensively drafting chapters of her 12,000-word Masters thesis, focusing on Australian street libraries and their impact on the Australian publishing industry. She did a hyperlocal case study using our own street library, conducted an inventory, three different surveys and three interviews with industry experts, and then analysed all the data. The appendices alone stretched over 30 pages and looked quite impressive. The deadline was actually 7^th November but in the end she submitted it a week early.

NOVEMBER It was Melbourne Cup day on 1^st November and we went trackside again with Thao. It was a much wetter day than last time and we didn’t manage to back any winners, so it wasn’t our best cup day. The next week I had to go to Mulwala, on the New South Wales / Victorian Border, for another project. It is about a 1.5 hour drive from Albury along the Murray River. It was quite concerning how high the floodwaters were in the Murray River area. The water was lapping at the edges of the road in many places. We decided that if it rained we would make a beeline back to Albury so we didn’t get flooded in. Mulwala was a lovely little place next to a large lake on the river. There was a weir was just downstream of our hotel. Each morning I ran out of NSW, over the weir into Victoria and around and back into NSW via the road bridge. The roar of water going over the weir was spectacular. Apparently, only a few weeks earlier the lake had been completely dry.

While I was in Mulwala, Katie was overseeing the delivery of a piano we had decided to buy from our friend Wings who is moving to Melbourne. We had intended for the piano to be placed in our upstairs living room, but when the movers got the piano to our house, they refused to move it upstairs. They said the front stairs were not sturdy enough to hold the 380kg piano and two men each about 100kg! Katie had to decide quickly what to do (I was on a plane at the time) and the piano ended up downstairs. The piano movers were quite specific about what strengthening works needed to occur on the steps, so I spent the next three weekends rebuilding and repainting the front stairs. Actually, they were correct. The more I looked at the stairs the more rotten timber I found on the top and ends of joists and treads. They were fine for just one person walking up them but not the combined weight of the piano and movers! I am happy to report we can now have elephants over to visit! Now we just need to get the piano movers back.

We went to see Crowded House at Sirromet Winery on 5 November. It was a great night. There seem to be more and more band concerts coming up, mostly playing old hits from the 80s and 90s. We have tickets to several more rock concerts next year. We are going to be away over Christmas again this year, so we had an early Christmas celebration with my parents and sisters’ family. We had to have it on 20^th November which felt ridiculously early, but Jessie was going to Indonesia the next week and it was the only free weekend. We had a really lovely family BBQ around the pool.

The next Friday was the AECOM Christmas party at the W-Hotel, a cool new venue in the city. The band was really excellent, so we had a big evening of dancing. Despite my best efforts to get Katie to have something to eat, she didn’t feel hungry until after all the food was finished, so she felt a little worse for wear on Saturday morning and didn’t make it to Pilates. However, we did have a great game of tennis on the Sunday morning. Matt and his housemate came along as well and played on an adjacent court. We all went for coffee afterwards which was nice. That weekend Jessie headed off to Indonesia. It is a UQ study trip on Intercultural Communication and Conflict Management, which involves a week’s intensive study in Bandung on West Java followed by visits and field work on a sustainability project with several local NGOs.

I went to Alice Springs for work from 29^th November to 1^st December. It was really sad to see how many places had closed and never reopened after Covid. The main street was a ghost town! Katie got her UQ grades 30^th November. She got a 7 for her thesis and another Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence! She also did the sing-along Messiah on 3 December at the Albert Street Uniting Church. She loved it so much that she says she’ll go every year.

DECEMBER On 8^th December it was Matthew’s 24^th Birthday. Jessica was still in Indonesia so the three of us went to the Boatshed at the Regatta Hotel for a steak. Surprisingly, Jessica had actually planned ahead and bought Matthew a present as well! She was out of communication range in a remote homestay village on West Java so we couldn’t talk to her. We had a lovely booth table overlooking the river and had a great catch up with Matt.

It was the Mortlake Road Street Christmas party on Sunday 11^th December. Almost everyone on the street turns up, wearing festive colours and bringing food to share. It only goes for a few hours but is such a lovely opportunity to catch up with all of our friendly neighbours.

The next day was Katie’s Graduation Day. She now has a Masters in Writing, Editing and Publishing. She had a ridiculously high GPA, with straight 7’s for her entire course! We picked up her gown at 9am and took photos with her cohort on the lovely sandstone steps of the Comm-Arts building. There was a long wait before her ceremony at 11:00am. Matthew arrived about 10:30am; however, Jessie had flown back from Indonesia overnight and messaged us from Sydney at 5:30am. She’d had very little sleep, and her plane landed in Brisbane at 8:35am but amazingly she managed to race home from the airport, showered, scrubbed up and got to the UQ hall with 5 minutes to spare! Katie was delighted that Jessie had made it. The ceremony was nice but long and didn’t finish until nearly 1pm. We had a quick round of photos in the Great Court before heading to lunch at Patina for a long leisurely lunch. By 3pm Jessie was almost falling asleep in her dessert, so she went home, fell into bed and slept for 17 hours. Matt had to go back to work so Katie and I returned her gown and called it a day. It was a fitting end to Katie’s UQ experience.

It was my birthday on 16^th December, but we didn’t do much as we seem to have been so busy these last few weeks. We did have our big Christmas party on Saturday 17^th December though. It is the first proper one we have had for a few years because of Covid. The party went well and it felt like we had so much to celebrate. Katie did fantastic canapes and lovely baked ham and mince pies as usual, and I served a Raspberry Gin Fizz for this year’s Christmas Cocktail, which really kept everyone humming. It was a slow day on Sunday and I had to pack as well as clean up.

We are heading off on Wednesday for a very big trip -- to Singapore for Christmas, then Amsterdam for New Year and then a week’s skiing in Meribel in France. We wish you and your families a Merry Christmas and a great 2023. We will see you on the other side.

Cheers from Derek, Katie, Matthew, Jessica & Molly

The Tardis on the move!

 Letter No. 264

Dear all,

JUNE On 4^th June we went to Spicers Hidden Vale for another Outback Futures fundraising event. The charity raises funds to provide mental health services for people in outback Queensland, and Katie has volunteered with them for a few years. It was a lovely long lunch with five courses and matched wines. We spent the afternoon listening to music and chatting in the sunshine. There was an auction late afternoon, but everything went for silly money! Afterwards, a group of us stayed overnight, four in one cottage and three in another. Hidden Vale has about 20 beautifully appointed self-contained little houses dotted around the main restaurant. Dinner was served on long tables inside the barn with the fire blazing. After dinner everyone came back to our cottage and we played a great board game Articulate, with wine and cheese.  We had a huge breakfast in the morning before going back to Brisbane.

Matthew was admitted as a lawyer on 7^th June. It was a huge day for him, the culmination of six years of Uni study and the completion of his Professional Legal Training. Matt’s boss at KWM, Emma Costello, proposed his admission to the Supreme Court. The process was incredibly formal, with 24 new lawyers being admitted that day. Their proposers were seated in order of seniority: judges first, then barristers, senior solicitors and junior solicitors. The lawyers being admitted were seated in order of GPA from University. Each proposer had to read an identical statement to the court about their junior. The chief judge then looked to the judges seated to their left and right, who each nodded to signal their acceptance. The chief judge then addressed the new lawyers in a really lovely short speech stressing that their duty is not to their clients but to the truth and nothing was more important than their reputation. She also emphasised they all had a duty to do pro-bono work to help those less fortunate in society. After the ceremony we took photos in the courts and had a coffee with Emma. We then went to a French brasserie in the city, for a long champagne lunch to celebrate. Afterwards we went home while Matt had drinks with his works team after work and then dinner with his university friends. It was a big day for him!

On 10^th June we went to our friend Katie Whittle’s 50^th birthday. They are both from the UK and live at the other end of the street and we have gotten quite friendly with them over the last year or so. Their party was in Bar Pacino in Eagle Street Pier with fantastic views of the river and Storey Bridge. The theme was As Formal and Fabulous as you Dare, which was a challenge that we were happy to accept. As we had been watching all the fantastic Queen’s Jubilee celebrations just a few days earlier, we felt that a British theme was appropriate and what could be more formal and fabulous than the royals. So, I wore my Bridge Red Irish Guards uniform and Katie dressed as the Queen, with handmade blue satin sashes! We certainly stood out. It was a lovely party. The whole bar was decorated in Black and Gold to match the birthday girl’s dress. We knew lots of people there, and all danced the night away to the live band.

The rest of June was taken up with Katie and Jessie finishing another Uni semester, while Matt spent almost three weeks in the Royal Commission office in Sydney working on the Royal Commission into Veteran’s Suicides. It has been quite challenging with incredibly long work days, observing the ongoing proceedings during the daytimes and working until midnight some nights preparing for the next day’s hearings. He had a few nice weekends in Sydney though and the view of the Opera House from the Royal Commission office is very impressive.

My big project in June was preparation for the Tardis’ Journey through Space and Time to its final resting place up at Spicers Peak. The original delivery trip in May had had to be postponed due to heavy rain which had damaged the road up to the Peak and the move was now scheduled for Thursday 30^th June. In advance, I had to disassemble any breakable parts: the top light and solar panels, battery and all the mirrors. On the Wednesday night I came home early and loaded the car with Tardis parts, plus tools, paint, sealant and all the equipment I needed for the final installation. The crane truck arrived at 8am the next morning. The driver jumped out and scratched his head for a while; clearly it was the first time he has lifted a Tardis out of someone’s garden. He was initially a bit reluctant, but I managed to talk him into giving it a go. The crane truck was far too big for our driveway, so the process took three separate moves, each with slings and a pallet, and avoiding fences, overhead trees and telephone lines. The first move brought it closer to the road, then down our driveway and finally onto the truck; each time the truck had to be moved and the slings adjusted. The end result was a bit of damage to the tree in our front yard, deep wheel ruts in the footpath grass, and a close shave with the telephone lines! It was an exciting morning for our Mortlake Road neighbours.

Once on the truck, the driver took off at speed and we jumped in the car and followed it all the way. Katie delighted in saying “Follow that Tardis” to me as we set off. It was a 1½ hour trip to Spicers Peak in Maryvale. Website here: Spicers Peak Lodge - Luxury Retreat - Maryvale, QLD - Spicers Retreats. It was quite funny to see all the stares the Tardis got as it passed through the suburbs and on the highway, standing tall on the back of the open truck. When we turned off the highway, we were on a fairly narrow rough dirt track and we drove ahead of the truck, with Katie calling the Spicers people throughout the journey to tell them where we were and to ensure that the track was clear. We were worried about the possibility of damage on the way, but amazingly the Tardis survived the journey in almost perfect condition.

Spicers had prepared the foundation under my direction (I was very insistent that it must be level) and we had the Tardis set down on its base by about 11am. I installed the top light and sealed the roof to ensure that it was fully watertight, before changing out of my high-vis into a clean shirt for a very nice lunch in the restaurant. That afternoon I installed the solar panels and got the power working before calling it a day. We had a fantastic room with a perfect view of the Tardis and we even managed a quick game of tennis before dinner. I was pleased to see that the light came on as expected when the sun went down. We had cocktails and a lovely dinner in the restaurant to celebrate the successful move.

Friday started with a gourmet breakfast, but then I had to get back to the install. Unfortunately, the forecast rain had arrived, so I set up our pop-up Gazebo in front of the Tardis door to keep my tools dry. I spent six hours installing mirrors and the sonic screwdriver on the inside, and then sealing the mirrors before calling it a day. That night, by complete coincidence, one of Katie’s Barre Pilates friends Angela was staying with her husband Gavin. We had arranged to meet for pre-dinner cocktails (at the bar not the barre), and then ended up having dinner with them and then more cocktails until almost midnight.

I still had a bit of work to do on the Saturday, but unfortunately it had bucketed down rain all night and some water had made the sealant near the door run all over the floor. I cleaned it up as best I could but it was too damp to finish or do the final paint. In the end I decided that I would need to come back another day when it was dry to do the final touches. We had morning tea and handed the Tardis keys to the hotel manager along with a 46-page Operations and Maintenance Manual that I had prepared, which provided full details of paint colours, how to replace the light bulbs, internal signage, mirrors, battery, solar controller, sonic screwdriver, window glass, external signage, the Space and Time Travel functions (which I had disabled) as well as a Maintenance Schedule and Health and Safety information. I think they were quite impressed! We had a short hike around the mountaintop in the drizzle, before heading home.

That night we had a group of friends around for pizza to watch England v Australia in the Rugby. We had a nice evening and Australia beat England so most of the group were happy! The next day I started the clean-up of the ruined grass and broken tree bits in our garden and packed away all the tools I’d been using over the last ten months during the Tardis construction.

JULY On 8^th July we went to Paul Hart’s 60^th birthday at the Tattersalls Club. Paul still lives in Hong Kong but due to Covid restrictions he had decided to have a 3-part birthday extravaganza in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. We had an excellent night and caught up with quite a few old Hong Kong faces we hadn’t seen for a very long time. It was also great to catch up with Paul and Diane and see what fine young adults Caitlin and Jack had become. The next day I went to see Australia play England in the Rugby at Suncorp Stadium with some mates. England beat Australia 25:17, so Katie was happy watching the game at home.

The next day we went for a family birthday lunch for Katie at Yuzu, a lovely Japanese restaurant in Milton. The following week our friends the Muirs were also back from Hong Kong and we went out for dinner in Milton again, this time to TukTuk Thai with John and Karen Haughton. They hadn’t been back to Australia for some time, also due to Covid and the insane quarantine restrictions in Hong Kong. It was really good to see them again. And it was the first time we had heard them sounding serious about a future return to Australia!

The next day I went to Warwick for a Family Reunion with my cousins on what would have been the 100^th birthday of my Uncle Tom. I met up with Mum, Dad, Lisa and two of her daughters on the outskirts of Warwick at 9am and we went to visit some family friends Lionel and Dorothy at their eclectic farm for morning tea. It is always lovely seeing them. They have an incredible number of mostly hand-fed animals in every nook and cranny around the house – dogs, cats, chickens, peacocks, guinea fowl, sheep, goats, cows – usually with babies. I loved going there as a kid and still do.

We went on to Warwick Cemetery where we met the families of four of my five cousins. There were 36 people in all and I hadn’t seen many of them for ten years. Some of the kids I had never met. We had a tour around the cemetery courtesy of my cousin Eric, who has been cataloguing every headstone in the graveyard (all 25,000 of them) and working out which ones were our ancestors. Dad saw the headstone of his mother’s grave for the first time. She had died when he was only a few months old. It was interesting hearing so much family history. Next was a picnic lunch at Leslie Dam. We had had Boxing Day picnics there every year for most of my childhood. It was nice to catch up with all the families and find out all about their kids and grandkids. We then went back to the old family farm, where my cousin Geoff still lives, for a walk to the Condamine River and a look around the farm. We all had dinner at the Sandy Creek Pub. I think it was quite stretched to do 36 dinners in one go but it was a lovely evening. I went back to the motel and watched the final Australia v England rugby game before bed. The next day I drove back to Spicers Peak, which was on the way, and did all the final touch up work on the Tardis that I hadn’t been able to complete due to heavy rain. It took about two hours and then I was back on the road to Brisbane.

AUGUST We went to the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Concert at St John’s Cathedral on 6^th August. It was a classical music concert to celebrate the Jubilee (obviously). We went with Angela and Gavin, starting with champagne and a light supper at Patina in Customs House – a lovely historic building with river views. The concert was very good. The past Governor General Quentin Bryce gave an address and talked about her memories of the Queen. Of course, Katie went straight over to her after the concert and they had a long chat about queen and country.

I had to go to Newcastle on 10^th August. We have a job at the airport building a new aircraft hangar. It was a five-minute walk from the arrivals lounge, so I just went down and back for the day. We had backyard drinks at Alf Graham’s place on 20^th August. He has moved into a house in Taringa with spectacular views of the city. Alf put on a great spread of Indian curries and we DJed, playing (and singing along badly to) 1980s music! The next day was a Six Nations Rugby lunch at Moda with our friends Thao and David. There wasn’t much rugby apart from the fact that each of the six dishes (and wines) was inspired by one of the six nations.

We had new bedroom carpets installed at the end of August; hopefully Jess is now old enough not to spill stuff on the carpets. We also had a trip to Maleny on 26^th to 28^th August with two other ex-BBC couples. It was a lovely long weekend of nice dinners, forest walks, and shopping in the little gift shops and market stalls. The highlight was finding platypus in the creek that flowed right through the town. We saw at least five different platypi over the weekend. It is the first time I have ever seen them in the wild and was quite magical.       

Cheers Derek, Katie, Matthew, Jessica and Molly.

Travel in Space and Time

 

 Letter No. 263

Dear all,

MARCH.  We had our Winosaurs evening on 4^th March (Wine club for the street). The theme was to bring a bottle of a wine which had a special memory for you. I had been saving a couple of bottles of Maclaren Vale 1993 Black Opal Cabernet Merlot, left over from our wedding in Hong Kong in 1996. I had been lugging it around the world ever since. Katie had been telling me for years that I was crazy and it would be vinegar! Our neighbour, who was hosting, has a special tool for removing aged corks and we decanted it to remove all the sediment, left it to breathe, washed the bottle and then decanted it back into the bottle. Our bottle was the oldest out of 15 so it was the last bottle to be sampled. Each person had to give a little talk about why the wine was special to them. I told the crowd how well-travelled the wine was – it had gone from Australia to Hong Kong, then to England and then back to Australia – at least twice in shipping containers with wild temperature fluctuations, hence Katie’s thoughts on it being vinegar. Anyway, my story was voted the best of the night and the wine was actually not at all bad either – a double win! I have one bottle left but might wait a few more years to open it.

Katie was back at Uni after a week’s delay due to the flooding. This is her third semester out of four. She did her internship over the summer and is now doing an intense course on Advanced Grammar and a Fiction writing class. She also has a thesis to complete by the end of the year. Jessie is in her fourth year, with another year to go. Molly is eleven now, so is in her middle years. She has no current plans for Dogversity or to learn any new skills or tricks.

On 10^th March, Jessica hosted a Sip & Paint evening for Girl Up (a girl-centred leadership initiative part of the United Nations Foundation, uniting girls to change the world). Girl Up | Who We Are), Jessie is the social media coordinator for the Asia-Pacific region. They thought that it might only be the committee and friends but were pleased that a group of about 30 people showed up at our house to paint (and sip). They were all very well organised, with food platters and Youtube painting instruction videos on a large screen, and short speeches about GirlUp. We went down at the end of the evening to have a look at some of the art works; they were all good and several were fantastic. I think Jess was very pleased at how the evening went.

We had dinner in the city at Otto for our friend Leona’s birthday on 12^th March with a group of eight friends. It’s a waterfront restaurant at Southbank, with a fantastic night view of the city lights. The river looked peaceful again, but there is still a lot of debris and damage along the banks due to the catastrophic flooding in February. Another major (and very expensive) clean-up operation for the city. It will be months before all the CityCat services are running again.

In July 2021 we were interviewed by Channel 7 about the Street Library that we have in front of our house. This library is in the form of a red British telephone box that I made a few years ago. Channel 7 broadcast the story on the Sunday evening news, and we received quite a lot of positive feedback afterwards. The most interesting was from the owners of Spicers Resorts, who contacted us to see if I would be interested in making them a blue police box (aka the TARDIS from Dr Who).  I started construction in August 2021, and now – after a lot of hard work – the Tardis has materialized in our front yard. It is getting a lot of local attention.

On 17^th March, Katie and I went to meet with the Spicers contact and view the potential new sites (they still haven’t decided). Spicers is a very upmarket resort chain, with about eight different locations. We drove up to Spicers Peak, which is located on the top of the Great Dividing Range on the way to Warwick, a 90-minute drive from home. After the meeting they shouted us a very delicious 5- course degustation lunch with matching wines. I arranged a boys’ night out on 25^th March and a group of us went to the Milton Common Brewery. We had pizza and beer (obviously) and it absolutely tipped it down rain. It seems to be the theme for this year. The next week our friend David Price was back in Australia after more than a year out of the country. It was really nice to see him again. We went out for a Chinese meal followed by cocktails at Death and Taxes in the city. 

APRIL I had promised to make Matt a cocktail bar as his Christmas present and had spent the last five weeks constructing it out of timber. He sent me a photo which I had to copy, working out all the correct dimensions and timber sizes, which was the hardest bit. I was quite pleased with it in the end. I had to get a friend around to help me lift it up onto the roof racks and we drove it to Matt’s place on Saturday 2^nd April. Matt’s flatmates enthusiastically helped us put it in place and Matt immediately whipped up a round of cocktails. More and more of his friends showed up over the next hour and it was quite the party by the time we left.

On 7^th April, Diane Powers was in Brisbane, a good friend from our Hong Kong days. She lives in Sydney now and was in town for a family wedding. Katie met her on Thursday afternoon and did touristy things and I picked them up at 5pm and we went home for cocktails at our bar and dinner. It was really nice to catch up. Her husband Paul Hart has been in Hong Kong all the time that Australia’s borders were closed; they were apart for at least 18 months during COVID lockdowns, which must have been a tough time for them. On Sunday afternoon we went to River Quay. They have free live bands on the grass bank of the river every Sunday for an afternoon “chill” and there are restaurants overlooking the riverbank. Katie was planning a picnic there in a few weeks with her Uni friends, so it was just a recce. We had dinner and drinks watching the sun go down and listening to the band.

On Wednesday 13^th April, I was invited to the Opening of the Andrew N. Liveris Building, which is the new Chemical Engineering Building at the University of Queensland. AECOM did all of the engineering design for the building (and I signed it off structurally). Jessie is also in the Liveris Academy, which gives her a UQ scholarship and she had been selected to attend the event as one of the five student representatives. It was really nice to see her there and introduce her to my colleagues who worked on the building. There were speeches and a drinks reception from 3pm to 5pm.  As soon as the event finished I had to rush back into the city where I met my friend John, so we could see Midnight Oil at the Riverstage. It was the 12^th that I have seen them time (as far as I can remember) and it is apparently the last time they will tour. It was a really fantastic show!

We hosted a family lunch on Easter Sunday. It is both my parents’ birthdays around that time. We don’t seem to have had the whole family together for such a long time. Everyone came over to our house and we had a nice BBQ lunch. We all did RAT tests before we met up to make sure we didn’t infect each other!

On 19^th April, I was interviewed by the Courier Mail about the TARDIS and the forthcoming Open Day. They sent a photographer over at around 4pm and he arrived with a huge amount of cameras and lights. Katie had to help hold the lighting tripods to get the perfect angle. The photographer was at our house for over an hour and took about 300 photos. He made me do heaps of dopey poses, peering out of the door until he got the shot he wanted. Luckily, when it was printed, the photo was quite small so you couldn’t see how silly I looked. I was also interviewed about the Tardis by Craig Zonka on ABC Radio Brisbane on 29^th April. It was very early in the morning, just before 6am, and we thought it unlikely that anyone would hear it. Surprisingly, when I got to work that morning, the first person I ran into had heard it!

The Courier Mail article made it into the paper on Saturday 30^th April, and the same article was published in lots of regional papers all over Australia. I had people sending me clippings from Adelaide and Townsville. That same day was our Tardis Open Afternoon. We had put a notice on our local community Facebook group, inviting anyone who was interested to come and have a look at it before it moved to Spicers. Quite a few people had come around regularly over the last few months to look at my progress as the Tardis has materialised, so I wanted to give them the chance to see it properly before it disappeared. The Open Afternoon went from 1pm to 3pm, and about 50 fans came, some wearing Dr Who T-shirts. One guy even brought his own Sonic Screwdriver. Everyone wanted a photo with the Tardis and to see if it is bigger on the inside (and it is - via the mirrors on all internal walls!). Some people had come up to 30km to see it, having heard about the open day on the radio or in the paper. One lady brought her very disabled daughter, who was a big Dr Who fan; they had driven a long way and it was heart-warming to see how excited she was.

After the Open Afternoon finished, we then had a Tardis Opening party for our neighbours and a few close friends, starting at 4pm. We had invited about 60 people, mostly from our street, and nearly everyone came along bringing bottles and nibbles. I gave a speech, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and spent a lot of time checking out the Tardis! We expected to finish up about 7pm but were still sitting around the fire at 10:30pm. It was a fun day and a great evening, but the next day was a little slow.

MAY The next week saw Katie working at the Brisbane Writers Festival from 3^rd to 8^th May. She spent most of the week working on the signing desk, training volunteers and working on the promotional video. She got to meet lots of famous authors including Isaac Asimov, J K Rowling, J R R Tolkien and Stephen Hawking. (ED Hahaha no, but I did meet Thomas Keneally, Clementine Ford, Trent Dalton, Morris Gleitzman & Peter Greste). She seemed to have a really fun week.

On Friday 6^th May, I went to see an INXS cover band at the Chardon’s Corner Hotel. The hotel was pretty rough, and the decor was straight out of the 80s. We had planned to eat at the pub before the show, but the barman advised us not to as the food wasn’t that good. He suggested ordering a take-away pizza from a shop up the road and bringing it back to the pub! Luckily, as more and more patrons for the show started showing up it didn’t seem quite as threatening, as they were all in their 50s and early 60s. The stage had a huge metal barrier between the band and the audience, so they obviously have rowdy crowds! The INXS cover band was fantastic though, so we had a great evening.

The next weekend we were meant to be going to the Gold Coast. We had tickets for a Race Day event at the GC Turf Club with a group of friends on Saturday 14 May. Katie had been feeling a bit under the weather but had been testing negative for COVID for a few days. She did a final test about an hour before we were going to leave for the Gold Coast, and unfortunately she tested positive, so we had to cancel. Luckily we got a full refund for the hotel, but the event tickets went to waste. Under COVID rules, I could have gone but would have had to wear a mask and I decided that would not be much fun. Our Tardis delivery trip was also postponed due to the recent heavy rain damaging the road up to the Peak.

Matthew was having his annual Eurovision Party for his friends on Sunday night using our Studio, so Katie had to isolate in our bedroom, and I had to do all the catering this time. It was hard work! Jessie assisted and we had quite a good night. There were some very creative costumes as always. Jess sent Katie photos of each of them, and after dinner Katie announced the winner of the best dressed costume competition via FaceTime. She said it was hard to choose between the top two – a giant piece of Lego (Denmark) and a giant yellow and blue Chicken Kiev (Ukraine). In the end, the winner was Ukraine. For the next 10 days Katie isolated in our bedroom and the study, while I stayed downstairs in Matthew’s old room and just came upstairs to cook. Thankfully, Jessie and I didn’t catch Covid and a week later Katie tested negative and could rejoin society. She had a nasty lingering cough for a few weeks though.

On Sunday 29 May we went to see an exhibition that Jessie has been working on called My Little Sunshine. The project is a compilation of an audio documentary, interactive art exhibition, virtual exhibition, and photo book, collected over four years of working with families and staff from Hummingbird House, Queensland’s only children’s hospice. Hummingbird House provides care and support for babies, children and young people with life-limiting conditions and their families. The exhibition tells personal audio narratives of two families, documenting their strength and resilience through their journeys and experiences with grief, joy and loss. Jess is the social media coordinator for My Little Sunshine, writing and promoting media releases. The stories and messages were very sad but also incredibly moving.

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

A very belated Christmas holiday 2021!

Letter No. 262

Dear all,

December 2021.  Matt had surgery on 22 Dec to remove the wires from his right hand and our flight to Cairns was early the next morning. This tight schedule had been worrying Katie, but fortunately, everything turned out fine – Matt’s surgery was on time, so was the flight and then we drove an hour north to Port Douglas. It was great to discover that our little beach “shack” Airbnb was actually a beautiful modern beach house with fantastic facilities. It was on Four Mile Beach and just a five-minute drive from Port Douglas. We grabbed food and drinks and celebrated the start of our Christmas holiday with cocktails and a BBQ. The length of the beach is quite spectacular. Sadly, you can’t swim outside the netted areas due to the crocs and the stingers.

On Christmas Eve we drove to Mossman Gorge. There is a beautiful rainforest walk around and along the gorge which finishes at a swimming hole. It was a hot and humid day so after the walk we were ready for a swim and the water was very cool, crisp, clear and refreshing. Poor Matt had to keep his right hand high out of the water – it couldn’t get wet until his stitches were removed – but he managed a bit of careful one-handed swimming. Later that day, we went on a sunset sailing trip on the Shaolin, a traditional Chinese junk with red sails. The junk was very similar to the one we hired in Hong Kong the day after we were married for a day trip with all our overseas wedding guests. It was a beautiful calm evening, so there was more bobbing around than sailing, plus lots of sunset drinks and then dinner at the Yacht Club.

The next day was the very relaxed Christmas Day – a long leisurely brunch, presents and day on the beach, then on to the nearby Pullman Port Douglas for cocktails by the pool and a spectacular seafood smorgasbord dinner. After dinner, the quickest way home was to walk about 1km along the beach in the dark. About halfway, Jess decided this was a bad idea and that we were all going to get taken by crocs. Luckily, we made it back uneaten.

The next couple of days involved a stroll around the Port Douglas markets, a swim in the beach netted area, dinner at Hemingway’s Brewery on the dock and then a full day trip to the Daintree Rainforest at Cape Tribulation. We started with a croc-hunting boat trip along the Daintree River. We spotted about ten crocs from babies to about 3 metres long. There were no really huge ones like we’d seen a few years earlier in the Mary River in the Northern Territory and they don’t feed the crocs to make them jump out of the water. It seemed better to see the crocs in a more natural environment though.

We drove on to the Daintree Discovery Centre. It has a series of walks in the rainforest, suspended aerial tree walks, lookout towers high in the treetops and a centre with exhibits of the freshwater fish found in the rainforest streams. It was very good. There were reports of seeing cassowaries around the centre but we didn’t see one while we were there. Afterwards, we drove about 100m down the road and there was a huge, brightly-coloured cassowary, right next to the side of the road. We were very lucky. It is quite rare to see them in the wild. We stopped and watched it for about five minutes, wondering whether it might cross the road.

We drove on up to Cape Tribulation and had lunch at the Turtle Rock Café. While we were eating there was a tremendous downpour of rain. It didn’t last long, but I had to take off my shoes and wade through knee deep water to get back to the car! This was the end of the sealed road going north so we turned back. On the way back to Port Douglas we stopped at Noah Beach to walk to another lookout. When we were there, we were startled to see people swimming in the sea! Afterwards, back at the beach, we saw a tour guide tearing shreds off the German tourists who had somehow walked right past the huge sign saying “Danger Crocodiles – No Swimming” with a big picture of a ferocious crocodile with large teeth. On the way home, we stopped for ice cream and then had another lovely BBQ dinner at our beautiful beach shack. We were sad to leave as it had been the great relaxing Christmas holiday home.  

Our second destination was the Atherton Tablelands. This area is known for spectacular rainforest walks, waterfalls, caves and strangler figs. Sadly, we didn’t get to see many of them, as it started to rain just as we headed up to the tablelands and then rained almost non-stop while we were there. We did manage a quick rainforest hike at Barron Falls enroute, saw the historic Skyrail steam train, visited Kuranda Village (quaint little market town filled with craft shops and restaurants) and fluttered around the Butterfly Farm. The cool, wet evenings were spent at the Atherton pub or Indian restaurant listening to the rain tumble down. Other wet weather activities included a fabulous morning tea at the Skybury Coffee Plantation and a stop at the Mt Uncle Distillery to sample some of their unusual spirits like Christmas pudding gin. One afternoon Jessie and I went to the Crystal Caves. It was a spectacular display of rocks, crystals, minerals and fossils from all over the world that a local guy had collected over decades. It is worth a visit if you ever find yourself in Atherton on a rainy afternoon!

Heading onwards, a two-hour drive took us to our third destination Mission Beach, south of Cairns. Just as we arrived the sun came out again. We stayed in a lovely resort with a pool, great Italian restaurant and live music afternoons on the beach. We had a couple of slow days on the beach and at the pool, enjoying the FNQ lifestyle. On New Year’s Eve we hired a speedboat and boated around Dunk Island before pulling up for a morning on the beach. It was close to the Dunk Island Resort, which had been mostly destroyed in Cyclone Yasi in 2011 and is only now having minor restoration work. It was pretty interesting looking at the ruins. It was a spectacular day, and we swam and snorkelled off the beach. In the evening, we had a lovely Italian dinner in the resort before heading into Mission Beach village. We found a hip hopping bar (actually, the only hip bar in town) with a live band. Actually, all the restaurants and bars in Mission Beach seemed to have an aged singer or guitarist in the corner. There was a great party atmosphere and I think the entire town was there. We all danced until midnight.

On our last full day, we had a fabulous boat trip to the Great Barrier Reef. The weather was glorious. It took about 1.5 hours for our boat to get to a small sand cay where we moored and went snorkelling. Matthew still couldn’t get his right hand wet, so we had to wrap it in a double layer of plastic bags, tape it up tightly and then he snorkelled using a child’s floatie we had bought specially to keep it out of the water. After a great buffet lunch, we moved to another site and I went diving. There were about 10 people diving and 20 snorkelling. All the other divers were beginners, so I had a different instructor and had a really great dive. I hadn’t been since Fiji four years ago, but it is just like riding a bike.

Next morning, we drove back to Cairns and dropped Matt off to meet up with his group of friends; he was spending another week in Port Douglas. He got his stitches out the next day and was then able to go swimming with both hands and even managed to go diving. His recovery has been amazing and he just needs a bit of ongoing physio now. Our flight to Brisbane wasn’t until the afternoon so Katie, Jess and I went to the Cairns Aquarium for a few hours. It was one of the best aquariums I have been to and a nice way to round off our trip to Far North Queensland.

January 2022.  Back home, we discovered that Covid had well and truly arrived in Brisbane. It seemed that everyone under 25 had it. Jessie went straight over to her boyfriend’s house and then called the next day to say that he wasn’t feeling very well. She and James didn’t think headaches, chills and feeling unwell were a sign of Covid, but we insisted that they get tested and surprise, surprise, he had Covid, and that meant that Jessie had it too. Katie initially told Jessie not to come home, but when she did we set up the house with two zones with Jessie downstairs and us upstairs and a huge barrier between them. We fed Jess on disposable plates which she put straight in the bin and even Molly was barred from going downstairs to see her. Jessie had a sniffle and a cough, but it wasn’t too bad. She isolated for seven days and was well and truly sick of her own company at the end of it!

Matthew started his new full-time job with KWM (King & Wood Mallesons) on 12^th January. It is the company where he has been working as a paralegal for the last few years. They had offered him the opportunity to circumvent the graduate program altogether and move straight into a Junior Solicitor role.  He started working on the Royal Commission into Veteran Suicide, which he said was very confronting at times.

We had a fairly quiet January otherwise. It is not PC to do anything too celebratory on Australia Day now so we had our friends the Biddles and Rasmussens over for a BBQ in lieu on 22^nd January instead. Katie and I just went out for a quiet lunch by ourselves on the Australia Day public holiday. We went to a lovely restaurant with river views in the city, but it bucketed down rain all day – a taste of the things to come!

Katie and Jess went to Sydney on 28^th January to see Katie’s Uni friend Olivia. It was a flying visit but they had a great time visiting Manly, The Rocks markets, Museum of Contemporary Art, Darling Harbour and doing lots of shopping. The highlight was seeing “Six – The Musical”, about the six wives of Henry VIII, at the Opera House. They all thought it was brilliant.

February.  On 9^th February we went to see the movie Death on the Nile. It was combined with a wine tasting at the Barracks Movie theatre. We went with a group of friends and Matthew came as well. He loves Agatha Christie movies.  The following weekend we went to Gin School. Katie had given me a voucher for Christmas. It was a very swish bar which had a back room set up like an art deco conservatory with 24 mini stills set up. We had a two-hour session, with four different gin cocktails, a cheese platter and instructions on how to make our own 500ml bottle of gin. You could pick your own “botanicals” to flavour your gin and colour it as well. Katie made a Pink Jasmine Gin flavoured with pear and mandarin, and I made Blue Chilli Dragon Gin. It was a really fun evening and we will go again.

It was a wet February but on 25^th a Rain Bomb settled over Brisbane and didn’t move for three days. It was the most intense rain I have ever seen. Torrential rain, literally non-stop for three solid days. We had 950mm of rain in those three days and it fell over a very large area of South East Queensland, mainly Brisbane and the outskirts, with all the rain ending up in dams and river catchments. It was insane! On Friday, the media said Brisbane wouldn’t flood; on Saturday morning they said there could be minor flooding; by Saturday night they were predicting major flooding but nothing like the 2011 floods. In the end, it went close. The flood height was 4.2m in Brisbane City (it had been 4.6m in 2011). Thousands of houses went under again, Citycats were sunk, and lots of pontoons, jetskis, luxury yachts and houseboats went sailing down the river and smashed into bridges. Areas of the city centre and the South bank cultural precinct flooded and lost power. The damage to the city ran into the billions again.

Meanwhile Jessie had been at university at an indoor conference all day Saturday and then went straight into the city after her event. Everything had happened so quickly that she hadn’t heard about the chance of flooding. We had been texting her to make sure she had parked her car on high ground, but she didn’t see the messages, and then went straight into the city after her event. On Sunday morning she went out to pick up her car from Uni in St Lucia, still oblivious. She was surprised to discover that public transport wasn’t running properly and there were no buses. She managed to get an Uber part of the way, but it stopped when there was floodwater over the road, about two kilometres from her car. She tried to walk there through the teeming rain, but eventually called us when she realised how bad things were.

I went to pick her up but it was a challenge to get there as so many roads were cut. I used the high roads and drove around a roadblock and managed to get to her and then on to Uni. We got within 100m of her car and had to wade through thigh-deep water. Astonishingly, the car park was still dry, but her car was the only one in it. We weren’t sure if she could get off the campus or not, but at least she could move the car to higher ground. I waded back through the floodwater to my car, while Jess was directed by a security guard to drive through the pedestrian areas of the campus to get to a high road, as all the other roads were cut. In the meantime, I copped a sound telling off by a different security guard for driving through the roadblock. He said I should have let the car flood because it was too dangerous. I managed to meet up with Jess and she followed me home, on a circuitous route around all the flooded streets. She said it was all very scary and she will look at our messages properly in future.

On Sunday morning I also helped a friend who lives right on the river, to clear all the furniture from his house’s ground floor up to his first-floor level or onto higher ground. Fortunately, in the end his house didn’t flood. It was sandbagged by some other friends on the Monday and the river came within 50mm of getting in the house. It ruined his grass tennis court, took his jetty and flooded his beautiful garden which he had spent two years building in Covid lockdowns, but they got off relatively lightly compared to so many others. Graceville, and other nearby suburbs like Rocklea, Oxley, Tennyson and Yeronga were all badly flooded. The next weekend we had a working party to put all the furniture back in place.

I went into work on the Monday. The traffic was light despite a convoluted route around flood roads; I think most people had decided to stay home. On Tuesday the traffic was insane! People were starting to get out and about, but so many main roads were flooded that it took 1.5 hours each way to the office, which I can do in 20 minutes on a good run. I worked from home for the rest of the week. One morning I went for a cycle. The flood damage was pretty horrific. There was a thick layer of smelly mud everywhere, piles of flotsam and rotting debris, blocked paths and roads. It was pretty hairy riding!

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