Dear all,
JUNE On 4th 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 7th 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 10th June we went to our friend Katie Whittle’s 50th 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 30th 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 8th July we went to Paul Hart’s 60th 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 100th 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 6th 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 10th 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 20th 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 26th to 28th 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.
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