Dear all,
JUNE The day after we got Pippa we went out for a belated Mother’s Day lunch. We left the two dogs together for a couple of hours and went down to the village to Hunter and Scout. We watched them on the security cameras while we ate lunch, but they were fine. The next weekend my sister Lisa and family came over for morning tea and to meet Pippa. She is so soft and little and cuddly that she was a big hit with everyone.
On 6th June Katie went into hospital to have her ACL surgically repaired. She had the operation in the afternoon and stayed in hospital overnight. It was a long surgery, in which the surgeon pulls down a hamstring from the upper thigh and repositions it in place of the ligament, which is pretty amazing. Katie was really knocked out by the anaesthetic and was as sick as a dog for two days afterwards. I went to collect her at 11am the next day; she was sick in the car on the way home, then sick all day, most of the night and all the next day. For the next two weeks, Katie was in a full leg knee brace which she couldn’t even take off at night and had to use crutches to move from bed to sofa! She even had to sit on the floor in the shower. She took the rest of the week off as sick leave and then few days annual leave the next week, but then went back to work the following week working from home at first.
When she was ready to get back into the office I had to drive her around for another four weeks. It was pretty inconvenient, because I had to drop her at her work around 7:30am and then catch a train to work, then leave early and return to pick her up at 4pm. I was only managing a 6-hour day and taking carer’s leave for the rest of the time. Katie was also seeing her physio twice a week at this point, but the kids helped to drop her off and pick her up a few times and otherwise she got Ubers. At the five week mark, things were not going well, as the left knee was still not bending or straightening as it should. There was lots of concern about her “failure to progress”, “going backwards”, and whether she might need further surgery. She was referred back to the specialist and had to have extra physio manipulation which was very painful. Fortunately, her leg started to move again, and suddenly everything fell into place and a couple of weeks later she was off crutches and driving again (I was very happy about that).
Meanwhile, I took Pippa to puppy training every Saturday in June. She quickly learned all the commands and would do them if there was a treat on offer, but steadfastly ignores me if there is nothing in it for her. This is a sign of an intelligent dog, according to the trainer!
On 23rd June we went to Winosaurs, the local quarterly wine tasting in the street. Katie was on crutches at this point, but managed to make it up the stairs, find herself a chair and hold her glass of wine. The evening was a little more exciting than normal though, as one of our neighbours Trevor became light-headed and collapsed on the floor in the middle of the evening with a suspected heart attack. Sadly, when he fell he also broke a bone in his back, which made things worse. Another of our neighbours is a doctor, so he had good care until the ambulance arrived, and was in reasonably good spirits despite everything. As he was wheeled to the ambulance he passed someone the tasting notes for his bottle of wine and insisted that we carry on and taste his wine without him. It did put a bit of a damper on the evening, but we all felt we owed it to Trevor to try the wine anyway, with a toast for his good recovery. Astonishingly, he was back at home and seemingly none the worse for wear after only a few days in hospital, so it must have worked.
On 24th June we went to lunch at Blume in Boonah, about an hour’s drive into the country with a few friends. The restaurant had a spectacular degustation menu. Katie was still on crutches, so I dropped her right outside the door and she hobbled in. We had a really lovely afternoon, followed by a coffee at the pub in the warm winter sunshine before driving back to Brisbane.
JULY The next week I went on a work trip to Alice Springs for three days. It was a long way to go for only about four hours of work. Direct flights to Alice only go a couple of times per week, so travel options are limited. It was extremely cold and rainy the whole time I was there. One day the maximum was only 8 degrees.
It was Katie’s birthday on 12th July. We went to a very cool Japanese restaurant, Honto, in Fortitude Valley. The entrance was down a dark alley behind a set of industrial bins, then down a long dark hallway. The restaurant was huge and packed but so dimly lit that it was hard to find your way back from the bathroom! The food however was fantastic. Katie was walking very gingerly by this time, although off crutches. Later that week we had dinner at an Italian restaurant in Paddington with our BBC parent friends and then a long Christmas in July lunch at Spicers Balfour in the city with some other friends.
Katie did have another birthday dinner planned with a different group of girlfriends the following week but had to cancel, because she came down with a nasty bout of laryngitis and bronchitis. One day she was fine, and the next day she had lost her voice entirely. She was quite unwell with a hacking cough, and it took almost four weeks for her voice to get back to normal. I felt sorry for her on top of all her knee issues, but at least my ears had a nice rest!
It was the Brisbane Boys’ College 40th year re-union on 29th July. It was held at the Regatta Hotel – our old underage drinking hole. About 40 out of the 110 boys who left school in 1983 made it which was not a bad turnout. I wasn’t the baldest, wasn’t the greyest, wasn’t the fattest (by a long, long way), and was still on my first marriage (lots on their third!), so it felt like a win for me. One guy in his third marriage was just about to have a new baby – an adventure too far for me! One of the guys circulated with another old boy on FaceTime on his phone who had planned to come but was in hospital in Sydney. He was one of the really athletic people from our year group and had contracted a terrible virus and just had both legs amputated! It was fairly shocking, but he seemed very cheery on FaceTime. Ian Muir had arranged his annual trip back from Hong Kong around the event and we had had dinner (with John Haughton) beforehand. It was a great evening of catching up.
The next day Katie, Jess and I took out Pippa up to Mum and Dad’s place to introduce her to the farm. Pippa was very interested in the sheep, chickens and all the new smells. She was particularly excited when Molly caught and killed a mouse! The dogs seemed to get along with Mum and Dad okay which was good as we are hoping the two of them won’t be too much trouble when we go away on holidays. We had a nice morning tea with them.
AUGUST Katie and Jess went to the Barbie movie on 1st August. I decided to decline. Apparently it is very enlightening so perhaps I should have gone. The next week Katie and I saw Oppenheimer which was brilliant and profound. It was quite astounding that they created atomic weapons in our parents’ lifetime, considering the level of technology that they had.
We had dinner with Ian and Cathy on 9th August, the day before Ian went back to Hong Kong. They told us about all the political changes in Hong Kong since we had left. It is certainly not the place we left and no longer the one-country-two-systems promised by China in 1997. When we got home that night, Katie accidentally walked into the coffee table and broke her toe – it has not been her best year.
On 12th August we went to see Australia play France in the Rugby World Cup at the Brisbane stadium. We had lunch at Libertine, a lovely Vietnamese restaurant beforehand for a six-course degustation menu, which was WAY better than having a greasy fish and chips at the stadium! Matthew and I had gone to an Australia-France rugby game about ten years previously and I still had the yellow berets which said Aus V France on them, so Katie and I wore them to the game. We went with Shaun and Juliana and some of their friends. It was a great afternoon and evening, with a thrilling 11-kick penalty shootout which Australia won!
A few days later we went to an Outback Futures fundraising dinner at City Winery, a little boutique winery / restaurant in Fortitude Valley. As always, Katie had arranged a big party of around 30 of our friends and our group was about a quarter of the total attendees. The food and wine were great but the speeches went on waaaay too long. The following week we had dinner in Graceville with our friend Kylie Bolton to get to know her new partner Paul. It is great to have a more men in our social circle, we have been severely outnumbered for some time!
SEPTEMBER Katie and I went into Southbank to watch the RiverFire fireworks display on 2nd September. We caught the train in for 5pm and just wandered around. There were 500,000 people projected to watch the show along the riverbanks, and we quickly realised that we should have booked somewhere. Astonishingly, we found a bar very close to the river that still had seats in the general admission area for only $25 (including a drink), so we had dinner there watching the pre-show aircraft flyovers. When the fireworks started everyone rushed to the front to watch the fireworks, so our view was pretty much the same as the people who had paid $180 for river-side tables. The fireworks were spectacular, apparently there were 11 tonnes of fireworks, but what was even better was the drone display afterwards with 400 drones forming an enormous sky whale, amongst other things, swimming through the skies high above the river. It was pretty cool.
Katie, Jessie and I took the dogs for a walk up Mt Coot-tha on 3rd September. It was really nice that Jess came with us. It was only about a 5km round trip, and I took everyone out for brunch at the peak for Father's Day. Katie has just passed the 3-month mark with her knee (her full recovery will take a whole year). Her physio has put her onto a new program for the 3-6 month phase. It is called the Melbourne ACL protocol and is designed for elite athletes in their 20s and 30s. Katie is hoping he will cut her some slack but is nevertheless determined to hit all the key markers going forward, given her failure at the 5-week stage.
The 7th September was Jessica’s birthday. We all went into the Valley to Snackman, a very upmarket Chinese restaurant and wine bar. Kyel came as well. It was close to my work so I just walked over while everyone else came from their various offices in the city and uni. Jess also had a party, which she had creatively decided would have a Bald theme. She was so keen to have everyone wear a bald wig that she bought out bald wigs from every party shop in a 20km radius, even finding one place that had darker skin toned wigs for some of her Asian friends. The party was supposed to be a pre-gathering before they all went clubbing the valley around 10pm. When we pointed out that perhaps they should have something to eat, we got the job of providing food, and I also got the fire pit out for them. The kids brought all their own drinks, so it wasn’t much effort really. There were about 45 people and about 70% did wear bald wigs with costumes as well. Jessie dressed as Pitbull (rapper), Kyel was a white Mike Tyson, and there were an array of costumes including Dr Phil, Dobby from Harry Potter, and several yellow minions. It was very funny. Katie and I produced food and retreated upstairs about 8pm. There was no sign of them leaving by 11pm and I think the idea of going clubbing was abandoned around midnight as the hard core settled in for a night around the fire pit.
Next morning, I had to get up at 5am as I was going hiking with my mate Derek. We went to O’Reilly’s and did an 18km hike in the rainforest up and down mountains. I was very tired when we got home that afternoon and nearly fell asleep in my dinner. The following weekend we took the dogs to Palm Beach. It was Pippa’s first day at the beach and Molly LOVES going. We had planned a relaxing morning reading in the sun on the sand but that was impossible with two dogs. Pippa was SO excited. There were so many other dogs to play with, the sea to splash in and the surf to run away from the waves. She had the best day. We had a lovely morning running after both dogs, followed by lunch at our favourite Dune Café. In the past, the café didn’t allow dogs, even though it was located right next to a dog beach, so we’d always had to tie Molly up outside. The café now had new owners who allow dogs in the outdoor cafe area sitting under the table. Hooray, no more dogscrimination!
Cheers from Derek, Katie, Matt, Jessie, Molly & Pippa
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