Merry Christmas Everyone!

Letter No. 273

Dear all,

SEPTEMBER On Weds 11 September we went to the Tivoli to see Andrew Strong who was the lead singer for the band in the 1980s movie “The Commitments”. We went with Ant and Katie Whittle. The concert was great and the band played all the favourites from the movie. Ant had got VIP tickets in the balcony section with its own private bar, so it was pretty swish, although a bit late for a school night though.

On Friday 13^th September the council decided to enforce a local bridge closure, shutting off the main bridge that leads from our suburb across the river to the city, the main local shopping centre, and all of our workplaces. It was closed for two weeks for essential maintenance work. This meant that local residents had a 1 hour round trip detour to get to Indooroopilly on the other side, rather than five minutes to drive across it. The local Facebook community was incandescent with rage for weeks beforehand. It was not too bad for me as trains were still running over the rail bridge, but it meant that Katie had to catch a train and a bus to get to work which took her 45 minutes rather than just 15. The bridge was meant to be closed for two weeks but opened four days early in the end. Then the same people who had previously been outraged started complaining that it should remain closed as it was so peaceful in Graceville. The poor council just cannot win!

On Friday 20^th September we both took the day off work to go to our friend Leona’s mum’s funeral.  Monica was 100 years old, but the last ten years had been pretty grim for her with dementia and multiple falls resulting in several broken ribs and two broken hips. It was a catholic funeral which went on for nearly two hours. Afterwards there was a wake/lunch at the local bowls club and then we went back to their house for an extended wake. We left at about 6pm but the last mourners didn’t leave until about 11:30pm apparently.

OCTOBER We had a few quiet weeks before the King’s Birthday long weekend (5-7 October). On the Saturday night it was our friend Derek Trebilcock’s Annual Garden Party. He is an architect and invites mainly clients and a few friends. It is always a good bash. He sets up a long table of about 40 people underneath a wisteria arbour. Some years the wisteria is in full bloom and is just exquisite. The party was probably just a week too early this year as only two flowers (out of thousands) had opened!

The next night was a tennis afternoon at Leona and Jeremy’s house. They have a puppy Olive, so we decided to take Pippa. The two dogs had got on like a house on fire the last time they had met (three months earlier) so we thought they would be fine. Olive had grown quite a bit though and was now about double Pippa’s size and was playing as roughly as they had before but Pippa was a bit intimidated. We took Pippa onto the tennis court with us and tied her on the sidelines to keep them apart. Pippa quickly spotted the chicken coop on the other side of the tennis court, and when we finished playing tennis and let her off the lead, she made a bee line for the chickens. We knew the gate was closed, so let her watch them with great interest for about ten minutes. Unfortunately, Pippa then discovered that the gate wasn’t properly latched, worked it open and darted in. Suddenly all hell let loose. There was much squawking and an explosion of feathers as Pippa chased the chooks around and they jumped and flew away from her. Katie and I sprinted across the court at top speed and into the coop and luckily Katie managed to grab Pippa quickly and held onto her, squirming. I took her out with a huge mouthful of feathers. It was SO embarrassing. Thank goodness she hadn’t actually caught one of them. I had to take Pippa straight home in disgrace. We had a few more games of tennis before a BBQ dinner and some lively political debate.

The next day we got up early and took the dogs to Palm Beach for a swim in the ocean. It was their first beach trip for about six months and Pippa was noticeably more well behaved and not so wildly excited. She still had a huge day playing with all the other dogs at the dog beach, while Molly sat quietly with us most of the day. We had a nice lunch at our favourite beach café before heading back home. Thanks King Charles for the long weekend.

On 16^th October we went to dinner with our friend Libby to interview her new boyfriend, Rod. We went for Tapas at Botellon in the village. We had a nice dinner and Rod passed his interview. That weekend we went to stay at our friend Kylie’s beach house at Peregian Beach on the Sunshine Coast. I was primarily there to certify some structural modifications that had been illegally made before Kylie had bought the property. When she applied for the house to become an Airbnb, the council had worked out that structural walls had been demolished, so I had to work out the easiest way for her to reinstate the walls, certify them and then submit plans to the council. Kylie insisted that we stay for the whole weekend, so we drove up on the Friday after work, stopping for a quick dinner that night at the Peregian Beach pub. On the Saturday we had a beach morning and then I spent several hours measuring up for the structural works, up ladders, in loft space and muttering over the drawings that bore very little resemblance to the actual structure. I ended up re-measuring everything so it took three times as long as expected. We had a lovely dinner on Saturday night at Bask, then did a bit of shopping on Sunday morning before driving home.

Friday 25^th October was busy for both of us. Katie had her annual UQU Clubbies Gala Awards Night. This is her report: It was a huge and successful night at the amazing Cloudland with multiple moving parts: 320 UQ students, 31 awards categories, 58 glass trophies, 14 presenters on stage, 3 dance/musical performances with 28 performers, 3 photographers, 1 videographer, 1 photobooth, 1 DJ on a rolling platform, 4 background videos, a PowerPoint compiled by yours truly, and a 17-hour work day for me.

Meanwhile I went to Winosaurs by myself the same night. There happened to be lots of single people there that night with partners away for some reason or the other. That meant there was a proportionally larger amount of wine and more food for each person than usual. It went on quite late as the hosts were a bit lax in moving the wine tasting along. Katie came home after midnight and found me fast asleep on the sofa with the dogs watching TV. On the Sunday we also managed to sell Matt’s car and French Horn in the same day, so his bank account took a positive upward hit. Enough for another four months in China if needed!

NOVEMBER On 2^nd November Daisy Kupusarevic arrived (daughter of our UK friends Chris and Sharon) to stay with us for five days. We hadn’t seen her since she was about eight and she had changed a bit. Katie went and picked her up at the airport because I was seeing Cold Chisel in concert that night. It was their 50^th Anniversary tour and they were playing under a big top tent. They were supported by The Cruel Sea. The tent was set up on a huge oval and surrounded by food trucks and a bar. I went with a mate from work and some of his friends. We sat on the grass and had dinner before going in to see the encores for The Cruel Sea. I only knew two of their songs and they were both in the encore so that was great. Cold Chisel were fantastic. The best concert I have been to for a long time. The average age of the crowd was probably about 55 so everyone was fairly well behaved.

On Sunday we took Daisy out to show her a little of Brisbane. We went to the Milton Markets, the Mt Coot-tha Lookout and then had a lovely lunch at Joeys on Kangaroo Point Cliffs. The restaurant has a fantastic view of the botanic gardens and the city. We caught up on all the gossip from the school parents we had known in our Manchester days, which was quite entertaining. I did a seafood BBQ at home that night with Moreton Bay Bugs, as Chris had had something similar when he stayed with us and apparently had remembered it. Daisy was an excellent guest - we gave her suggestions of things to do each day, and she took herself off and amused herself. On the Wednesday night Katie, Daisy and Jessie went to Mr Percival’s at Howard Smith Wharves for sunset cocktails and then I joined them for an Italian dinner at Ciao Papa overlooking the river. Daisy is such a lovely young lady and very independent; it was a pleasure having her to stay with us. Jessie got on well with her too.

On 3^rd November we also took temporary ownership of a third Jack Russell, Hunter, who belongs to a work friend of Katie’s. He was only 15 months old but was totally untrained. He had been sleeping in his owner’s bed, jumping on furniture, eating human food (mostly ice-cream it seemed), was considerably overweight, didn’t come or sit, and chewed lots of things in the house. The first night he howled all night until we locked him in the study at midnight. We felt a bit sorry for him as it wasn’t his fault, he was just very young and scared in a new place. After a while we managed to get him to eat dog food, even though Katie had to sit on the floor with him and hand feed him while resource guarding against Molly and Pippa. By the end of the first week he was sleeping in a dog bed, going for regular walks, eating by himself, and had even lost a little weight. He and Pippa tore around like mad for hours having play fights, but he was too much even for her, and she started hiding under the sofa. Molly just snarled at him, and he kept well away. He was a nice little boy, but we were all pleased when he left after two weeks.

On 7^th November Matthew finished the first half of his HSK4 language course in Yangzhou, then flew to Bali to meet some friends and go sailing around the Indonesian Islands. In other travel news, we are thinking about Morocco next year. Some friends Peter and Karen Gibson had been recently, and they invited us around for a BBQ to give us tips about their trip. Peter met us at the door wearing a fez and Karen served us food in her Moroccan-bought tagines. After dinner we watched their holiday video on TV. It reminded me of a 1970s slide night.

The next night we went to see Take That with Sophie Ellis Bexter at A Day on the Green with Ant and Katie Whittle. It was the last night of their Australia tour, but there was rain predicted so we took our wet weather ponchos etc. We arrived, had dinner and settled into our seats just as it started spitting rain. Sophie Ellis Bexter was great, but just as she got to her best songs, the storm came over with lots of lightning, so they had to halt the show. We all stood in the pouring rain waiting for the storm to pass over so she would come back on and sing Murder on the Dance Floor, whilst keeping well away from the very tall sound structures! After about 45 minutes, there was so much lightning that they decided to cancel the show. The entire audience turned and started walking back to the cars en masse. Just then the torrential rain changed to completely biblical rain and we all got soaked to skin. Luckily, we were parked in a good place and got home within an hour, quite soggy. Other people were stuck in the car park for two hours! We got a full refund a couple of weeks later, but were sad to miss Take That.

The next weekend, Mel and Bernie Thorpe invited us to see Michael Franti in concert at the Tivoli as a thank you to Katie for doing the flowers at their wedding. Neither of us knew any of his songs but he was fantastic and the whole venue was alive and jumping. I had no idea you could have so many happy positive songs in one set!

It was the AECOM Christmas Party on 23^rd November. It is always a great event, and this year’s theme was The Mad Hatter. I had spent weeks working on my hat -- a top hat with a sloping top decorated with all sorts of mad things – candles, a goat, cogs, wheels, a pressure gauge, playing cards, conduits, jewels, googly eyes and mirrors. I was very proud of it and it featured in many of the event photos. If there had been a prize for best dressed, I would have been in the finals. Katie went as the Cheshire Cat with cat’s ears and a large smile on a stick. We had a great evening but went home promptly after the event as Katie was flying to Shanghai the next day to have a holiday with Matthew.  

DECEMBER On Wednesday 4th December Jessica had organised a Panel Discussion: Ending Violence Against Women through Primary Prevention through her group Girl Up Brisbane. They had four amazing professional panellists – Stephanie an urban planner speaking about the Safe Cities, Safe Streets program which advocates for women and girls’ safety in public spaces; Sharon a senior sergeant in the Queensland Police Force working chiefly in child protection and across the DFV space; Kara a solicitor and former Australian Young Lawyer of the Year who founded Australia’s first specialist DV law firm and initiated the first domestic violence strategy for the City of Brisbane as a City Councillor; and Nidhi, a facilitator and educator who currently leads the ChangeMakers program empowering men to engage in gender equity conversations.

Jess was stressed about selling enough tickets but there a was a last minute run and in the end the venue was quite full. I went along to support as well. I knew some of Jessie’s friends who were there and chatted to some of the more mature people who came along – one of whom was the ex-Attorney General, Yvette D’Ath. It was a good evening with lots of thought-provoking discussions. Jessie was ecstatic about how well it went.

Merry Christmas from Derek, Katie, Matt, Jessie, Molly & Pippa

 

 

 

Goodbye Matthew ;-)

Letter No. 272

Dear all,

JULY The month started with the Winosaurs on Tour weekend in Stanthorpe, organised by Katie and one other neighbour. When it was first suggested everyone was keen, but we didn’t think many people would commit. To our astonishment almost everyone did and there were 23 of us altogether, all from Mortlake Road. We both took the Friday off work and drove up with a few stops on the way. We had lunch at Sutton’s Apple Factory then walked around the rock formations admiring the spectacular views at Donnelley’s Castle Lookout. We also stopped at the Granite Belt Christmas Farm (where it is Christmas every day) to marvel at the most enormous quantity of Christmas kitch! It was like being in a giant Christmas department store. Stanthorpe is high up (sometimes it even snows), so it was cold and felt quite Christmassy. Katie had prepared a list of things to do in and around Stanthorpe, so we kept bumping into Mortlakers everywhere we went. It was so funny. We were all staying in a htoel the middle of Stanthorpe and we had a nice group dinner at the Italian restaurant that night. One couple had been upgraded from a standard room to a nearby house and after dinner they invited a few of us back to the house to demolish a nice bottle of port. We stayed quite late and felt like the naughty kids on tour.

On Saturday we went for a morning wander around Stanthorpe and to the markets. Again, we kept bumping into our neighbours everywhere. Katie had organised a wine tasting tour of three local wineries for the day. The bus took us to Symphony Hill Winery first for a full tasting, then St Jude’s Winery for a delicious lunch and tasting and finally Ballandean Estate. I brought speaker and played music on the bus, and things got quite merry as the afternoon wore on. We had a surprise stop at Severn Brae Estate on the way back to Stanthorpe -- a very eclectic winery which also sold all sorts of weird and wonderful things – it was really interesting, and people came home with odd purchases like milking stools and decorative bird cages. We had a good old singalong on the final trip back to the hotel. After a lie down, we all headed to dinner at Essen. It was a very cold night, but thankfully the restaurant was only a short walk from the hotel. The food was fantastic, perhaps one of the best restaurants I have ever been to, and surprising as the exterior is like a run-down old house. On Sunday we went to the Washpool Soapery, Truffle Discovery Centre and Stanthorpe Cheese factory, where Katie embarked on a solo mission to boost the Stanthorpe economy with her foodie gift buying. We bumped into our good friends Gavin and Rebecca from No. 53 at the last stop, so we did the cheese tasting morning tea experience together. We only just managed to fit all of our food and wine purchases in the car.

Friday 12 July was Katie’s birthday. She had over ten days’ celebrations including a fantastic Indian banquet dinner with our friends the Biddles and the Rasmussens on the 12^th, a family brunch on the 13^th, lunch with girlfriends at an Italian restaurant Ciao Papi in the city the following weekend, plus a family lunch at Short Grain which is a modern Thai restaurant. We liked it so much we have booked again for Jessie’s birthday in a few months.

Jessie had her first business trip away in July with two nights in Cairns facilitating a conference. She was excited and impressed with her lovely 5-star hotel! She had been a bit worried about the timing of the trip as she was the main organiser for a Girl Up event on the Friday night and her flight back was on Friday morning. We had convinced her not to worry as flights very rarely get cancelled. But sure enough, her flight did get cancelled and she phoned me in a panic. Fortunately for her it all worked out perfectly, and she got another flight (and even got upgraded to business class!) so she made it back in plenty of time. She then spent all afternoon organising the food and decorations for her event, Gig with Girl Up, which had live music, nibbles and mingling at a hip little venue called The Station quite near my office. Jessie is the President of Girl Up Brisbane, a not-for-profit United Nations affiliated women’s empowerment community group based in Brisbane - hosting social, fundraising and advocacy events promoting women’s rights. Katie and I went along to support.

On 27th July we went to the Brisbane Gin Festival with 14 of our closest friends. It was a three-hour session from 2pm to 5pm with 50 gin distilleries all doing tastings. They wanted people to really taste the gin so were serving it neat or on ice, with no mixers. We started hard with four samples in the first half hour, after which Katie had to go and sit down. Her capacity for gin is not as good as her capacity for champagne. I bought some bottles of tonic, and we all slowed down a bit, but by the end of the afternoon everyone had bought multiple bottles of gin. One couple bought nine bottles! We clinked out at 5pm. Luckily someone had parked their car nearby and we stashed around seventy bottles in the boot, then wobbled on to a nearby restaurant for an early dinner. Around 9:30pm we caught an Uber home with our friend Libby who lives a few doors up. As we got home there were a lot of cars in our street, so we thought someone must be having a party. Then we saw Jessie flagging down a Dominos pizza van right behind us and we realised that the party was at our house. We helped ourselves to a bit of pizza and garlic bread before it even got inside. It turned out that Jessie was hosting her Book club that evening, so we joined them for a little while which they all found hilarious. Some of them had even read the book, but it seemed that there was far more wine drinking than book discussion. I think the “Book Club” finished about 2am. Sunday was a slow day for everyone.

AUGUST On 3rd August it was Matt’s house farewell party. He has lived at the house in St Osyth Street, Toowong for 3.5 years, and the boys are now all heading off in different directions, so it’s the end of an era for them all. Katie helped with the Saltburn-themed styling while I strung up the fairy lights. It was a huge success, judging by the number of empty bottles I saw when I went to take down the lights the next day. Matt moves home in a couple of weeks.

The next day Katie had a wedding flower trial with a couple of girlfriends. Katie has been helping our friend Mel with her upcoming wedding plans. They have had multiple conversations about photographers, decorations and cakes, and Katie is also doing flowers for the day. This has grown into an epic mission, with a very specific “Australiana meets English spring country garden” theme and colours of white, cream, blush pink, apricot and mushroom, plus frayed edge silk ribbons, but Katie is across it. The girls went to Rocklea flower markets and selected a range of English roses, freesias, spray carnations and stocks, supplemented with geraldton was, blushing brides and thriptomene. The trial cost was $200 and they’ve worked out that the full cost for the wedding will be around $1100. Our veranda was covered in flowers.

The Hen and Stag evenings were the following Saturday. The boys had decided to start at the Cattleman’s Bar at the “Ekka”. It is a large Country Show that comes to Brisbane once a year. I hadn’t been for about 10 years, since the kids were much younger, so I made a day of it. I watched the wood chop, dog and cat shows, wandered around the cattle and sheep pavilions, sideshow alley, chicken stalls, home crafts, cake stalls and all things country. I now probably won't need to go to the Ekka again in my lifetime. I also popped by the food pavilion and located the gin tasting stalls. In hindsight, perhaps not a good idea at 11am when there is a long afternoon at the pub ahead. There were about 25 of us attending the Stag Party. We met at the Cattleman’s Bar about 3pm, then on to a nearby pub to watch the rugby and have something to eat. Meanwhile the girls were at a Ceramic Painting workshop in the afternoon, with cake and champagne (Katie doing all the organising once again) and then on to Valley Hops Brewing at Cloudland, for food and jugs of cocktails. Katie had brought Mel a “Bride to Be” sash, headdress and veil to wear, which drew lots of attention and Mel just LOVED the whole thing. About 9pm the boys started drifting to Cloudland to meet the girls and we headed home together.

On Sunday 24 August Matthew moved home. I went over to help him disassemble his bed and dismantle other furniture I had constructed for him. He had a mate with a Ute who did most of the heavy lifting though. Despite selling lots of furniture, there still seemed to be a lot of things coming back to our place. By the end of the day, our downstairs was groaning with all the extra furniture and all of Matt’s assorted possessions.

The next two weekends were HUGE. It was our turn to host Winosaurs on Friday 30 August. The host gets to think of the theme, and most people are very serious about their wine regions, grape varietals and tasting notes, so we went a bit left field. Our theme was finding a bottle with the most interesting label and not talking about the wine but telling a joke instead -- the bluer the better! We were a bit worried, about how people would react, but luckily everyone was on board, and it was a hilarious night. There were some very inappropriate jokes that would have appalled anyone under the age of 30, but everyone seemed to have a great time. I think we also tasted some wine. Katie awarded a prize for the best joke which was a small trophy and a half size bottle of wine with a picture of a Jack Russell on it! We ended up sitting around the firepit with the stragglers listening to music until midnight. Everyone enjoyed it so much they decided the joke evening had to be an annual event! The next night, Saturday 31^st August, was Matt’s Leaving Party at our house. He had invited about 40 of his closest friends and we “hosted” the party with cocktails, a cheese platter and Chinese nibbles on the upper veranda from 4pm onwards. It was nice chatting to all his friends, but we were feeling rather jaded after the previous night, so happy when they all left at 9pm to go night-clubbing.

SEPTEMBER The next day, Sunday 1 November, was Matt’s Family Farewell.  We went to the Peaks Crossing Pub for lunch with Mum and Dad, along with my sister Lisa and her family. It was also Father’s Day, so the pub was heaving and we had a lovely lunch with Mum and Dad. It reminded me of when I left Australia in 1992, allegedly for 1 year and stayed away for 18 years living in Hong Kong and then the UK. It was a little bittersweet. We were pretty worn out after hosting two parties on consecutive nights, so had a very early night.

The next weekend was Mel & Bernie’s Wedding on Sat 7 September. Mel and Bernie were getting married at Yandina Station, a lovely rustic country wedding venue behind Coolum, about 15 minutes’ drive into the hinterland. We were staying in Coolum with two other couples (Kylie & Paul and Jeremy & Leona) in a lovely Airbnb, also booked by Katie. By this time, Katie was beginning to regret having volunteered to do the flowers as there were 24 huge flower arrangements along the tables plus a swag of greenery along the top table, plus candles and lanterns to set out. It was quite the logistical exercise. Katie took the day off work on Thursday and the three girls did the assembly of bouquets in two parts in the morning and then the evening, stacking them in six huge polystyrene cool boxes for transport up to the Sunshine Coast. On Friday morning Paul and Kylie collected the flower boxes, drove them up to the Sunshine Coast while we headed straight to the Airbnb. On the Friday night, we all went for pre-wedding drinks at Coolum Surf Lifesaving Club, which was heaving, followed by a dinner for 75 people at a nearby Greek Restaurant. It was a very chaotic but a fun evening.

On the morning of the wedding, Katie and the other girls went up early to arrange the flowers, lanterns, candles and ribbons on the tables which took about three hours. Meantime the boys spent the morning on the beach, with strict instructions to have lunch ready at 12:30pm. Fortunately everything went to plan, the girls finished the flowers on time, and we all had a lovely lunch before catching the 2:30pm bus up back up to Yandina Station.  Meanwhile, my very big wedding responsibility was as Bus Monitor in charge of music for the short ride up to the venue. The wedding was lovely. It was a beautiful venue with old rustic farmhouse buildings. It was a spectacular afternoon - not a cloud in the sky, perfect temperature, stunning views and green grass as far as the eye could see. We were in black tie, and the ladies wore light and bright pastel colours, which made for beautiful photos.  The vows were also lovely and it was very moving. Afterwards there was a cocktail reception, while the bridal party had photos on the meadow and then dinner, where Katie and I were seated at the top of the guest table, right in front of the bridal party, as a recognition of all Katie’s efforts. She was really touched. The room looked lovely, especially the flowers, there were great speeches and a band, and we all danced the night away until it was time to catch the bus back to Coolum. The bus monitor’s music responsibilities were even more critical after everyone had a few drinks. We had a great sing-along to 80s hits and I even asked the bus driver to take the slow road back to the coast. We wobbled back to the Airbnb around midnight. What a lovely wedding.

We drove home on Sunday morning for Matt’s last couple of days with us. He left late on Monday 9 September, heading for Hong Kong for a few days and then on to China. More about his plans in our next letter. It was sad saying goodbye as we’re not sure when he will be back.

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

Lots of mini-breaks and lovely visitors!

 

Dear all,

 FEBRUARY One of Katie’s oldest friends Julia Kyprianou arrived from the UK on 23^rd February. She and Katie shared a house together in Oxford back in 1985, so they have been friends for almost forty years. Katie met Julia at the airport on Friday and we had a BBQ at home that evening as she was a bit Jet-lagged. Julia is such a lovely happy chatty person, and it was so good to catch up with her and hear all the family news. The next day Katie and Julia went for a morning at Lone Pine for the obligatory photo op with kangaroos and koalas. In the evening, we went into the city to have cocktails and dinner at Mr Percival’s at Howard Smith Wharves, which is a lovely entertaining precinct under the Story Bridge. We had a nice table by the river and were having a perfect twilight evening until someone jumped off the Story Bridge in an attempted suicide. It was quite shocking, and we all watched the very fast police rescue, with a police speedboat racing over, and the person being pulled out of the water and straight into a waiting ambulance on the opposite bank. They must have been on the bridge for some time. Dozens of people in the bar saw it happen; it was quite a disturbing thing to see.

The next day we took Julia to see the Outback Spectacular at the Gold Coast. It’s a three-dimensional show with immersive technology and vast video projections which take people on a journey to the heartland of Australia. There were horse and dog acts and a spectacular helicopter “flying” across the arena, telling the story of life in the Australian outback and the unforgiving life on the land. There was also a singer performing Aussie classics in the “outback bar”, a steak dinner and lots of great soundtracks. We’ve seen the Outback Spectacular a couple of times before and unfortunately this was the weakest show of the three, but it gave a flavour of life in the Australian outback. Julia left on the Monday, heading on to Newcastle, Sydney and Melbourne to visit family, and hopefully she’ll visit again one day.

MARCH We went to see Force of Nature on 2^nd March with our friends Gavin and Rebecca in the Graceville movie theatre. It is great to have a movie theatre we can walk to. The movie was good but not as good at the first one, The Dry, which was set in the outback. Gavin said this one really should have been titled The Wet as it was set in the rainforest and raining constantly.

On 6^th March we caught up with some more of our UK friends Vanessa, Mick and Phoebe Horner when they came for dinner. They are on a three-week tour of Australia before all going on to New Zealand where their son lives. Vanessa was Matt and Jessie’s Year One teacher at Bowdon Church School in Manchester, and Phoebe was in Matt’s class all the way through primary school and one of his best friends. We had a BBQ on the veranda and had a great night finding out all their news. Matt was in Melbourne but met up with Phoebe another night she was in Brisbane and took her to Howard Smith Wharves.

On 10^th March there was a street garden party to farewell our neighbour Beulah. She has lived in our street for 74 years and is moving to Tasmania to be closer to her son, who bred our puppy Pippa when he was living there last year. Whenever Pippa spots an open gate she makes a beeline for her birth house and runs around Beulah’s yard and sometimes into the house. We will have to explain the story to the new owners. Most of the street neighbours turned out for Sunday afternoon drinks to wish Beulah well in her new life.

We had a 1980s-style progressive dinner on the following Saturday. We started at Kylie’s house for champagne and entrees (oysters and stracciatella), moved on to Leona & Jeremy’s two streets over (roast lamb and veggies), and then ended up at ours one street on for dessert (chocolate torte with berry coulis) and port. There were ten of us altogether and the people who weren’t hosting provided the wines. We had a really fun evening, but it ran over schedule as it was hard to get people to move on at the appropriate time.

We had a lovely few days in Noosa for the Easter long weekend. We booked a cute little 2-bedroom Airbnb cottage with a pool and a garden for four nights, mainly because we could take the dogs, but also big enough in case the kids turned up. They had both said they wouldn’t come, but did both turn up for a couple of nights in the end. We had a couple of lovely nights just the two of us, with one dinner in Noosa Junction with the dogs and one night in with a BBQ seafood dinner. During the days we spent quite a bit of time at the nearby dog beach; Pippa had such a ball playing with the other dogs for hours on end and was absolutely exhausted at the end of each day. Molly had a fun time too but is mostly a spectator now. When the kids arrived, we walked into Hastings Street for shopping, had lunch out, and went for a couple of lovely dinners in Noosa Junction. A great little mini-break on the last weekend of Summer.

APRIL On 14^th April we had a family Sunday lunch at our house with Mum and Dad and my sister’s family. We were celebrating Mum and Dad’s birthdays – now 83 and 85. It was had a BBQ next to the pool and was a nice family day. The following weekend was our Winosaurs wine tasting for everyone in the street. I had found a cool black t-shirt with a T-rex drinking red wine and the word Winosaur printed on it. I didn’t mention it to anyone. One lady immediately noticed I was wearing it, but it took a few hours before everyone else noticed. Amazing how un-observant people can be. The t-shirt was a big hit though.

We went to Burleigh Heads the next weekend to stay with our friends Angela and Gavin who have an apartment there in a perfect beachfront location. We had a lovely first night in their apartment, chatting and watching the moon over the surf. Next morning was an early morning hike up to the headland national park, a quick shower and then lunch of lobster rolls and champagne at Rick Shores Café on the beach. Yum. Katie and Angela hit the shops hard in the afternoon and that night we had a takeaway and watched the Reds rugby. The next morning after an early morning swim (the water was still warm) and then back to Brisbane.

MAY On the 4^th May we went to Sunnybank to Trevor Hart’s 85^th birthday. Trevor is our Hong Kong friend Paul Hart’s father. We had met Trevor many times on his trips to Hong Kong over the years, and there were many Hong Kong people at the party along with Paul & Diane and their kids Caitlin and Jack. It was nice to catch up on all the Hong Kong gossip (Paul still splits time between Hong Kong and Sydney). All the older guests wandered off for an afternoon nap, so we retired to the Casino bar for the afternoon.

The following weekend was ridiculously busy. On the Saturday night we went to the LiteHaus Gala Ball at Cloudland. LiteHaus is a small grassroots charity which sources second-hand laptops from large companies that change their computers regularly, refurbishes them and then sets up computer labs in remote villages in outback Australia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and other pacific islands. They have built 367 school computer labs across Asia-Pacific, providing digital learning opportunities to over 238,242 students. Our friend Nathan Groenhout is Chairman, so we arranged a table to support him. It was black tie, so was great to get out our formal wear. The “sell” for the charity went on too long, but the drinks, dinner and dancing were great. We got home well after midnight.

The next night (Sunday) Matthew had his annual Eurovision party at our house. He had around 20 people and they all came dressed as a European country in some very bonkers costumes. Katie and I spent the evening chatting with his friends during pre-Eurovision cocktails and canapes. When the show started they all settled down in the studio and Katie and I heated and served (and ate) various European style dishes, all with little flags stuck in them. As usual Katie had to judge the Best Dressed costume; the winner came dressed as a pint of Guinness in a very clever costume. They left by 11:30pm so it was a fun evening but a very tiring weekend.

On Saturday 18^th May I went to the Corporate Games. I had been in asked to participate in the Quiz. A sport for the not-so-sporty, although I was by far the youngest and / or fittest in the room. The event was at UQ, and there were 20 teams of five. When we arrived, the room was unbearably hot. We had a mechanical engineer on our team; he found the out-of-hours override switch for the air conditioning and the instant relief was amazing when it came on. I asked the quiz master if we could have an extra point for getting the aircon going and he agreed. We were pleased to be instantly in first place with one point, but then discovered that each question was worth +/- 1000 points. You got +1000 points for a correct answer and -1000 points for an incorrect answer. The longer we took to answer the question, the fewer points we got.  It was quite clever. There were four rounds with an interval halfway. At the interval we were in fifth place, but then we discovered that the café downstairs sold beer, so we stocked up for the second half. This strategy worked well as we were leading by the third round; however, the wheels fell off in the fourth round and we ended up coming third.

That evening we invited our friends Leona & Jeremy over for dinner with their new 10-week old puppy Olive. Olive had not met other dogs before and was already just bigger than Pippa. The two puppies spent more than two hours play fighting in the garden and lounge room floor while Molly looked on. We had a nice dinner while both dogs wore themselves out. Pippa fell asleep within seconds after they left.

The next day we had Katie’s Barrettes and partners over for Sunday lunch. The girls do Barre Pilates together every Saturday (Katie has been going since 2018) and often do outings to the ballet or theatre together. We had a lovely long lunch on a very warm autumn day. The following weekend Matt took me out for a Gin Evening. It was his present for Christmas 2022 but had taken us a while to organise. We met for after-work drinks at a lovely gin bar in the city and then had dinner afterwards. It was nice to have some one-on-one time with Matthew and we had a great evening. Definitely worth the wait.

JUNE On Sunday 15^th June we had a dinner for our neighbours and their daughter and husband who had recently bought the house directly across the street. Katie got a bit over-excited when they won the auction and insisted on inviting them over to “welcome” them to the street, despite Emma having grown up in the house next door and has lived in the street longer than we have. They have two little girls aged 6 and 9 years who LOVED Pippa and chased her around all evening. We had clearly forgotten how much work (and how loud) little children could be, and it was quite a relief when they left early for their bedtime. Pippa had spent the last part of the evening hiding under a chair so was also quite relived! The oldies stayed on for quite some time though.  

Jessie had organised a Picnic in the Park on 16^th June for her charity Girl Up and Katie had invited a few of her University friends along. Jessie is the President of the Brisbane branch of Girl Up, which is a United Nations affiliated organisation, whose mission is to provide inclusive, accessible opportunities for grassroots collective action championing women's rights and liberties. So far this year the group has raised money for the Mater Chicks in Pink Foundation (therapeutic and medical support to people experiencing breast cancer) and secured bags of donations for the Zig Zag Young Women’s Resource Shelter (supporting women and gender diverse victim-survivors of sexual assault and people experiencing or at-risk of homelessness). The group also promotes public education on behalf of feminist causes. They had a good turnout for the picnic. It was a tad too girly for me, so I stayed at home and mowed the lawn.

The next weekend our Hong Kong friends, Ian Whitton and Liz Redfern came to stay. They arrived on Thursday afternoon and we had a BBQ on the deck with Jessie. The next day we sent them off to try out my newly created Walking Tour of Brisbane, which takes in Brisbane’s highlights plus a few interesting engineering sites. They managed most of the inaugural tour, apart from one early misstep, but I may need to make some minor refinements. That night we went to Mr Percival’s under the Story Bridge for cocktails again -- luckily no suicide attempts on this occasion – followed by dinner at Stanleys, a Cantonese restaurant where Matt joined us and then a nightcap Yat for the Doh (one for the road in Cantonese) at Fiume. On Saturday morning we went for a hike up Mt Coot-tha with the dogs and had brunch at the café at the top. Astonishingly we saw a koala in a tree right at the top of the path! Such a rare sight. It was lots of fun catching up with Liz and Ian and so nice to reminisce about our Hong Kong days.

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

Let me in!

Trip to New Caledonia

Letter No. 270

Dear all,

DECEMBER 2023 After a terrific family Christmas and a few relaxing days at home, Katie and I flew to New Caledonia on 30^th December. It was pretty much the first holiday we’ve had by ourselves for 25 years. Matthew had left the day before for three weeks in the Philippines and Vietnam, and Jessie was staying in Brisbane (on dog duty) following her trip to Thailand in December. New Caledonia is a province of France and is totally French-speaking. It’s only 2 hours from Brisbane, but not particularly well-known as a tourist destination, a bit like a mini-Fiji but with Australian prices. We arrived at the Hilton resort about 4pm in the afternoon. Our little apartment had a lovely verandah and a great view over the bay. After checking in we went for a walk along the beach and then had cocktails and tapas at a great bar watching the sunset.

The next day (New Years Eve) I went for an early morning run and then we went for a long walk on the promenade behind the beach around a series of pretty little bays to Baie de Citron. We stopped for coffee and the first of many delicious French patisserie. On the way back we stopped at the Aquarium des Lagons, which was apparently the No 1. Tourist attraction in Noumea. It was quite good but a bit smaller than we’d expected, so we spent the afternoon at the beach. That night was New Years Eve. We had a lovely dinner at the Stonebake Steak House, where we cooked our steaks on hot stones at our table. My steak was therefore perfectly cooked – well done. After dinner we had a wander around and went to a little bar for a while. There were quite a few utes driving around slowly with ridiculously big sound systems in the back, blaring reggae style music out over the beaches. We had heard that the main beach was the party place to be for NYE, and there were a lot of people there, but it wasn’t very hip-hopping. By 11pm we decided to call it a night; it was midnight in Fiji, so good enough.

JANUARY 2024 The next morning I went for a run and there were quite a few house parties still going. It was quite funny. We decided to spend the day at Le Meridian, which was the other main resort in Noumea. The resort itself was nicer than the Hilton, with a beautiful pool area and private beach, but the location was not as good as it was further away from everything, right at the end of the island. It was a draw for kite-surfers though; there must have been 35 or so brightly coloured canopies vigorously racing around the point every afternoon. It was here that we learned from the bar staff that all beaches in Noumea had been closed for nearly a year following a series of shark attacks, one in which an Australian kite-surfer had been killed. The government had spent all year installing shark nets and hunting sharks, and the beaches had only just re-opened. We’d had no idea when we’d booked the trip months earlier! Lucky for us that the beaches were open again. 

The next day we went to the New Caledonia’s No. 2 tourist attraction – the Tjibaou Cultural Centre. It was a 40-minute bus ride and we arrived at 10am. The centre gave a history of Noumea and was housed in an architecturally stunning building. There were three sections, but only two of them were open, and the café and gift shop were also both closed. We toured the open sections and learned a fair bit about New Caledonia’s heritage and environment, did a small walk through some botanical gardens, and made it back to the bus at 11:30am! We wandered around central Noumea for a little while, had lunch in Coconut Square, then went to the Musee de Noumea. It was only a big house but was packed with interesting information and posters about Noumea’s political history, nickel mining and activism in the 1960s.

The next day I went on an early morning dive trip while Katie spent the morning at Le Meridian pool. It was a 40-minute speed boat ride to the dive site in a tiny bumpy dingy with no room to scratch. On my very first dive I back rolled off the boat and found myself right over a black-tip reef shark. It was only about 1.5m long and they are not very dangerous. I actually saw four of them on that dive. A little while later we saw a much bigger shark – a grey reef shark, which was quite a lot bigger. I was a little concerned, so I lay on the sand at the bottom until it swam leisurely away. It was about 3m long and I doubt I could have wrapped my arms around it. The dive instructor didn’t seem too bothered but it got my heart racing!

We were back on the surface for about 45 minutes, then took a 15-minute boat ride to a lighthouse on a small rock in the sea. We dived over a large sunken fishing trawler and swam through the hull into the different rooms. The lighthouse definitely didn’t do its job! We got back to the shore about 1pm and I met Katie at the pool for the afternoon. That night we went to “Le Roof” for dinner. It is a fantastic French restaurant built at the end of a 100m-long pier. Underneath the pier there are lights shining down to the sea which attract the fish, and every table has a view over the balustrade. There were absolutely dozens of huge blue fin trevally in the water. The meal was extremely good quality and we loved watching the fish. The bill was equally fantastic.

The next day we took a 45-minute boat transfer to the tiny island of Ilot Maître, where we stayed at the Double Tree by Hilton. The resort is modelled on the Maldives, with over-water bungalows, or Pilotis, situated on a circular pier around the island. Each piloti has its own private steps leading directly into the sea. Our room was on the island (you had to book at least a year in advance to get an over water bungalow), but it didn’t really matter as it was less than 5m to the beach and only a 20m swim to the beautiful coral reef. We had three nights there and didn’t do much except snorkel, swim, sunbathe and walk around the island – a whole 20 minutes! One side (where we were) was very sheltered and the other was very windy, so attracted more kite surfers, who came over from the mainland every day. So colourful and great to watch. There were heaps of Hawksbill Turtles on the reef just in front of our room. We saw six different ones on one snorkel. It was so great watching them – we spent ages just drifting around seeing what they did.

We made some fun friends the first day – two girls in their 30s and one man travelling on his own. The five of us spent every evening chatting at the only bar. On Sunday 7^th January we took the ferry back to the mainland, a bus to the airport and flew back to Brisbane. It was a great and very relaxing break, with lots of stunning sunsets.

After a couple of weeks back at work we headed off again. This time Katie and I headed to Melbourne for a long weekend, primarily to attend the Australian Tennis Open. Katie had booked us an amazing place to stay -- the Martini Suite just one block from Flinders Street Station. It was a lovely art-deco building, and the furniture was entirely art deco style as well, so it felt like stepping back into another era. Of course, there were complementary Martinis on offer as welcome drinks, and we made good use of them. We went out to Ilaria Osteria, a lovely Italian restaurant for dinner on the first night where we sat up at the Kitchen Bar watching the staff prep the dishes. It was very cool. Afterwards we popped into a nearby wine bar for a quick drink on the way home. It turned out to be a piano bar and it was really jumping, with the pianist playing a heap of familiar tunes and the entire bar singing along.  We stayed until closing time and – we sang along too!

On Friday morning we went to the National Gallery of Melbourne. There was a huge room entirely lined with new tennis balls. You could bring along an old tennis ball of your own and exchange it for one of the balls in the display or just decorate one of the existing balls. We got there in time for the artist’s opening talk about the installation. After we’d wandered around the museum, we went back and there were already quite a few decorated tennis balls. It was pretty clever. I would have loved to see it at the end of the two weeks of tennis. We had lunch at the museum and then went to Federation Square to sit in deck chairs and watch the tennis on the big screen. It was a really fun atmosphere and a warm sunny afternoon. After a quick change we caught the train out to South Yarra (just four stops) to see our friends who used to live in Hong Kong, Ian Whitton and Liz Redfern. We went round to their lovely house first where Katie and Lizzie enjoyed an excited catch up over glasses of bubbles before heading to the local village for dinner. We had dinner at a lovely up-market Chinese restaurant and then drinks at a nearby pub. It was so fantastic to catchup with them after a very long time!

Next day it was time for tennis with our friends Leona Terry and Jeremy Tod who had come down the previous night. We met them for breakfast at the famous Brunetti’s Patisserie both days and then walked to the tennis centre. The first day we were in Rod Laver Arena and the second day we were in Margaret Court Arena, in fabulous seats on the third row. We saw some terrific tennis on both days, featuring Carlos Alcaraz, Aryna Sabalenka, Jannick Sinner, and Qinwen Zheng, all of whom did very well. We also stopped in at the Piper Heidsieck zone, had great food and a lot of fun with the Tods. We went to Il Bacaro for dinner on the Saturday night, another highly recommended Italian restaurant with an extraordinarily expensive wine list.

On Monday our flight left in the afternoon, so we spent the morning at The Lume. It’s an grat digital art gallery located at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre which provides an immersive art experience. It was an enormous warehouse type space with art projected onto every possible wall and floor and odd shaped walls in the middle of the space. The exhibition focused on indigenous art and was very impressive. We lay on a couple of bean bags and watched the show through twice and then ate lunch at the café inside, watching it a third time.

We proudly celebrated Australia Day on 26^th January traditionally with a BBQ at our friends the Biddles. Unfortunately, Covid decimated the attendees so it ended up just being the four of us but it was a good evening. The next day we were invited to the Gabba with our friends Mel and Bernie. Bernie was a member and we had lunch in the Members First XI Dining room while watching Australia play the West Indies in the second test of 2024. Australia was off to a convincing start and ended the third day looking very comfortable. However, in a thrilling encounter over the next two days, the West Indies emerged victorious, with an exceptional bowling performance from Shamar Joseph securing them an eight-run win. After a lovely long lunch, a lot of wine and a little bit of cricket watching we moved onto the Legends Lounge for a bit more serious cricket watching. It was a great afternoon.

FEBRUARY We went to see Chicago on 1^st February at the Performing Arts Centre with our friends Rebecca and Gavin and one of Katie’s Pilates friends, Megan. We have seen it before, possibly twice, (I can’t remember where) but it was fantastic. That weekend Jessica surprisingly didn’t have anything on the Saturday night so the three of us went out for dinner in the village at Café Meze. The next day Katie and I played our first game of tennis in over a year after her skiing injury. She is still in recovery, so we must play by her Rehab Rules. This means that that ball can bounce several times on Katie’s side of the court but only once on my side, because Katie still can’t run and turn as quickly as in the past. I was also under strict instructions to only hit the ball directly to her forehand. Still, we had a nice game and it was also Pippa’s first trip to tennis. She (and Molly) enjoyed the post-game walk around Oxley Creek.

We went for a lovely dinner with our friends Angela and Gavin at Moda in Caxton Street on 10^th February. It is a delicious Spanish Tapas Steakhouse. In other news, the wine club in our street, Winosaurs, has now done the full length of the street and got back to the starting house again. It will be our turn again soon. We had a wine tasting evening on 16^th February and were all pleased that there were no medical emergencies this time. Trevor, who’d had a cardiac “incident” at the previous event and left in an ambulance, was in good health this time and copped a good ribbing for the disruption he had caused.

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