Fiji

Letter No. 238

Dear all,

We had a lovely Christmas at my sister Lisa’s house and two days later we set off on our annual holiday, this year to Fiji. We caught an Uber to the airport. It was the first time I had used Uber but after only one trip I am a convert - it was so efficient and half the price of a regular taxi. The flight to Nadi in Fiji was about three and a half hours. We picked up a hire car at the airport and drive to Lautoka, Fiji's second largest city (actually a small town), which was a forty-minute drive. By the time we arrived it was about 5pm due to the time difference, so we went straight to the pool to watch the sun go down.

The next morning I went for a run along the harbour front and into the town. It was only 6:30am but the town was bustling with people and buses, dogs and chickens all going somewhere. After a quick breakfast we set off to drive to Navala Village. This is number four on the top ten things to see in Fiji. It is a traditional village high in the mountains. All of the houses are constructed in the traditional way with timber and high thatched roofs. The road was apparently a very rough dirt road. It was only 76km but we asked a few people how long it would take to get there and estimates varied from two hours to several days! We had to stop and ask people for directions about six times as there were no apparent signs to Navala. The road was fairly rugged with a few hairy single lane rickety timber bridges and many potholes but we eventually made it. For one of the top sights in Fiji you need to be pretty persistent to actually get there.

We arrived at the village and the first person we saw asked us to wait and seconds later came back in full traditional costume. She then took us to see the Village Chief who took our entry fee and told us a bit about traditional village life. He didn't really have a tourist patter so we just asked him lots of questions. It was quite interesting. His concept of numbers and time was a little vague. We were told there were 900 houses in the village (I guessed 100 after a quick walk and count) and also there were 900 people in the village. As we walked around the village we acquired a group of children about four to seven years old who held our hands in a big line and showed us around. It was quite beautiful and remote, up in the hills and set against a backdrop of rugged mountains. There was no electricity or running water. We went to see the main village features – the school, the church, the graveyard and the river. They asked if we wanted to stay for lunch and were delighted when we said yes. We had a huge feast of traditional Fijian dishes sitting cross legged in the floor. It was very hot and humid and it was good to sit inside and cool down.

In the afternoon we went to the Lautoka market. It was a typical Pacific Islander market of fruit, meat and fish, as well as a small craft market with lots of interesting woven and carved objects. We bought a Fiji rugby T-shirt for Matthew before going back to the hotel for a swim. That night we walked into town for dinner. There were only two restaurants recommended in the guide book and one was closed, so we went to the Chinese restaurant. We were a little alarmed that they had a plaque proudly proclaiming that they had "90% compliance with Fiji food health standards". We decided this must be a good thing if they were advertising it on their front desk and anywhere else would only have a lower compliance, so we were undeterred and had a lovely Chinese meal.

The next day we got up early and left Lautoka and drove past Nadi and on around the island. We stopped en route at the Momi Guns. Again for a fairly prominent tourist attraction they were poorly signposted and we drove a long way in the wrong direction on another bone-rattling dirt road. The Momi guns are two impressive 6-inch guns installed in 1941 by the New Zealand defence force to protect Fiji from invasion by the Japanese. The guns are at a perfect lookout spot with an amazing 200-degree view over the ocean. During the Second World War the guns were only fired once which was a mistake. The New Zealand troops stationed there fired at a ship which had failed to signal properly and turned out to be a New Zealand navy ship. Luckily they missed, otherwise there could have been an international incident. Fiji was not invaded during the war and most Fijians will proudly tell you that this was due to the fact that the Japanese thought they were all cannibals.

We drove on a bit further and stopped at the Sigatoka Sand Dunes. These are a series of wind-blown sand dunes stretching down to the ocean. They are 5km wide, 1km long and up to 60m high. We did a lovely hour-long walk through the dunes and adjacent mahogany forest. It was very hot though and we had to sit and rest for quite a while afterwards to cool down. After lunch in Sigatoka town we drove on to Namatakula Village where we had pre-booked a Homestay. Again it proved very difficult to find. We drove to where we thought it was but discovered that everyone in the village was getting ready for a wedding. We asked for directions and got sent down a very rough road. We were too concerned about getting bogged and turned around, drove back to a nearby resort and asked for directions. Luckily they knew the place and phoned ahead. We eventually found the place, less than 50m from where we had previously stopped. No signs whatsoever and our hosts had "forgotten" we were coming!

The Homestay was in a traditional house in a small village on the beach. A group of children showed us around. The traditional Fijian wedding celebrations were in full swing by this time with singing and dancing and flowers and firecrackers. They showed us the roast pig, which was wrapped in vine leaves and had been cooked in a pit in the ground. It was being wheeled over in a wheelbarrow to form the centrepiece of the wedding feast. Matt, Jess and I went swimming in a freshwater creek and played tag with the local kids on the beach. We went back and had showers and a lovely traditional Fijian fish curry and vegetables with some of the family. It was a rather sprawling house and there seemed to be about 25 people living there with assorted dogs, pigs, chickens and horses.

Afterwards we went back to see how the wedding was going. At the community hall the village chief invited us to have some Kava with the men of the village. The men seemed to all be in one hall drinking and singing and playing guitars, while the women in the adjacent house were singing and dancing to great merriment. We were all made to feel very welcome. It was quite fun. Kava was not to everyone's taste though. It is a narcotic but we only had one glass so it had no effect on anyone. We stayed and listened to the singing for quite a while before going back to our house. Our room was very hot so we opened all the windows, dropped the mosquito nets and tried to sleep. The singing and laughing and dogs scrapping went on until well after midnight and then the roosters started to crow around 5am so we didn't get much sleep. After an early and quick breakfast we were on the road again. 

We drove back to Nadi to return the hire car and get a transfer to Denerau port to catch the catamaran to Malololailai Island which is in the Mamanuca island group. We dropped the car back at 9:00am and thought we had plenty of time for the 45-minute transfer to the port. Half an hour after our transfer time the driver had still not turned up. When I pointed out this to the transfer desk they seemed unfazed despite the fact we would only have 10 minutes between arriving at the port and the boat departure. I pointed at my watch a lot and then said I was going to get a cab so they started to take it a little more seriously. The driver showed up at 9:40 but fortunately the 45-minute transfer only took 15 minutes so we had plenty of time in the end. Fijians seem to have a poor sense of time and urgency!

The MaloloCat took us to Malololailai Island, where we were staying at the very elegant Musket Cove Island Resort. We were greeted with welcome coconuts and Fijian necklaces on arrival. All the staff came out to the deck and burst into song. It was all very welcoming, the weather was perfect and our garden villa felt very luxurious after our village homestay. We had lunch at the verandah café overlooking the marina and then spent the afternoon around the pool trying cocktails at the pool bar.

It was actually New Year's Eve so we looked around for dinner options after our swim. The resort had a beachside Gala Buffet Dinner at an extortionate price but we decided to forego that, especially as Jessie is vegetarian and wouldn’t be able to eat most of it, so we had a low-key dinner one of the smaller restaurants watching the sunset. Jessica had made a note of all our New Year’s resolutions from last year and we had a big laugh during the evening at how many we had failed at. She then recorded our new resolutions for next year. There were quite a few repeats! We walked back along the beach where the Gala dinner was finishing and asked if we could order a dessert from the buffet dessert table but they told us to just help ourselves as they had heaps left over. Bargain! After a yummy dessert feast we went to the island bar for the New Year Party. It is a tiny island connected to the resort by a small floating pontoon. There is a lovely covered bar where they had set up a DJ and dance floor, with pretty lights and lovely comfy seats to watch the ocean. We all went and sat at the bar and took turns dancing with Jessica who is a dancing machine! There are three resorts around the cove and they all had fireworks at midnight which was great. Our resort had fireworks as well but for some reason they went off at 10:30pm. It was a great night though and we were back at our villa by 12:30pm.

We spent the next couple of days taking advantage of the free snorkelling trips, kayaking and stand-up paddle boarding. There are lots of little canals around the resort and we went around them all with the kayaks through the resort and the marina. One evening we walked over to a restaurant at one of the nearby resorts for dinner. It was a beautiful walk along the palm-tree dotted beach to get there and we had our first drink watching the sun go down. We had a fantastic dinner and walked back to our resort for a few rounds of cards before bed. The next afternoon we took a boat to a floating pontoon called Cloud 9. It is a party boat on two levels which looks like something out of the movie Waterworld. It was pretty cool. There is a wood-fired pizza oven and a bar, and we spent a few hours there swimming, jumping off the top deck, eating pizza and sitting at the bar. It was great fun. Just as we were getting back onto the boat a storm came up and the heavens opened with a torrential afternoon thunderstorm. Luckily we had the only few seats under cover so we just got slightly damp while some people got completely drenched. The rain was so heavy that it was a complete white out and the boat captain had to use Sat Nav to find our way back! We made it home safely and had dinner in our resort that night.

It rained heavily all night but was sunny and clear when we woke up. We had an early catamaran ride back to the main island and then stopped in Denerau Port for some shopping. It is a resort town very close to Nadi airport and you could be sitting in Brisbane! The shops were quite good though. We all got new rashies in a Fiji chain shop called CloudBreak which was half the price of Ripcurl next door. After a quick coffee in the Hard Rock Café we headed to the airport for our flight to Tavenui Island. It was a 19-seater prop flight and it flew at only 10,000 feet so we had a great view of the tropical islands as we flew over them on the 90-minute flight.

Tavenui is the “garden island” of Fiji and is known to be hot and steamy. The airport was about the size of a small bus stop and the pilot had to refuel the plane himself while we were waiting for our bags to be unloaded. There was no baggage carousel; we just picked up our bags from the trolley and walked out to meet our transfer. We were staying in some nearby villas which were on a hilltop with beautiful ocean views. It felt very remote and unspoiled and tropical, with lush thick greenery and massively overgrown vegetation. It could have been the film location for Jurassic Park; in fact Matt said he expected to see a tyrannosaurus emerging from the forest at any moment. There was a humming backpacker vibe at the restaurant so we chatted to other guests a lot and the kids stayed up playing cards with a group of British backpackers while we went to bed.

Our first day was marked by heavy rain. We had planned to go to the Tavoro Falls in the Bouma National Park but we decided to go despite the rain. It was a one-hour drive along the beautiful coastline through small villages. The rain increased in intensity as we drove. We changed into our swimming clothes for the short walk to the falls. At 26m it is the highest waterfall in Fiji, but due to lots of recent rain and the storms it was spectacular. The locals said they had never seen it so full. It was quite exciting and the spray was terrific. Matt, Jessie and I went swimming in the pool at the base of the waterfall and Katie got equally wet just standing watching due to the rain and spray! The current was so strong we had no hope of swimming over to the falling water. We walked on for another 15 minutes up to the lookout for great views of the coast and up the mountains, then back down for another swim. This time Matt and I climbed the cliff behind the waterfall and dived into the pool behind the main stream of water coming in. There was a fierce current and it was quite terrifying. I decided not to do that again.

Our next few days were spent snorkelling and diving at the Rainbow Reef.  Matthew and I scuba dived while Katie and Jessica went snorkelling. The dive operators were really great. They had an instructor who took Jessie and Katie snorkelling and named all the fish they saw. Jessica loved it! Matt had completed his Padi Open Water diving course in December and these were his first proper open water dives. We did four dives in total. He was a little nervous at first. He had not gone deeper than 5m before and his ears were hurting a bit and he had trouble descending at first, but soon got the hang of it. Our deepest dive was 26m and we saw fairly big reef shark and several huge manta rays.  It was awesome!

We also did a day trip to the International Dateline and hopped back and forth between today and yesterday. We went on to the Waitavala Waterslide which is a natural water passage carved into the rocks of a stream. It was really great. We had been warned to take old shorts to slide down the rocks as they often got ripped. I was glad I did as at the end of the morning, the seat had totally worn out of all our pants! Again this is one of the top tourist attractions on Tavenui but is almost impossible to find without a guide. You have to drive up an unsigned dirt road, stop at a random coconut half way up the mountain, walk along a rough unsigned bush track for 20 minutes before getting to the stream. The water was beautiful though and the rock slide was awesome!

On our final day we did another boat trip for some more snorkelling trip and lunch on the beach which was a great way to finish our holiday. Then it was back on the tiny plane back to Nadi and then a rather long wait for our flight back to Brisbane. When we got home we realised that the power to the fridge had been off for quite some time and we had to throw out the full contents of the fridge and freezer! Not a nice way to come back from holiday. Katie spent several hours on hands and knees cleaning the entire fridge before we switched it back on. The household insurance paid out $500 without any questions but I am sure there was much more than that which was thrown away.

Thanks all for this month. Love Molly, Derek, Katie, Matthew and Jessica.

Merry Christmas 2016

 Letter No. 237

Dear all,

October 2016  On Sunday 2 October Jessica did another stall at Manly Market selling candles to raise money for her trip to Vietnam. Thankfully she is very close to her final target now, as we are all a bit tired of the candle business. In the afternoon we went to our friends the Tods for a tennis afternoon on their court and an easy Sunday BBQ. It went on a bit longer than expected so the kids had to fend for themselves for dinner again.

Jessie was dancing with her dance group STAGE at two events in October, the school quiz evening and the Music Grande Concert. They were the last two dance events for the year so I went to them both.

On the 8^th October I went to Oktoberfest with our friends the Brodies. Katie was not feeling well so she stayed at home. I was astounded how big the whole event was. There must have been 10,000 people there. The queue for the bar was 40 deep and there were about 50 lines! I decided to get a beer before I went and found the others. This was a frustrating experience. After twenty minutes in the queue I discovered that they did not accept cash in that line, so I had to go and stand in another queue (for 20 minutes) to get a wrist band you could preload with credit. Then another twenty minutes back in the beer line and finally I got my first beer an hour after I started! The Brodies had a similar experience and when we met we were all feeling quite frustrated and ready to go home. We forced ourselves to have another few beers, then a huge feed of pretzels and pork knuckle, then a few more beers and then a few schnapps and by that time we were quite into the whole event and started dancing on the tables to the chicken dance. It was a fun evening in the end.

Jessica was away that same weekend on a trial camping weekend for her Antipodeans Abroad trip to Vietnam. Unfortunately she was sick all night on the Saturday but somehow she did manage to drag herself along for the five hour hike on Sunday, which we thought was a good effort.

It was our 20^th wedding anniversary on 12^th October. You get less for murder. It was also my sister’s 20^th wedding anniversary the week previously. Well done all of us. Not many siblings can rack up twenty years each these days! Katie and I went into town for dinner at Madame Wu. It is a modern Chinese restaurant on the river with fantastic views of the Storey Bridge. It seemed appropriate (as we got married in Hong Kong) and it was the best Chinese meal I think I have ever had!

On 22 October we had dinner with our friends the Biddles and Simonsons at a lovely Greek restaurant called Amphora in St Lucia. We always have a great time with that crowd, although we don’t see as much of each other now that the boys have left school.

The next few days were very busy with Katie organising/involved in five events in five days. We had the STAGE Celebration Breakfast at St Aidan’s on Friday 28 October. Katie had to get up at Sparrows and be at school before 6am to help set up and prep the food. I arrived with Jessie at 6:45am. It was a nice breakfast. Jessie was surprised to win the Nikeisha Plumridge Award for all round dance excellence, commitment and leadership. After the breakfast, Katie cleared up and packed everything away and then went straight to work where they were setting up for a BBC event that afternoon.

Katie had to call into BBC again on Saturday as there was another school event that day, then on Sunday 30 October, we had to set up for Halloween. Jessie and I did most of the set up as Katie was busy with final arrangements for the Melbourne Cup lunch which was the next day. We had bought 1000 sweets this year and a few new decorations. On Monday night Katie supervised the trick-or-treating to ensure most kids only took one and I ran our sausage sizzle. Matthew has a job teaching English once a week to a four-year-old Korean boy who came over trick or treating so he went up and down the street with the boy and his parents. They were really chuffed that Matthew had invited them and had a great time.

Trick-or-treating started at 5pm and we ran out of sweets around 7:30pm. It was bedlam as usual, with hordes of kids arriving in packs. There were some amazing kids costumes and every year more adults turn up in costume as well; it is really like a street party. Someone mentioned a website listing “the ten best streets to go Trick-or-Treating in Brisbane”. Matt googled it and sure enough, there was Mortlake Road, and it said that it is really well established with loads of sweets!! No wonder we always get so many kids coming over. Jessie loves Halloween so she was off with her friends trick or treating all evening and just made it back with all of them just in time to have the last few sausages for dinner. I had saved her the last vegetarian one (actually it was the only vegetarian one)!

November 2016 We packed up most of the decorations that evening while Katie loaded her car for the St Aidan’s Melbourne Cup Lunch the next day. This event had been a bit of a lame duck the previous year and the organisers had nearly ended up cancelling it. This year was the first one that Katie had been involved with, so she had offered to handle the event marketing and sales, as well as the decorations, raffle and models for the fashion parade. With some well-timed advertising and anticipation building, the event sold out quicker than any other St Aidan’s event in recent years. Katie and Kylie were the first to arrive at the Brisbane Golf Club to decorate the room and it looked fabulous when it was all set up, with beautiful flowers and a horse motif throughout, using horses which had been kindly printed by Katie’s brother Chris.  The event was a success by all accounts with a “Fashions on the Field” parade, sweepstakes, a raffle, a silent auction, the race shown on the TV screens and a “Best Dressed” competition. Katie and a group of ladies went back to Wings Malins’ house for drinks about 4pm (Wings was one of the models) and there were some sore heads the next day.

On 4^th November we went for dinner at Tocco, a local Italian restaurant with Katie’s dog walking group (WAGS) and husbands. Katie and I rode our bikes over to the restaurant which was about 1km from home. Everyone thought we were mad to cycle but it was all on quiet back streets. It was a fun evening for the twelve of us but the waiter told us we were making too much noise which put us off a bit. We wobbled home on our bikes about 10:30pm.

The next night we went to a Pink Party. Shelly Hillis was holding the dinner at her home to raise money for a Breast Cancer charity. They had 24 people for dinner. The theme was Caribbean and they had really gone to town with the pink decorations, inflatable flamingos and huge palm trees all over the dining room and pink tables with pink flowers in pink vases accessorised with pineapples spray-painted gold! The meal was fantastic – three courses of delicious Caribbean-themed food. We all made a donation to Shelly’s Breast Cancer charity the next day and she raised around $2500. Mind you I would have paid that much to get out of the washing up bombsite in the kitchen! It was a great evening.

The next day we went to the STAGE Support Group AGM, the final meeting for the year. It was at Helen and Gary’s home.  Actually I only went to chat to Gary. We decided to take his speedboat out for a burl on the river with a few beers. It is really nice looking at the houses from the river. We went up Oxley Creek until the water got too shallow and then turned back. We were nearly back to the main river when the boat ran out of petrol! Luckily we had paddles so we paddled over to a pontoon with a person in the back yard. Luckily I had my wallet with me. The guy whose pontoon we pulled up at gave me a lift to the petrol station to fill the tank. He also gave us another couple of beers. We made it back to the Brodie’s house just as the STAGE meeting was winding up, which was a bonus! Katie has now been elected President of the STAGE support group for 2017.

It was the Sherwood Road Street Festival on 11 November. The kids were both too busy to come down so Katie and I went by ourselves. We had a wander around all the market stalls, watched the nativity play with live camels, sheep, donkey and baby, before having some stall food for dinner. We didn’t stay long but managed to bump into lots of people we know in a very short time.

On Sunday 13 November we went to a Farewell Party for Candice, the Chinese exchange student who has stayed with us a few times. Her parents were over from China to see her final school graduation and then to have a holiday in Australia. Candice is planning to go to Uni next year in Brisbane and is hopeful that she will get into UQ. Matt and Jessie both practiced their Chinese on Candice’s parents as they both spoke only a very little English. We were super impressed at how good a conversation they seemed to have. It was the first time we have heard them actually speaking Chinese in a conversational setting.

The next night it was the St Aidan’s Speech Night. Jessie was singing in the choir so we went along to watch. They had a very motivational speaker – an ex-St Aidan’s student who had had a horrific horse riding accident while in Year 11 of school. This had left her permanently disabled, both physically and mentally. She told the story of her road to recovery and on to the Paralympics. St Aidan’s always manages to find old girls with the most amazing life stories to tell.

We went to Wayne and Libby Penning’s home for Christmas Drinks on Sun 27 November. Christmas drinks in November is a little too early if you ask me, but it was a nice relaxed afternoon. Well, it was for me. Poor Katie had to go to work for a couple of hours that evening as BBC had another big function on.

December 2017 On 1^st December we went for a special family dinner at our local Greek restaurant. We celebrated Matthew’s and my birthdays early, as Jessica was leaving for her Antipodeans school trip to Vietnam the next morning.  She managed to make it to her fundraising target by a whisker (and by me selling the final few candles at my office), so that is the end of the candle business, phew. Jessie gave us both our birthday presents and we had a lovely meal out. The next morning I dropped her off at the airport at 5am which was a bit of a rude start for a work day. Some of the girls were crying but Jess was quite relaxed and excited about going on a three-week trip. I only stayed for a little while and was in at work by 5:30am. I have been very busy at work lately and have been going in quite early – the earliest was 4:20am! Katie was quite cross about that.

On 3^rd December we took Molly for her annual beach day out. It was quiet without Jessie but Molly does love the beach. We went to Caloundra dog beach this time, which we hadn’t tried before. It was nice but there was no shade like at our usual dog beach (Palm Beach Currumbin). I had a bit of a sun-screening failure and burnt my stomach quite badly for the first time in about 30 years! I won’t do that again. We went for a lovely seafood lunch and drove home before the afternoon storms.

We had a busy week. On the Tuesday we went to see Coldplay. Matt’s best friend Mitchell gifted him a ticket for his birthday and we bought two tickets at the last minute. It was a fantastic show with terrific light effects, especially bracelets that lit up in different colours during different songs. The band and music were really great, although it was so loud that you could hear it in our suburb about 8km away. The next evening Katie went to her WAGS Christmas dinner. They did a kind of Thieving Secret Santa with $30 gifts, which was quite amusing. Luckily they didn’t break into fights and all the girls seemed happy with the end result.

It was Matt’s 18^th birthday on 8 December. We went for dinner at the Regatta Hotel. Matthew bought his first round of drinks at the bar. I paid though! We had a great dinner and gave him his presents.  His main present was a Scuba Diving course and some fins which he was very excited about. He also got some clothes, some money and an excellent State of Origin T-shirt from Chris.

On Saturday 10 December Matthew had a birthday party with 55 of his closest friends. Matt was the youngest boy in his school cohort and all his friends are over 18, so I bought quite a bit of alcohol for the party. Katie organised party food with a couple of her friends, while I went to a 50^th birthday for our friend Tom Dawes which was on the same night, just down the road. I came home from Tom’s party early in time for Matt’s birthday cake. I had every intention of going back but got caught up doing a bit of cleaning up. The cake was a beautiful black forest gateau. There was quite a bit left over. Some of the girls had had a bit too much to drink and didn’t think it would go down well with the vodka!

Katie had insisted that we provide a non-alcoholic punch and lots of soft drinks. As soon as the first boys arrived they made up an alcoholic punch with a full bottle of vodka in it. The next morning the alcoholic punch was all gone but the non-alcoholic one and all the soft drinks were still there. Towards the end of the night about ten boys and one girl ended up in the pool in their underwear. It was very funny. The party wound up about 11:30pm when they all went off clubbing in Fortitude Valley. Matt got home at 3:30am so he had a slow day the next day. We cleaned up together, then he opened his presents which were mostly alcohol! Matthew thought the party went brilliantly. He had such a great time and was on a high for the next few days! Amazingly he didn’t even have a hangover.

The next Friday it was my 50^th birthday. I decided to have the day off. I did a bit of pottering about, mowed the lawn and the three of us went out for lunch and I got my presents. Katie gave me a Mystery Weekend away at the end of January. I can’t wait to find out what it is! That evening it was the AECOM Christmas party. Katie decided not to come and spent the evening at home instead making lamb & mint filo rolls and other party food.

The next day was our Christmas Drinks party at home which Katie said was also to celebrate my 50^th birthday. I didn’t want to make much of a fuss but Katie was unstoppable. We had guests from the UK arrive in the morning, Bernard & Eleanor and their kids Robbie & Jamie. Eleanor and Katie had shared a house together in Oxford in 1985 and she is one of Katie’s oldest friends! They were staying with us for two nights, including the night of our party. We had about 55 friends at the drinks party, including some of my old friends from school and uni. Katie had made tons of canapés, ordered a large Christmas ham and a fabulous chocolate birthday cake for me, and made a very nice long speech accompanied by photos which was quite a surprise to me!  I made a quite impromptu response. The party started at 4:00pm and the last people left just before 10pm. It was a really lovely evening.

We left all the cleaning up to the next day. Rather than stay at home cleaning Matt selflessly volunteered to be a tour guide, taking Bernard and Eleanor to City Beach and the Gallery of Modern Art and then to Southbank for lunch, where they were meeting another of Eleanor’s friends. They made it home by 5:00pm and we walked down to Miku for a Japanese dinner in the evening. They were all still jet lagged so it was an early evening.

Eleanor and Bernard left the next day; while I went to work and then on to a client Christmas party function at the Gold Coast. I had a nearby hotel for the night so I didn’t have to drive home. The party started at 3:00pm. It was on the beach at Surfer’s Paradise. There was a comedian who organised games on the beach including sand-building competitions, Frisbee-throwing competitions and the like. There were pretty good prizes like dinner for four people! There was also a close-up magician who went around entertaining the crowd. There was a great BBQ with heaps of king prawns. I went back to the hotel about 11:00pm.

I was up again at 5:30pm and made it back to the office by 7:00am. That evening we went to yet another Christmas party, this time at our friends the Brodie’s. It was a lovely party with a fantastic baked ham and some interesting Christmas Carol singing with good company. I was out five nights in a row so was feeling pretty jaded by this time. It was good to have a night in the next day.

Jessie comes home from Vietnam tomorrow and we can’t wait to see her and hear all of her stories. Katie is doing our traditional Christmas Eve dinner at home as usual and then on Christmas Day we are going to Brookfield to spend the day with Lisa & Andrew, my Mum & Dad and Andrew’s family. We wish you all the very happiest of Christmases and all the best for a great New Year celebration.

Cheers

Derek, Katie, Matthew, Jessica and Molly.

20 years ago!

Halloween.

Octoberfest.

Matthew's first (legal) drink.

At the Regatta.

Melbourne cup.