Singapore and Amsterdam

Letter No. 266

Dear all,

We had nearly a month long holiday in Singapore, Europe and the UK over Christmas. Here is a a day-by-day account!

Day 1 – Australia. Today we had a morning finishing packing up and left about 1pm to drive to the Gold Coast. We were staying at “The Pink Hotel” in Cooloongatta. It was very twee and retro and everything was pink! We had an afternoon walk around the town and along the beach and up to the lookout point. It was a very cool afternoon for the longest day of the year so we didn’t swim. We went out for a belated birthday dinner for me to “Siblings” at Kirra. It was soooo lovely with a great ocean view. We had an early night as we had a very early start the next morning.

Day 2 – Gold Coast to Singapore We left The Pink Hotel at 5am and were at the Gold Coast Airport by 5:10am. Much easier than driving from Brisbane that morning! The terminal is quite new and it was the first day that the coffee shop we had breakfast at was open. They were VERY disorganised! It was 7½ hours to Singapore and we arrived at 2:10pm and caught a taxi to The Fullerton Hotel - a beautiful old colonial hotel looking out over the Bay. Santa Claus had obviously visited the hotel and thrown up in the lobby! The amount of Christmas decorations were ridiculous. There was a huge tree made entirely of teddy bears and another one made entirely of wine and champagne bottles, tinsel and lights everywhere. We wandered around and looked at it all before going up to our rooms. They were very nice. The kids were impressed with their room! Katie had a luxurious bath while the kids and I went to the infinity pool and steam room to recover after out long day. In the evening we wandered down to look at the Merlion in the bay and the Marina Bay Sands Hotel which is very spectacular. We then went on the Fullerton Bay Hotel (sister Hotel) and had drinks and dinner at the Lantern Bar,  their roof top bar. There was a light show all over the bay at 8pm which was quite spectacular but we were all tired and were back at the hotel asleep by 9pm.

Day 3 – Singapore I got up at 6am to go for a run and was a little surprised it was still pitch black but went anyway. I did a lap around the bay from bridge to bridge and took some nice pre-dawn photos of the tall buildings. We all went down for breakfast about 8am and were all blown away at the decadence of the breakfast buffet. It was amazing! We had a long day of walking ahead so indulged. We were spending the day at Gardens by the Bay. It was about a 30-minute walk and we went through the Marina Bay Sands Shopping Centre which had 2.5 billion fairy lights and 223,000 Christmas trees! Santa had again passed by and been violently ill! It was really amazing. We went into the Gardens. We went to two exhibits, both in enormous free form glass houses. The first was the Flower Dome which was an explosion of flowers and Christmas themed displays (again). It took over an hour to go right round and then we headed to the adjacent Cloud Forest. As you walk in there is an eight-storey waterfall. The path winds around and through an enormous cliff with sky walks and beautiful plants. There was an Avatar exhibition and there were incredibly life-like models of all the fantastic Avatar creatures. The best was the Banshee which was animated and so realistic. It was so good! We made it back to the hotel in late afternoon and had a swim before heading out to meet our friends Craig and Kirsten Wiley who live in Singapore after escaping from the Melbourne lockdowns last year! We had a lovely Chinese meal at Clarke Quay after a short walk along the quay. It was really nice to catch up with them as we hadn’t seen them for more than 15 years.

Day 4 – Singapore I went for a run around Fort Canning on top of a hill nearby the historic district. The fort had lots of historic sites and building surrounding an active military base with great views in all directions. After a enormous breakfast we all had a short walk to the Asian Civilisation Museum. Matthew decided to do his own thing that day so it was the three of us for the museum which was really good. It had lots of artefacts recovered from shipwrecks around Singapore and a history of the trade routes around Asia. We then went on to Orchard Road to look at all the shopping district which was insanely busy on Christmas Eve. Lots and lots and lots of high-end shops. We went back to the hotel and arrived at the same time as Matthew and all went for a swim. That evening Matt and Jess went to the Singapore Night Zoo. Katie and I went and had dinner on Clarke Quay and when back to the hotel. They had Christmas Carols in the lobby around the 8m tall Christmas tree made entirely of teddy bears. It was really lovely. We followed this up by Champagne in the lobby bar. A very lovely Christmas Eve.

Day 5 – Singapore I went for an early morning run on Christmas morning around Clarke Quay and Boat Quay. The kids came into our room and we had presents and called family in Australia and the UK before breakfast. We tried to restrain ourselves at the buffet but it was quite difficult as it was so nice. Even though it was Christmas Day and a public holiday most of the shops were open. I spent the morning shopping for necessities while the family got ready for lunch. I was so hot when I got back I had to have my second shower of the day and completely change before lunch. It was a short taxi ride to “The English House” by celebrity chef Marco Pierre White (I hadn’t heard of him either). The restaurant was eclectically decorated and very interesting. We had a five-course lunch which was traditional English (obviously). It was very good. Singapore is VERY expensive for eating out and any type of alcohol. We cracked over AUD$1000 for lunch for the first time! It was really lovely though! Lunch went until 2:30Pm and we caught a taxi to Mr Stork a rooftop bar on Level 39. We met Craig and Kirsten for G&T’s and looked at the 360 degree view around Singapore. We went back to the hotel by 5:30pm, had a quick swim and had the evening in watching a movie in our room. A very nice Christmas Day!

Day 6 – Singapore We had a day at Sentosa today. It
is a beach to the South of Singapore which is the southernmost point of
continental Asia. We caught a taxi and long cable car ride to get there. The
cable car was quite spectacular going over the harbour. We had a few hours on
the beach swimming in the warm water before a late lunch at a beach bar. We caught
the monorail and underground train back to our hotel. We had checked out that
morning but could use the pool, spa and change facilities to freshen up and
pack up our bags before heading to the airport for our midnight flight to
Amsterdam. We went a little early so we had time to go to see Jewel, a
spectacular fountain, light show around a diagrid structure housing a rain
forest which has been constructed between Terminal 1 and 3. It was very good. 

Day 7 – Singapore to The Netherlands By the time our flight left at half past midnight it had been a very long day! It was at 12½ flight from Singapore to Zurich. We had one hour  to transfer Terminals to get to our next flight to Amsterdam. It was VERY tight. We had to get a train and it was a long walk either end. We all thought it would be astounding if our bags made it as well. It was another 1 ½ hours to Amsterdam. Five minutes after landing, Jess was face timing her boyfriend Kyel who had landed 30 minutes before us, we met up with him at the baggage reclaim hall. Matt and Jess and Kyel were doing their own separate things in Europe until we met up with them to ski so we said goodbye and caught a taxi to our hotel. We were staying at “The Hoxton Hotel” in the Old Canals Area. The kids were staying in Backpacker Places spread out around the city closer to the party zones.

We had to have a coffee for an hour before our room was ready but by noon we had been showered and changed and ready for an afternoon out. We spent 3 ½ hours wandering around the canals. There are hundreds and very difficult to tell lots of them apart. There are LOTS of bicycles and the ride at breakneck speed and don’t stop for anyone. Most of the cars are electric and totally silent so you need to be very careful on the roads - a bit hard when you are gawking at everything! We walked through the shopping district (9 streets area), cite centre, red light district and went to Oude Kerk the oldest building in Amsterdam. It was a cathedral and the floor entirely made up tombstones. The oldest one we saw was 1591! It was a pretty impressive structure. I was pretty alarmed at some of the buildings though. A great many of them lean at alarming angles. The worst are when adjacent buildings, that were originally built touching lean in opposite directions and a gap up to 600mm wide open up at the fifth (top) floor!

We did think it was pretty funny seeing signs on the streets warning you not to buy drugs off sellers in the street, right outside a shop selling marijuana cookies and chocolate and magic mushrooms! We went back to our hotel for some down time but were feeling sleepy so sat in the lobby to keep awake. I went shopping for food and we had a picnic dinner in our room before going to bed at 7pm. It was a 43 hour day for me with at most 2hrs sleep on the plane so I slept like a corpse!

Day 8 – Amsterdam We tried to go to Anne Frank’s House in the morning but discovered that it was fully booked for three weeks! Should have booked ahead! Anyway we had a look at it from the outside and read all the information in the lobby. We then tried to catch a tram to the Amsterdam Museum. We were told that we could buy tickets on board the tram but by the time we worked out how to do that we were at our stop, so we got a free ride. The Amsterdam museum told the history of the city. Most of the houses and canals in the old city centre seem to have been constructed in the 17th century. There are apparently 1403 little bridges over the canals. Many of the houses have dates on the gable roof. The earliest we saw was 1619. The houses are mostly five storeys. They are founded on timber piles and many houses have settled alarmingly. Floors and walls with significant leans are the norm. The museum also told the History of the Dutch East India company and the slave trade which was also fascinating. We had a very late lunch and went back to the hotel. In the evening we went out to the Red Light District but it was rainy and windy so we didn’t stay very long.

Day 9 - Amsterdam We went to the Rijks Museum which had paintings from all the Dutch Masters - Van Gogh, Rembrandt and Vermeer. The paintings were organised into centuries from the 17th (which was the best). The paintings were so realistic that some of them looked like photographs. It was really amazing how good they were. Matthew was at the museum at the same time with his friend Adam from London and they met us for coffee. We spent about 4 hours in the museum and only got around half of it! We had to have a very quick lunch and then went onto the Heineken Experience. It was a tour of the Heineken brewery but was very good. Apparently Heineken was the first beer to be imported into the US after prohibition ended in 1929 which really turned them into a global brand. It was quite fun. We went back to the hotel for a short break before we were off on a canal cruise. The cruise left at 7:30pm and went around a series of light displays at various points around the canals - The Carnival of Lights. They were very good but it was also really interesting looking into all the crooked houses to see what people were doing! A bit voyeuristic!

Day 10 – Amsterdam We had a tour booked today but it didn’t start until noon so we had the morning wandering around the shops. There are so many beautiful shops I am amazed they can all made a living. There were lots of speciality shops which only sold one thing - peanut butter in 14 flavours, rubber ducks in thousands of varieties, cheese, sweets, marijuana , beautiful art of photographs of your own irises! I stopped for coffee in a “coffee shop” I just had a flat white but everyone else was smoking marijuana! It was quite funny that smoking a cigarette was strictly forbidden but smoking a joint was ok. Outside the shop was a big sign telling you if was illegal to but drugs from street sellers but quite ok to buy them in the shop.

Our tour started at noon and it was a short drive to a clog making factory. We saw how they made clogs in the traditional method which was fascinating. We then had a short boat ride on a freshwater lake that was formed in the 1950’s by closing off a salt water bay. We were looking at the Dykes on the other side. It was quite alarming to see the lake on one side and the houses next to it 3m lower than the water level. Apparently 60% of The Netherlands is below sea level (up to 7m) and they need to constantly pump water from small canals put to bigger and bigger ones until the water flows to the sea. It they ever stop pumping, the houses will flood! I would not feel comfortable living below sea level especially when the water is so close and so much higher than your house!

We went on to a cheese factory and saw how they make Dutch cheese. There was a shop with tasting afterwards and I ate my body weight, or perhaps a little more, of cheese! Yum! It was a short bus ride to see some traditional Dutch windmills. It was blowing a gale and the windmills were going like the clappers! Windmills with Archimedes Screws were originally used to pump water up the canal system but it is mainly electric pumps now. The windmill we went to see was grinding peanuts to make peanut oil. It was constructed in 1627! The millstones were last replaced in 1820 and had worn down in diameter over the last 202 years to reduce from 5000kg each to 2500kg each. They could make the same amount of oil in a day that a modern factory made in 10 minutes so most of their income was from tourism. Watching the windmill turn the millstones was very medieval feeling! It was a short bus trip back to Amsterdam. Matthew and Adam came to our hotel and had dinner with us that night which was nice. The had been to see the same Windmills but on bicycle. It had been raining quite hard so they had gotten soaked to the skin so were a little late for dinner. Jessica and Kyel had gone to Brussels by train that morning so couldn’t join us. We had a lovely dinner with Matt and Adam in our very funky hotel restaurant.

Day 11 – Amsterdam It was our last day in Amsterdam and Matthew had a 4hour train ride to Berlin while Jess had a short train ride from Brussels to Paris. We spent to morning in the Van Loon Museum. The William Van Loon co-founded the Dutch East India Company in 1602 and became fabulously wealthy from trading slaves and sugar. They were also linked to the Royal family, were bankers and William’s grandson was the mayor of Amsterdam. Their house was built in 1672 and the family still live in the upper levels. The lower three levels are open to the public as well as the rear enclosed garden and coach house. The furniture and decorations are all 17th and 18th century. The bedrooms are enormous - about the size of our living room in Australia and four on each level. It was really good. We had a last mooch around the canals before heading back to the hotel to pack. We spent New Year’s Eve in our hotel restaurant, Lotti’s. We had a nice meal and stayed in the hotel lobby which had been transformed into a dance floor. At midnight we were in our room and watched the fireworks over the canals. There were a lot of people setting off some serious fireworks in the streets as well (which had supposedly been banned). These went on until at least 4am so we had a very broken night.

Cheers from Derek, Katie, Matthew, Jessica & Molly

Merry Christmas Friends!

 

 Letter No. 265

Dear all,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cheers from Derek, Katie, Matthew, Jessica & Molly

The Tardis on the move!

 Letter No. 264

Dear all,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cheers Derek, Katie, Matthew, Jessica and Molly.

Travel in Space and Time

 

 Letter No. 263

Dear all,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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