Christmas 2025

[Cover photo is of the Tyne Bridges on my 79th birthday in August]

A year of joys and sorrows

Dear Friends

To my great surprise, 2025 proved to be more tumultuous that the previous year. It started well, became very sad, led to another unexpected UK and Netherlands trip, then a period of reflection and has ended in great joy.

Marian and I stayed with her sister Dorothy in Redcliffe and enjoyed a magnificent seafood buffet in a top restaurant in Margate. Sadly Dorothy’s husband John had to be admitted into higher care just a few weeks before. Marian and went on to spend a blissful few days in Mooloolabah on the Sunshine Coast, visiting old haunts where Marian and family spent many a holiday.

My sister Gill and her husband Mike surprised us by cruising across the Pacific from LA to Sydney over Christmas and New Year. They were only in Sydney for a few days, and Marian and drove down to stay with them in the Intercontinental at Circular Quay. It was the first time they had met Marian, and we crammed as many trips as possible around Sydney in just a couple of days. Gill and I enjoyed several great walks in the botanical gardens and Woolloomooloo, Marian and Mike were finding walking difficult.

Marian and I then drove home stopping once again in Forster, NSW, where we enjoyed a great view of the ocean from our beachfront apartment and gentle walks around the headland. We also sampled a couple of great restaurants for our evening meals.

At the end of January Marian was admitted to hospital complaining of a very painful back. A few days later we received the devastating news of stage 4 pancreatic cancer. I visited almost every day for 12 weeks in hospital when Marian seemed stable enough to come home to her unit in our retirement village. However, it quickly was obvious she needed constant care and we applied to move her into the higher care facility in a corner of our village.

During that time Marian’s sister Alison, who lives near Amsterdam, flew over to be with Marian for a few weeks. Alison started the huge effort of packing up much of Marian’s belongings to donate to charity. She was aided in that effort by a good many of Marian’s friends and neighbours.

Marian had to return to hospital just before Alison arrived, and we visited every day. On one day, sister Dorothy’s son Jamie brought her to visit Marian in hospital and the three sisters were united again after a good many years. After a week or so, Dorothy sadly passed in hospital in Brisbane and Alison was able to be with her on her last day. To make the day more poignant for Alison she took the opportunity to take the ferry to North Stradbroke Island to visit her parents’ grave in Dunwich cemetery for the first time. Alison then had to return to her family in the Netherlands.

After several days in palliative care, Marian passed on 14 May, my saddest day of the year. I had lost a second life partner who I loved very much. Dorothy’s funeral was a couple of days later in Brisbane where I was able to meet Jamie’s family and the very many of Dorothy’s bridge club friends who turned out in force.

We held Marian’s memorial service on 21 May with friends from our village and her church in Burleigh Heads, and included her long-time travel agents who contributed beautiful flowers. Her minister Eron conducted the service. Marian and I loved line dancing which brought us together at the start of our relationship. We concluded the service with the song from our favourite dance, A Love Worth Waiting For, a fitting tribute. Further tragedy struck the Gilbert family in early June when Dorothy’s husband passed, three members gone in a month.

Marian and I had planned extensive travel to Alaska and the Inner Passage, doing the Rocky Mountaineer experience, then cruising home across the Pacific via Hawaii. In the period of grieving and reflection following Marian’s passing I had to arrange the cancellation of our trip and claim the expenses to date from the travel insurance. In the end the insurer paid in full. As well as joint executor of Marian’s will I had to organise the clearance of her unit. Again her friends and neighbours came to help clear the remaining contents. Despite Alison’s efforts there was still a surprising amount of goods and furniture to be donated. All the helpers joined me at a memorial dinner to mark that final event.

You may recall that since January 2024 I was studying for a Diploma in Nutrition from Torrens University. On 19 August I had the last online exam to complete my 8th subject. To compensate the loss of our travel plans I determined to treat myself to celebrating my 79th birthday in my home town Newcastle-upon-Tyne. I flew to Birmingham from Brisbane in late August. It was also an opportunity to catch up with my group of university friends who graduated with me in 1967. We kept in contact over the years and met on regular Zooms every since Covid.

I visited Frank and Marg in Loughborough, Tim and Mayumi in Harrogate and Alan and Heather in Southend. Tragedy struck again and Frank and Alan both passed within a week or so of my visit. On the one hand it was good to see them just before their passing but I would much have preferred they were still with us.

After my Harrogate visit I drove to Newcastle for a few days. I toured familiar places around Newcastle and Tynemouth, and celebrated my birthday in a beautiful old warehouse within a stone’s throw of the Tyne Quay converted into the excellent Broad Chare restaurant. I did a Vera trail up to Alnmouth and a most interesting walk through the historic castle, wall, cathedral and Gray’s Monument precincts.

After my fateful Southend visit I stayed in Peterborough for our reunion lunch enjoying a couple of days touring in the area including the ‘Stilton’ pub and the Melton Mowbray famous pork pie shop. The next day I took the Nene River heritage railway train into Peterborough to visit the city centre and cathedral and return. Veronica and John stayed the night at the Holiday Inn with me.

Then I was to fly to Amsterdam on KLM the next morning to visit Alison and her family, but they bumped me and several other passengers to a later flight, fortunately with compensation. It was a pain waiting for 4 hours at Birmingham airport but I eventually made it to Schiphol with interminable walking to retrieve baggage. Alison had a minor scrape of her car that morning so I used part of the flight compensation to get an Uber to her place in Egmont aan Zee north of Amsterdam.

Alison and Ron made me welcome and arranged a whirlwind of new experiences over the next few days. There was a great morning in Amsterdam visiting the Rijksmuseum with its world class paintings and artifacts, and great coffee shop. Sadly the famous The Night Watch by Rembrandt was undergoing restoration but the museum cleverly allowed viewing of the process and the actual painting behind heavily armed glass. Of course we saw many other magnificent paintings and lunched at the Eye Filmmuseum.

From Alkmaar we boated around the Gemaal Egmondmeer and was able to take the wheel for part of the very pleasant meander around the meer with frightening low bridges at times where we lay on the bottom of the boat while running the bridges. We spent a very pleasant afternoon walking the ancient streets of Alkmaar.

The next day was a visit to Project Nollen near Den Helder with many massive landscape-size art pieces by van de Wint who dedicated the last decades of his life to this enormous art project. It was most impressive. We lunched at Hotel Lands End in Den Helder where the Texel ferry plies to and fro.

I thoroughly enjoyed cycling with Alison to the town of Bergen for coffee where we mingled with the elite residents. The cycle infrastructure in the Netherlands is so impressive with so many dedicated wide cycle paths and road rules that give cyclists priority, even to the extent of whole designated cycle roads where cars are merely guests.

On my last night in the Netherlands I had the great pleasure of dining with Alison’s children, Kyri and Rick at the delightful restaurant Gasterij ‘t Woud. We enjoyed a very lively meal before putting Kyri and Rick back on the train to Amsterdam.

Other highlights for me this year was the swap of my Merc for a Tesla Model Y (I am loving the Full Self Driving - Supervised) and a visit to the Brisbane City Hall to enjoy an evening with Dr Rangan Chatterjee, a British GP and high flying health and wellness podcaster and presenter, as part of his Australian tour.

But probably my most significant news of all is my newfound relationship with one of my neighbours, Ute. She is a widow a couple of years older than me and lives in my retirement village just a few hundred metres from me on the banks of our creek. Her unit has the best views in the whole village with a beautiful garden.

We became a couple just over a month ago and are thoroughly enjoying each others’ company. So much so that we are booked on two cruises next year, one around New Zealand in February and Hawaii, Tahiti and the South Pacific from September. Ute is a hardened traveler having lived in a dozen cities around the world with her late husband who was a consulting engineer. She also has over 350 days cruising under her belt.

Ute’s friend Hannah, who lives only a few villas away from my previous home in Rhode Island Estate, have organised a good German Christmas for us on the 24th, the traditional celebration day for them. I look forward to it very much.

Ute and I send you our best wishes for the festive season, and health and happiness for the new year to come.

Ute and Michael (U2)

11/12/2025

Note: there are very many more photos of mine for 2025. At the risk of extreme boredom find the others at my photos collection.

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Lovely Christmas Day seafood buffet with Marian and Dorothy