Iris brought me some goodies from Germany :)
 |
| The 'snow' moon on the 1st Feb |
Friday 6th - Met up for coffee with 2 recently retired colleagues at Garden City Shopping. It's nice to catch with all their news.
In the evening we picked up our elderly friend Idalia and drove to the Portuguese club for the First Friday of the Month "Codfish dinner".
Saturday 7th - We had voted for the Portuguese Presidential elections mid January, but because none of the candidates had the majority, there was a second round. So we had to again go and vote at the Portuguese Consulate in Fremantle.
 |
| Portuguese Consulate in Fremantle |
After voting, we walked to the Fremantle Markets (open Fridays to Sundays), bought fruit and walked around looking at the various booths.
Jose was keen on having a waffle, so we went to get one in a little waffle/ice-cream place at the South Terrace Piazza. While he finished his coffee I walked around the area and was excited to came across a beautiful cat mural.
 |
| Fremantle Market, fruit stands inside the market, sign at the Piazza: "after the storm the sunshine scatters widely". |
Monday 9th - drove to Success library to pick up Portuguese children's books for my upcoming volunteering role reading Portuguese stories to children at the Spearwood Library. Also found new murals :)
 |
| Beautiful sunset seen from my backyard on the 9th Feb |
Thursday 12th - Iris took a train to Cockburn Station from the Tourist Park where they were staying in the Northern suburbs of Perth. I picked her up and we drove to Mandurah, about 50km away. Our intention was to drive to the various locations where the "Giant trolls" made by Danish "recycle art activist" Thomas Danbo were located, and to look for a few murals in town.
At our first stop, I noticed a small kangaroo drinking water from a water fountain (for people and dogs) by a walking trail in front of the beach. Very sweet.
 |
Seba's Song
|
 |
| Iris and I in front of Santi Ikto |
 |
Yaburgurt Cirkelstone
|
After a light lunch, we stopped for photos of the houses by the man-made canals, then we looked for murals around the town's centre, and we found a few that I hadn't yet seen either.
 |
| Statues at Mandurah foreshore |
 |
| Houses facing the canals in Mandurah |
Our final troll was at the Marlee Reserve Wetlands, but after a long walk we couldn't find Little Lui. We got a little lost returning to the carpark, but a local resident we encountered directed us.
 |
| Little Lui, when I visited with Karina and Thomas in January 2023 |
Friday 13th - had coffee with a lady I originally met when I was attending French classes a few years ago, who happened to live just two streets away from me. I hadn't seen her for ages, and had contacted her in December to see if she wanted to meet up. It was nice to catch-up on news on both sides.
Saturday 14th - In the morning, had coffee with my ex-work colleagues as well as 1 of the Doctors (the other one who was meant to go, couldn't go as she had to babysit at the last minute) at the French Praline Cafe in Mount Pleasant.
 |
| Valentine's Day at Praline Cafe |
Even though we don't really make a fuss about celebrating Valentine's Day, Jose coked a Prawn Curry and I made a Chocolate Mousse for dinner. We opened up a bottle of bubbly too, since we have quite a few offered to us in the last few years.
Sunday 15th - I started painting one of the spare bedrooms. I had already cleaned the walls, removed the skirting boards, curtains, blinds...
One wall was changed from burgundy to light blue, the other walls were re-painted in white. The the ceiling, skirting boards, wardrobe doors and bedroom door were also repainted.
My whole house is in tones of blue, a lot of turquoise, but that burgundy wall was because it was originally Karina's room decor in Portugal and I had brought all the duvet covers, curtains, lampshades, etc to go with that colour. Those item have all been donated now through the "Buy Nothing" group.
Three days later it was all done! A few days later after the smell had gone, Jose helped swap the furniture from one spare bedroom to another. The one I had just painted had originally had a single bed, but being a bit bigger than the other room, I thought the double bed would be better there.
 |
Bedroom before painting
|
 |
| After painting and furniture change |
The second spare bedroom before and after change of furniture. Still need to change/paint/recover chair.
Wednesday 18th - appointment with my rheumatologist. The blood tests I had done a week earlier were all ok, no increase in inflammation and the liver and kidneys had not been adversely affected by the medication I had been taking.The medication had not done anything to improve movement of the fingers in my right hand either....so I asked if I could stop taking it due to possible side-effects. He agreed and prescribed me an anti-inflammatory to be taken 5 days a week.In the afternoon, Jose and I went to our local Riverton library to attend the "Lunar New Year Lion Dance".
Monday 23rd - Met Iris and Ingo in Fremantle to show her murals around the area. After a drink at the "Sail and Anchor" pub, Iris and I went to a long walk.We first checked out the brand new mural by the Portuguese artist Bordalo II that had just finished being painted on the weekend - 2 sweet quokkas. We spoke to him, but forgot to ask to take a photo with him. He told us he would be coming back towards the end of the year, to paint a mural in the Swan Valley (a wine region 30 min from the city). I'll be on the lookout for sure! We also saw the new mural by Jerome Davenport, which had also been painted the previous week. I also found a couple of murals I hadn't seen before.
 |
| At the Sail and Anchor pub |
Wednesday 25th - Iris, Ingo, Grace and husband came to lunch at our place. I made lasagna and hopefully everyone liked it. We had a lovely day.
Thursday 26th - Went by train to the inner city suburb of Subiaco, where I met up with Iris to show her more murals :). We were lucky to come across another great artist at work - Graeme Miles Richards, who was painting a follow up mural to the "astronaut mural" I posted in November last year. Will go back sometime to see the finished mural.
 |
| Lunar New Year in Subiaco |
After our long walk around we both took the train back to Perth Station and I walked with Iris to Sterling Gardens where she wanted to see the Boonji Spaceman statue, then it was time for me to catch a train home from Elizabeth Quay station. On the way I walked past an event at Elizabeth Quay, where Iris would be meeting Ingo later on for the fireworks.
 |
| Chinese Lunar New Year in the city streets |
 |
Event at Elizabeth Quay
|
That evening we went to house of the President of the Perth Codfish Association. After pizzas, we had our meeting to decide on details of the dinner we will be hosting on the 18th April to celebrate the the Association's 15th anniversary.
Saturday 28th - Jose and I went to visit a couple of "open homes" for sale in our neighbourhood, just to compare them to our house. Our house was evaluated 2 1/2 years ago, but all of a sudden prices have shot up. I worked out that similar houses are now being sold for 60% more than the value we were quoted in June 2023. Crazy!!
 |
| Sign seen on one of the doors of a house we visited during "open house" |
And as if we needed more wars, that afternoon we were shocked to hear that Israel and the USA had the unfortunate idea of attacking Iran!
Iran in turn started attacking American bases and embassies in all the Middle Eastern countries surrounding them.
As you might know our daughter Karina and son in law Thomas work in Qatar, and I worry for their safety. Thomas is essential staff so he has been going to work at least 3 times a week, working from home twice a week. Karina has been working from home. They hear the missiles and explosions, but they say the Government keeps residents very well informed and sends out warnings. Non-essential staff and families, as well as families of essential staff have been offered to be evacuated by his employer, but Karina doesn't want to leave the husband behind...
This conflict is unfortunately touching every single country as prices of petrol, groceries, transport, borrowing rates, inflation, etc are going up everywhere, specially hurting all those that are more vulnerable.
Karina who celebrated her birthday on the 8th March, was saying they had ordered food to be delivered, and she spoke to the driver who said: "Please keep on ordering, we just take cover when we get the warnings of incoming missiles, then we carry on, we need this money to live". I feel sorry for the all those unqualified workers and for everyone affected by wars, kids.... All too awfully sad.
 |
| My magpie friends |
 |
| Number plates I spotted in February |
