Happy Christmas and New Year

To all my blogging friends, I wish you a wonderful Christmas with your families and may 2015 bring you health and happiness.

I'll be taking a short break to prepare for the usual Christmas Eve dinner at our place - this year there will be 20 people around the table, and will return in the New Year, hopefully a bit more refreshed after taking a short break from work.
Christmas Day the weather prediction is for 35.C, so it will be a good day for the traditional Aussie Christmas when people flock to the beach and then have a seafood barbecue and a delicious Pavlova.

Enjoy the following pictures taken of some of Perth's houses decked out in Christmas lights.
Some people collect donations for a Charity of their choice when you visit their street.

Here is a link for decorated houses in the Northern and Southern suburbs of Perth - http://www.christmaslightsperth.com/

Enjoy!

 

Murals in Leederville

On Saturday, when I went to the Leederville Christmas Carnival, I came across some interesting murals.


The first one, I saw when crossing the footbridge from the train station over the Mitchell Freeway, and it was unveiled in June this year.
Painted by Perth artist Kyle Hughes-Odgers, located in a building at 50 Oxford Close, and it's entitled " The Giants View" - a double play on the view you get from the footbridge and the painted people looking out.
I can't believe I had never seen it while driving past on the free way though, maybe because I'm concentrating and not looking sideways...

In this post I have a photo of another of his murals in the city of Perth.

The Giant's View

The view from the footbridge at Leederville Station, with the mural on the right and city buildings in the background

While walking around the Christmas fair I came across this gigantic mural painted on the walls of the Luna Cinema building on the corner of Oxford and Vincent Street in Leederville.

It was already getting dark, so I didn't get a very good image, but the mural is magnificent!

Painted for the Christmas festival by Australian artist Fintan Magee, it shows three figures carrying heavy loads on their backs - depicting movement and displacement regarding Immigration in Perth's history.

From his site I see that he always paints giant murals.

Two weeks ago when I went to Angove Street in North Perth (suburb next to Leederville) to buy the homeopathic medication for my cat Baby at HAMPL, I also came across a couple of murals I hadn't seen. 

This next mural painted by another Perth artist George Domahidy - is on the corner of Angove and Daphne streets in North Perth. 

The owner of the building, Hank Ekamper, shared the costs with the Council of Vincent. Finished in February 2014, the mural depicts the trams that used to run down this street in the olden days. 

Another mural painted by George Domahidy, also in North Perth, on the corner of Angove and Woodville streets, was for the Angove Street Festival in October 2013, and was also partly funded by Hank Ekamper, the building's owner. (I read somewhere the total budget for this mural was $4000).

And to end this post, is the photo of a mural I saw at the Leederville Christmas Festival, at 140 Oxford street, painted by Graphite Crew on the walls of Unison clothing.

It looks like the Northern suburbs have a lot of interesting walls that we don't get in the Southern suburbs...

An interesting selection of murals and some very talented Perth artists too.

What do you think?

Christmas fun in Leederville

Leederville, a suburb just north of Perth's city centre was on Sunday 7th December alive with the annual Christmas Carnival.
For the first time I attended this huge Christmas fair where 70,000 visitors were expected, and I was really impressed at the enormous amount of tents set up in the main closed off streets of Leederville.

The rows of food tents along one of the streets

There were 250 stalls selling from take-away food to arts and crafts, vintage and recycled goods, gourmet food, and stalls selling Christmas goodies. 

There were 8 stages through the venue with different types of entertainment, chefs had cooking demonstrations, camel rides for kids, a funfair for kids too, artists painting walls....

This Space Man made some weird sounds - space age music maybe?

Father Christmas on his bike rode around the fair

A Gym bus for the kids

Camel riding for the kids

We had a very tasty Spanish Paella

You could also cycle for your fresh fruit juice...

Friends of ours had a stall selling Cork products from Portugal - "Corker" , with handbags, hats, iphone cases, wallets, etc., a unique product in Australia.

At 8pm, they had about 5 minutes of fireworks and then the streets Christmas lights were lit up. It was time to catch the train back home. (The Leederville train station was a 5 min walk away)

Christmas lights lit up in the streets of Leederville

I had a lot of fun going to the Christmas fair, and hopefully next year I'll be able to go again.

In my next post I will post a few photos of some new murals I came across at the fair.

Almost two weeks to Christmas and I'm still so behind with my preparations... Hope your Christmas preparations are coming along well. 

Anniversary Weekend

My 34th Wedding anniversary was on Sunday 30th Nov. I had wanted to have a little party like I usually do, but first of all our backyard is under "construction", as we're building a deck, the grass has been removed, there is soil everywhere....
Secondly, I have been under a lot of stress with my cat  being sick and with me spending so much time syringe feeding her, a couple of hours daily, I have hardly had time to look after myself or the house...

My husband and I on our 34th Wedding anniversary, with the Governor's house in the background

So we decided we would join our son and daughter in law at the "World Food Festival" being held at the Gardens surrounding the Governor's house in the city, at lunch time, and then in the evening my husband and I went to dinner at an Italian restaurant.

The Govern's House and huge garden

The fair was quite popular, I had never been there before, and for the first time there was a Portuguese tent selling  "Bifanas" a type of sandwich with pork meat, "Espetadas", a traditional recipe of meat kebabs from Madeira and of course the much loved "Pastel de Nata" or Custard tart.









Unfortunately they had run out of the tarts, so we joined the long queue at the French tent to order some Crepes. They were very popular, as the waiting time to get your order was around half an hour, but they were worth the wait!!

The French certainly had the most stylish tent with a red carpet leading up to it, the chefs wore chef's hats, a nice printed menu, nice display shelves for French products on sale...
All very professional.

Red carpet treatment

The chefs wearing their stylish hats

The Crepe Menu - sweet or savoury

The Dutch tent 

Another thing I came across in the South African tent were some fizzy drinks I hadn't seem for ages, like Fanta Grape, Cream Soda and the Grapetiser (you can buy Appletiser in some shops in Perth - fizzy apple juice). They also sold Boerewors (South African sausage) and biltong (dried cured meat, like beef jerky).

I'm not much of a soda drinker, but I had some Grapetiser

The grounds at Governor's house

There is a lake, fountains and ducks in the gardens

PS - I'm pleased to say that my cat "Baby" seems to be making some slow progress.
Last night I put her in her basket and took her to bed with me and while stroking her nose she started purring. Today she miawed and she followed my husband to the garden and sat next to him while he did some work. 

Maybe the homeopathics are starting to slowly work. I hope so, as I was about to give up on Saturday...

I still have to syringe feed her, but today I bought a "Nutribullet" at Big W, so that I could puree real food like chicken, kale, pumpkin, etc to give her so she can get the vitamins needed for good liver function - like vitamin E, K and B12, and hopefully she will put on some weight and eat real food, instead of just getting the tinned pureed cat food from the Vet.

So I'm able to relax a bit...