My November Wrap up

Linking to Eileen's blog for Saturday Critters.

A busy social month for me, which started on Friday 1st November with a buffet dinner at Eat Greek Restaurant, by the Swan River in South Fremantle, with Dr K and Dr J from the clinic where I work.   
Dr K had once again invited us to go to Rottnest island on his boat on Saturday, but we had to decline as we had too much to do at home.
It was a fun night with entertainment by the restaurant staff with dancing and plate breaking. Dr S and I were given plates to throw onto the dance floor 🤣.

On Thursday 7th members of the newly formed Portuguese Australian Women's Association of WA met with the Portuguese Ambassador at the Italian restaurant La Capannina, in the beachside suburb of Scarborough where I spotted the mural I wrote about in this post.

 

On Saturday 9th, Jose, I and our oldest friends W and L attended the 2nd Fado Gala at the Adriatic club in the northern suburbs of Stirling.
The event was organized by the Portuguese Social Club of Perth and it was a huge success.
Fado is a form of music characterised by mournful, melancholic tunes, and lyrics about loss, the sea, death, love, is accompanied by a 12 string instrument - the Portuguese Guitar, .
Fado can be traced to the 1820's and is since the 27th November 2011 part of the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists.

Fado's most famous singers include Amália Rodrigues (who died in 1999), Mariza, Dulce Pontes, Carlos do Carmo, Katia Guerreiro...
You can hear one of my favourite Fado songs "Chuva" (rain) by Mariza and "Lisboa Menina e Moça" (Lisbon girl and young woman) by Carlos do Carmo.

In this event about 10 people sang, most were quite good, a few Portuguese Australian ladies that were obviously not so fluent in Portuguese had a bit of difficulty pronouncing words, but there was a Croatian lady who fell in love with Fado, learned how to sing it, and we were all amazed that her pronunciation was fantastic! The two guitarists were Australian with special mention to the one that played the Portuguese guitar (on the right) who also sang 2 fados in his best Portuguese.
The highlight of the evening was a young Dad "Rodrigo" who was fantastic. I've met the couple at other social events and at the end of the evening I congratulated him, and his wife of 12 years said she had no idea he could sing, as he didn't even sing in the shower!

On Monday 11th I drove to Victoria Park, a suburb near my work place to deliver toiletries to a charity that collects toiletries for homeless women. 

While there I spotted a couple of murals I hadn't seen before, as well as a cute 3 wheeled car.

The Isetta is an Italian-designed microcar built  during 1953 to 1956, under license in a number of different countries, including Argentina, Spain, Belgium, France, Brazil, Germany (by BMW), and the United Kingdom. Because of its egg shape and bubble-like windows, it became known as a bubble car, a name also given to other similar vehicles. 

How cute is this car?

The house next door got the walls plastered and the ceilings installed. Mid month it had all doors and windows installed, so I'm no longer able to visit, unless I go in when the tradesmen are working.  Construction workers usually have a break mid December and return beginning of January, so I presume there won't be much going on in the house until then.

On Saturday 16th,  Jose and I visited a couple of places in the Open House Perth, which you read about here.

The same day my new great-niece was born in Lisbon. She was due on the 23rd, which is my grandson's birthday and also her Dad's birthday, but she decided to come 1 week earlier.

On Sunday 17th, our friends W and L invited our family to lunch at their house by the Canning River, the one where we can feed the ducks and the black swans. It was a warm day, and we took our swimming gear and enjoyed some time in the pool after a delicious lunch. Around 6pm our friend called the ducks and swans and we enjoyed seeing some young ducklings and other babies and how the parents fed them. 

My grandson was excited to see and feed the duck and swans, who almost came to eat out of his hand.

Afterwards we went on the round boat for a ride down the river. A perfect day!

Our friend's house is the one with the small jetty

Friday 22nd, my day off work, I met up with Grace from Perthdailyblog at Ikea for lunch and a chat. I took the opportunity to buy a single latex mattress to fit the day bed we bought from them about 6 years ago. At the time we just bought 1 mattress as we only had a single visitor to sleep there. The bed converts into a double bed which we will need when our visitors arrive in less than 2 weeks. 

The day bed with the two mattresses

Saturday 23rd I participated in the "Buy nothing" group "No Sale Garage Sale".  The organizers got together with our neighbour group and mapped out a garage sale trail that included about 7 houses in each suburb.

One of the young ladies I met through the swaps had a few things to give but not enough to hold a garage sale and I offered for her to join me. About 30 to 40 people came to have a look at my 3 tables in the driveway, and at the end what was left filled up two cardboard boxes which I took to one of the Charity shops.

It was a great opportunity to clear out a lot of stuff I didn't want/need and a chance to donate to people from my community.

Sunday 24th, it was our grandson's birthday party. 

My son had built a tree house with a slide and installed the wooden play house on top. The kids had great fun climbing the structure and coming down on the slide.

In their suburb some of the lights for the Christmas lights trail, had been set up. This year they had 4 new ornaments and Jose and I took photos in them - the angels and the snow family.

Wednesday 27th I met up with two former work colleagues, Jan and Gill, who are now retired for a catch up before the end of the year.

Throughout the month I've been painting bits and pieces of furniture and I've managed to sell a couple of things. I find fixing up things and painting quite relaxing, so even though I've been busy I try and find a bit of time after I get home to paint a little bit 😉

A chair I found on the verge rubbish collection which I painted to match the roll top desk I painted for Jose

Another verge collection find, removed the seat that was damaged, painted, put a wood seat and made a pillow

This is the newest project, which I hope to finish and sell before the family arrives, but if not it stays in the garage together with the other pieces of furniture awaiting to be painted...

This small roll top desk cost me $20, had a few dents which I covered with wood filler and is being painted with Mustard and Midnight blue from the Fusion Mineral paint range.

This Friday 29th, I baked my Christmas cake as the fruit had been soaking for about 3 weeks already and also make soaps - coffee soap and Sea breeze with oats soap, which will mostly go towards little gifts for work colleagues and friends.

Jose has also finished the front porch and the entrance to the house, and it looks so much better.

I also painted the formerly yellow big pot in black and turquoise to go with the other blue pots.

As Jose says, I've always got a brush and paint on hand ready to paint, don't let the cats sit for too long or they'll get a makeover too 🤣🤣.

The magpies that seem to live in the park across the road, when they see either of us in the front of the house, often cross the road to our driveway asking for food.

I've been giving them walnuts, or olives which I know they like as they used to pick the olives that had fallen on the ground under our olive tree. 

I read somewhere that magpies live in the same area for up to 20 years and that if you treat them well they know you and will be friendly with you.  They are quite feared at nesting time and are know to attack people.

The Rainbow Lorikeets, also come to our olive tree or loquat tree which now only has dry fruit, but they still eat them.

Rainbow lorikeet on the olive tree and the various magpies that visit us

And I end this month by celebrating our 39th wedding anniversary on Saturday 30th.

In the morning I had to drive to Fremantle (30min away) to join the Committee members of the Portuguese Australian Women's Association for a photo shoot by the Fisherman statue, that honours the men who started the fishing industry in Fremantle, which were the first Portuguese and Italian that came to Perth in the 50's.

I don't yet have the group photo, so I leave you with a photo with me and the fisherman.

This year with so much going on, I didn't even organize a lunch or dinner with friends, so we went out to dinner at a Japanese restaurant, Ippudo in Carousel shopping centre. The food was different from the usual Japanese food I've eaten before, but it was delicious.

An opportunity to see the lively restaurant/entertainment area at night and I also I discovered two new murals...

Next year I will be better organized and throw a party for our 40th anniversary!

Wedding day - 30 Nov 1980

And after this long post, if you still want to listen to Mariza and Carlos do Carmo, please check out these You Tube videos. I'm not too much into Fados, but these are my favourite Fado songs.