August Wrap-Up

At the beginning of the month I had an appointment with the Ophthalmologist regarding the cloudy vision in my left eye. After an uncomfortable fluorescent angiogram and eye drops that prevent you from driving for 3 or 4 hours, I was told I had premacular fibrosis or macular pucker.

If a pucker appears the macular becomes wrinkled, like paper in a printer when there's a paper jam. An operation can be done, too early for it still, but the Ophthalmologist didn't recommend it either, so I just have to get used to seeing everything blurry out of my left eye.

It's apparently a problem that comes with age, quite common after 50. Truth be told even though I work in a medical clinic I had never heard of it, nor any of my older friends have it.... Anyway so I'm officially old.

Spring is here and the flowers are blooming in my garden.

Various flowers in my garden

On the weekends when I'm painting out in the backyard I get a few visits from various birds which always makes me smile - doves, willy wagtails, magpies and honeyeaters (Meliphagidae).

We have 2 pairs of doves that visit us daily, and we put seeds for them in the bird feeder hanging on the lemon tree. Sometimes they get quite brazen and I've seen them stand by the glass kitchen sliding door, as if they want to alert us to the fact that there are no seeds in the bird feeder.

Luckily the cats are old and slow and hardly bat an eyelid when they see them walking on the deck.

One dove has been building a nest in the Bottlebrush tree. For years they just topped up a very rickety nest in the lemon tree, but this Winter Jose cut down a lot of the branches as the tree was too big and bushy, so they have changed to the tree right next to it.

The lemon tree on the left and bottlebrush tree on the right

                     

The Mom dove sitting in the nest

(top) Doves drinking water, a dove with twigs for the nest, doves on a branch (bottom) magpie, willie wagtails, doves on patio blind

Mid month we had our Verge Collection.  Most Perth councils offer a twice a year collection of your bulk rubbish - furniture, appliances, etc.

We did a bit of a clean up of our garage a few days before, donated a few items to the Buy Nothing Group, had two oversized armchairs that no one wanted and posted them on Marketplace and someone collected them a day or so later. 

Once people start putting their stuff out, you can see people driving by with vans to pick up good things. We had a few things - including 3 cane chairs, that I didn't think were good enough to give so we put them out on the verge, and a short while later they were picked up. The next day while posting a few things for sale on Marketplace I saw those chairs advertised for sale. I had to laugh...

Photos of verge collection stuff around my area

The Hall table I was given last month has been painted and styled ready for selling. 

As I mentioned in the Monday Mural post I bought 2 cheap but solid bedside tables and I've  almost finished painting them in a very soft pink. I'll probably be adding a flower decal.

I was commissioned to paint a dining room table and chairs for a lady from my "Buy Nothing Group". The chairs have been painted in a moss green, and were delivered on the 26th, and we brought home the very heavy table, and I have sanded and primed it.

I totally forgot to take a photo of the finished chairs, but will take a photo of the whole set once the table gets delivered.

Dining chairs and table to paint

Friday 28th we had dinner with our friend Idalia at her new unit in a beautiful retirement village near Fremantle.

Jose already knew the unit as he had helped her with the move, but it was my first visit, so I was shown around the spacious 3 bedroomed house and the well cared for gardens of the village, before we sat down to dinner.

Flowers in Idalia's garden at the Retirement village

She had invited another Portuguese couple with whom she's been friends for 50 years, and we had a wonderful evening listening to stories of their early days in Australia.

At the age of 88, Idalia is always the life of the party, she has so much energy and "joie de vivre", and she's always stylish and well groomed! 

For starters we had Prawn Rissoles - a delicious Portuguese snack -  I ate 3 of them, but I think Jose had about 6! and Codfish in Cream Sauce for mains.

I had taken a Chocolate Mousse for dessert and the other lady took a Passionfruit tart.

Prawn rissoles, Codfish in cream, chocolate mousse & passionfruit tart, and broccoli and chickpea salad

I forgot to take a photo of the dinner group, but this is a photo of Idalia and I taken in January this year.

And the month ended with a stunning sunset, as seen from my garden on Sunday 30th.

And these were the highlights of my August.