Signs - Food, Oxygen, Coffee and Sleep

 For other signs please check Tom's blog.

These were taken during one of my visits to Sydney in 2019.

Wishing you all a blessed Easter. 🐰🐇🐇🐰

Monday Murals - Sea Dragon and beach scene

I love murals and street art. If you like murals or have a mural you'd like to post, this meme is for you.  Just follow the Linky steps below.  Once you start looking you will find murals everywhere.  The "Monday Mural" meme goes live on Monday at 12,01AM, Perth,Western Australian time. Be sure to link back to this blog and visit your fellow posters. Looking forward to your mural finds this week.  Thanks, Sami. 

The other two murals I saw on my return home after the Sculptures by the Sea visit when I saw Frida and the Dingo Flour murals are these:

The Seadragon also located on Stirling Highway in North Fremantle, painted by Alice Ford on the walls of IKids Paediatric Dentistry

When crossing the bridge over the Swan river I spotted a house with a mural I had already posted in February 2019 (Sunflowers by Brenton See) and also the rainbow containers and decided to turn off onto Canning Highway (not really a highway) and parked in East Street, which is closest to the containers to go an take some photos. Both are quite joyful aren't they?  

By artist Marcus Canning - 9 recycled containers - 9mt high, 19mt long and weighs 66 tonnes

When I got out the car I saw a mural on the boundary wall of the house across the road, how lucky was I? Depicting the Fremantle harbour and beach scenes, the mural was painted by the group Art by Destroy.

And this is the view of the river, on the corner of Canning Highway and East Street. The rainbow containers are just to the left.

Signs - Electile dysfunction

 Joining Tom for Signs2 

I should have posted this before the elections 😄

Sign seen outside a pub in Fremantle last year

We just had the Western Australian State elections on the 13th March in which the Labor party's win was announced just 43 minutes after voting closed, with Mark McGowan returning as Premier for a second term. 

He's become a bit of a super-hero to West Australians since our State has been spared from the Covid devastation that has swept over the world, by closing our borders to all the other states and to overseas visitors, which has allowed us to lead almost normal lives as well as having one of the best economies in Australia and the world.  (We only had 9 deaths from Covid). 

Some people think he went too far by doing all this, but his landslide victory proves West Australians are happy with the way he handled the pandemic.

Monday Mural - Frida and the Dingo

On Friday 12th, I met up with Grace to go and visit the 17th annual exhibition of Sculptures by the Sea in Cottesloe Beach. It's always a fun and very popular outdoor event, that took place from the 5th to the 22nd March.  On the way to Cottesloe (northern beach suburb) I came across 3 murals, so on the way back I stopped to take photos, and then still found another one on a little detour into Fremantle.  I'll show two now and the other two next week.

PS: Grace had already posted the Frida mural a while back, but it's a beautiful mural so here it goes again for those that hadn't seen it before.

The Frida Khalo mural was painted on the front wall of Plata Bonita, Mexican Jewellery and Homewares in Stirling Highway in North Fremantle by Perth artist Susan Respinger in August 2020.

In December 2020 the artist updated the mural by adding a mural of Archie, the shop's welcoming dog and a colourful Macaw by the entry door on the side of the building.

I love murals and street art. If you like murals or have a mural you'd like to post, this meme is for you.  Just follow the Linky steps below.  Once you start looking you will find murals everywhere.  The "Monday Mural" meme goes live on Monday at 12,01AM, Perth,Western Australian time. Be sure to link back to this blog and visit your fellow posters. Looking forward to your mural finds this week.  Thanks, Sami. 

Just in the next block is the very old Dingo Flour sign, a well known Perth landmark, on the heritage listed working flour mill.

The logo was painted by artist Les Nash in 1940 for £40, it's about five and half storeys high and took about 1 week to paint according to the artist's daughter. It's still a useful reference point for boaters and anglers and well known to migrants arriving by boat in the port of Fremantle. The dingo sign still looks good because it gets a regular "makeover" to keep it looking fresh and bright.

(Sorry it's sideways but I didn't want to cross the very busy road to take a photo from the other side of the road).

Hope you have enjoyed both signs :)

Signs - Recycling

Global Recycling Day is held on 18 March – a worldwide initiative that recognises the importance of recycling and reducing waste for the benefit of our planet’s future. 

In Australia and probably  in many other countries, there are some big-name retailers that will help you recycle those tricky items – from mattresses and batteries to light globes – often for free. You can check them out at the bottom of this post.

With so many options you can always do you part by recycling whenever you can.

Rubbish and Recycle bins by the beach in Bunbury

The following bins are from Changi Airport in Singapore when we stopped over in Dec 2019 on our way home from the Philippines .

Big name retailers than can help you recycle: *(info from the net)

Ikea
The Swedish homewares giant will take old batteries, cardboard and light globes and recycle them for free. Simply drop them off at specially marked recycling stations near your local store’s exit.
They can also recycle your old mattresses. For $30 they will collect your old mattress when delivering your new Ikea one (the offer is only valid for in-store purchases). Alternatively, head to Soft Landing’s website, a mattress-recycling and employment initiative, to book an online collection.

Bunnings
Not sure what to do with those half-used paint tins cluttering your garage or shed? Why not drop them off at Bunnings, which will recycle them for free.

Or, take them to one of the 114 permanent Paintback collection sites across Australia (go to Paintback’s website or Facebook page to find locations near you).

Officeworks
You can take your printer cartridges, e-waste (computer, keyboards, printers, dvd's, hard-drives, etc), mobile phone, batteries and pens and markers.

Woolworths and Coles

Doing their bit for the environment doesn’t stop at plastic bag-free shopping.

Both of these supermarkets are now helping shoppers recycle their soft plastics, too.
Drop off any soft plastics you can’t recycle at home (including clean food wrapping such as cling film) in the specially marked bins outside Woolworths and Coles stores.

At Woolies, your soft plastics are then recycled by their partners’ REDcycle (Coles partners with them, too) and Replas, and made into benches, bollards and other items that are then used in Woolworths stores and carparks. 

Also good to know, every time you buy a 99-cent "Bag for Good" shopping bag at Woolworths, the money will go towards their Junior Landcare Grants Program that assists with environmental and educational projects. You might also find it helpful to know that Woolies will replace your damaged "Bag for Good" for free, no matter when you bought it.


Biome
Eco-retailer Biome sells all sorts of gorgeous skincare and fashion products, but they will recycle many of those tricky everyday items homeowners might be tempted to toss in the rubbish bin. The extensive list of items Biome accepts includes: 

• Cosmetics packaging.
• Toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes (no electronic toothbrushes).
• Wine corks.
• Pens and markers.
• CDs, Blu-ray discs, cassette tapes, memory sticks and external hard drives.
• Shampoo bottles, hair spray, hair gel tubes, shaving foam canisters, soap dispensers and makeup containers (they must be opened and cleaned out thoroughly).
• Packaging from any product purchased at Biome, including cardboard and soft and hard plastics.
• Biome Paddington and Balmoral stores in Queensland will also take coat hangers in good condition.

All cosmetics and beauty packaging must be thoroughly cleaned and opened before being handed in for recycling. Pop your clean recyclables in the TerraCycle bins in select Biome stores or hand them to sales staff at any Biome shop.
Alternatively, you can post items for recycling to Biome, 51 Douglas Street, Milton, Queensland 4064. Your items will be sent to TerraCycle, which will clean and melt them into hard plastic that is then remoulded and made into new recycled products.

Aldi
Aldi stores nationwide will recycle your rechargeable and non-rechargeable AA, AAA, C, D and 9V batteries for free, whether you bought them at Aldi or not. Just place your used batteries in the battery-recycling container at the front of Aldi stores.

Since 2013, Aldi has diverted more than 356 tonnes of battery waste destined for landfill. Batteries are sent to Aldi’s recycling partner in Melbourne and converted into feedstock for fertiliser. The process involves separating the metal from the battery using magnetism. What’s mostly left is described as ‘black mass’, which contains zinc and manganese. Both zinc and manganese are perfect for horticulture, with many crop soils in Australia lacking these vital nutrients. This means your old batteries could end up helping flowers grow.


Zara
Forget fast fashion - Spanish fashion supremo Zara has started running a sustainability-collection program that aims to extend the lifespan of your clothes. 

Simply take any clothes in good condition that you no longer wear to a participating Zara store and drop them into the labelled containers (check the Zara website to find out which stores near you are participating). Your old clothes will then be sorted and passed on to people in need.

H&M also accepts old clothing drop-offs for recycling, and I believe they give a discount voucher for each drop-off.

Monday Mural - The beast II

I love murals and street art. If you like murals or have a mural you'd like to post, this meme is for you.  Just follow the Linky steps below.  Once you start looking you will find murals everywhere.  The "Monday Mural" meme goes live on Monday at 12,01AM, Perth,Western Australian time. Be sure to link back to this blog and visit your fellow posters. Looking forward to your mural finds this week.  Thanks, Sami. 

Mural on the back walls of the Bull Creek Shopping Centre, painted by Kerise Delcoure, and a team of helpers - @traceymoralee, @kknpp11 and @10shakes and others who chipped in to help.

I had first posted part of this mural in October 2019, before the mural was finished (in January 2020), but then totally forgot to go past it again to see the end result, even though it's only a 10 minute drive from home.

This mural covers 250 square metres and depicts Australian birds and plants on a background of geometric shapes and bright colours. It was a very long mural and difficult to get it all in...

February Wrap-up

I went back to work on Monday 1st February after taking leave for two weeks, which I spent at home painting furniture and doing a bit of decluttering.

At midnight from Sunday 31st January to Monday 1st February, Western Australia went into a 5 day lock-down, where apart from essential workers, all others were asked to stay home. It was also compulsory to wear a mask in public which was a first for Western Australia. This was due to a quarantine hotel security man being found to have been infected with the virus. The public was notified of all places and times where he had been and thousands of people got tested, but luckily no other infections were found.  

So I went back just as we had to start wearing masks! After 5 days lock-down was lifted, but we still had to wear masks in public for the next 9 days, a total of 14 days. Luckily no other infections and we went back to normal life.

Sadly our beautiful boy Fluffy had to be put to sleep on the 9th. I had taken him to the vet the day before because he refused to eat when I syringe fed him and was constipated. 

A new vet said his kidneys were quite enlarged, so he didn't just have kidney disease as I had been told a couple of weeks before, but had most probably lymphoma. It was very sad, he was born just outside one of our bedroom windows almost 14 years ago and he was the most social cat we ever had. I do miss his company when I sit at the computer 😢.

We don't usually bother with Valentine's day, but seeing I was a bit down, Jose took me out to dinner on the 14th at Yuki - a Japanese restaurant not far from us. We both love Japanese food.

On Saturday 20th I drove to the city - (we now have 3h free parking on weekends to encourage people to go into the city) for a meeting with the other committee members of the Portuguese Australian Women's Association to discuss our last event at the end of January and to plan new events. 

Afterwards visited my older friend Vina who lives north of the city. She was back home after being in hospital for about 5 months following an exposed fracture of her foot.

On the last weekend of the month Jose and I tidied up the garden. We had many pots around one of our lemon trees and also behind the plant border next to the patio (2 photos on right), so I planted them out now it all looks neater.

I have a lot of pots hanging from the lemon tree, but it's a shady area so they will stay there.

A bee in the dried Kangaroo paw

I also painted the front wall of the shed, which had a few years ago being "spot sprayed" in white by myself when doing other painting jobs. This is our BBQ and potting area.

The structure needs a cover - we had been given metal colourbond roofing, which I also painted in a light gray colour, but then Jose was worried about putting it over this area, and we will eventually cover it with netting to get same in the area.

On the last day of the month, Sunday 28th Jose and I drove to Scarborough Beach for the WA Zouk Sandpit Beach Dancing, which is held weekly on Sundays over the Summer months, from 3 to 9pm. We got there a bit late and just missed the sunset, but still managed to see a beautiful purple sky.

Scarborough's foreshore went through a beautiful revamp which finished in March 2018, and now sports a new beach pool, amphitheatre, gardens, new surf club, car parks, wide pavements... and it's more than ever very popular with families.

WAZouk is a group dedicated to promoting dancing with emphasis on Brazilian style dances - samba, kizomba, forro, salsa. The afternoon starts with free lessons and later on people wanting to dance pay $5, which goes towards the cost of the music equipment, DJ, etc.

Just outside of the  amphitheatre where the dance was held, they had 3 Brazilian food vans - Rio 40°, which I knew, and they had an ice-cream van and a churros van.

Jose ordered a feijoada (black bean and meat stew) for himself and I had coxinhas (chicken croquettes), and for dessert we had churros.

The owner of the food van had his young son helping out at the caravan door calling out the order numbers. We started chatting to the kid and asked if he could speak Portuguese and he said yes as his Mom was Brazilian, but he could also speak Spanish as his Dad was Colombian, plus he spoke English and was learning French in school. He eagerly asked us a couple of questions in French and then proceeded to ask me where I had learned French and if I had been taught by Madame X. 

I asked who the lady was and he said she was his French teacher. I had to laugh and told him my school French teacher was probably very, very old by now.

When we finished eating we had two drink tins and Jose asked the kid if he was collecting them for pocket money (we have a recent scheme that pays 0,10 cents per can or plastic drink bottle). He was unaware of the scheme and how he could get money by collecting cans or bottles and Jose explained to him and then asked his Dad about it. The Dad said the kid could go and collect bottles and later on as we sat watching the dancing we saw the kid going up and down the amphitheatre collecting tins/bottles people had left behind, or that people gave him. He walked by us 3 times with a box full and was so thrilled with it and thanked Jose for the tip.              A young entrepreneur in the making!

At home the usual birds - the Willy wag-tail now comes to our patio when we sit outdoors, the Rainbow Lorikeets are busy munching on our figs, but whenever I hear them shriek and go out to take a photo they run away shrieking even louder.

The doves are growing in numbers and now I feed 3 small ones in the back garden and there are another 3 or 4 in the front garden. These seem to be nesting in the loquat tree. They are very daring and we see them coming to our front porch when they want to be fed, and Jose saw one the other day that sat in front of the lounge window and flapped the wings as if to say "come and give me some food", which he did! They are getting clever.

The doves in the front garden (on front porch, on top of the trailer, on window sill. The Rainbow lorikeet in the fig tree and the Willy wagtail in our patio.

Twiggy and Shelley

And another sunset seen from our back garden.

And I end this post with a photo of cake and cookies - evidence of an act of kindness from one of our patients at the clinic where I work, who every Monday pops by to deliver some sweetness, as we deserve it for being such hard workers, she says.   This all started about a year ago when the pandemic started and it's ongoing.

We do get other patients bringing us some treats once in a while - chocolates or flowers, but this lady has been a regular 💝.