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 💝.