April Wrap-up

On Easter Saturday, 3rd April -  I met up with two of my colleagues plus a former younger colleague who worked at the clinic part-time when she was studying Nursing. She is now fully qualified and working at one of our major hospitals. It was nice seeing her again after about 9 months, and she seems to have matured.

We didn't do anything for Easter and I spent the long weekend as well as other weekends painting furniture.  I also sold two of my pieces which was nice.

When I collected this chest of drawers I almost told the lady I didn't want it, as it was full of stickers, was painted in a cream oil paint, Yikes...It took a lot of sanding, patching up a lot of dents, etc, etc. Now with some cute paper collages, pink knobs, and pink drawer it will hopefully make a little girl happy. 

The laminate wood telephone bench was given to me through the "Buy Nothing Group". The seat was covered in a rubbery material and the foam inside had disintegrated. I imagine it was quite old. I painted it in navy blue, new foam and a pretty Australian designed fabric brought it back to life.

I even painted two pairs of shoes which I quite liked and are comfortable. The cream pair was painted navy blue and now I can wear them to work with my navy uniform, the other pair of sandals was brown and are now painted dark gray.

It was nice to have an extra long Easter weekend from Friday to Monday and on Monday 5th, Jose and I went to dinner at Mama's Dumpling Restaurant. It was full and by the time we started eating I noticed we were the only non-Asian customers, which I suppose meant that the food was good if the Asian community patronized the restaurant.

I started doing a few sessions with a chiropractor for my lower back issues and after a few sessions I'm feeling a little bit better. A lot of stress at work and other issues don't help though...  Has anyone had chiropractic treatments?

On Friday 9th I met up with two former colleagues, Gill and Jan who are now retired at a cafe by the river - Zephyrs, in East Fremantle. Gill had been looking after her dying brother since December and managed to take some time off to have a coffee and chat.

Sadly the following day Gill messaged me that her brother had passed away. Jan and I attended the funeral about 2 weeks later and I don't think I had ever seen a funeral with so many people! There must have been close to 400 people at the church, he sure was a popular person.

Catholic church in Fremantle where the funeral was held

Also on Friday 9th, we went to the Portuguese club for the first Friday of the month Codfish dinner. Later in the evening we heard Prince Phillip had died. I quite liked him, his sense of duty and his quirky character, but he certainly reached a great age.

Grilled codfish, potatoes and chick peas

On Sunday 11th the WA Portuguese Women's Association held their first Annual General Meeting in one of the small halls of the Portuguese Club. As usual with AGM's it wasn't well attended and none of the participants volunteered for any of the positions we had. I baked the very easy almond cake to take, others took cookies, tea, coffee, etc which we shared after the meeting.

For our French lesson on the 20th, one of my class colleagues brought some "madeleines" to celebrate the teacher's birthday the following week. The teacher made tea and we had a lovely evening. I really enjoy making part of this little group.

Madeleine by Suzanne

I was thrilled to receive a parcel from a good friend in Portugal - she likes to send us Easter almonds (sugar or chocolate covered almonds), something we don't get here. She also filled up the box with little goodies like pens and post-it blocks, key-holders, shopping bags and even a small manicure container.

She usually sends us one of Portugal's best cheeses made from goat's milk in Portugal's highest mountain (Serra da Estrela), but she wasn't sure how long the parcel would take to arrive due to restricted flights between Europe and Australia and that the cheese might go off, but the parcel only took 19 days.

We had a snap 3 day lockdown from 12,01 Saturday 23rd which ended at 12,01am Tuesday 27th. Sadly the Anzac day celebrations on the 25th were unable to go ahead. This all happened because one security guard was found to be infected while at work in hotel quarantine. Luckily all his contacts were traced and tested and anyone else who had been the same venues as he had was asked to be tested. No new cases were found, hence just the 3 days lockdown and a total of 14 days of mask wearing in public, which ends at midnight from this Friday to Saturday 7/8th May.  Masks will still be needed in public transport and nursing homes and hospitals for another 7 days.

It was our second month of Autumn with still great temperatures in the high 20 degrees, with a bit of rain towards the end of the month. Still wearing short sleeves during the day, but the early mornings and after sunset the temperature drops and the days are shorter, which I hate.

The pink full moon we had on the 27th.

And I end the post with some cute photos of Twiggy and Shelley who with the cooler weather in the evenings enjoy snuggling up on the sofa near us.

Hope you had a great month too!