May Wrap- Up

Saturday, 1st May - even though in most of the world the 1st of May is a public holiday celebrating International Labour Day, Australia celebrates Labour Day in March. Anyway, the Committee ladies of the Portuguese Australian Women's Association (PAWA) had a meeting at Bocceli's Cafe in city, as it's just metres away from the main railway station, so convenient for all of us who live either north or south of the city.

I noticed the Perth City Visitor Kiosk had changed its outlook since the last time I was in the city, and was now sporting an Aboriginal art inspired "skin", painted by Noongar artist Nerolie Bynder.

Visitor kiosk and sitting at Bocceli's Cafe

On Friday 7th, I got my first Astra Zeneca vaccine, next dose 12 weeks later, so at the end of July. Sadly Australia's vaccine rollout has been very slow and only a very small percentage of people have been vaccinated. On the other hand I have found a lot of people who have decided not to be vaccinated as they won't be travelling in the near future... they just don't think that no one else will be able to travel overseas nor will Australia open its borders to overseas visitors even if fully vaccinated. Very sad situation 😔. 

My nieces from San Francisco and from Angola are already fully vaccinated and with Portugal recently opening its borders to a lot of countries, they have already booked their flights to visit family in August. How I wish I we could travel too and have a big family reunion like we did in 2018.

On Sunday 9th it was my niece's birthday in San Francisco and her sister who lives in Angola arranged a surprise zoom call for the whole family from both her maternal and paternal sides (9 families) to wish her a happy birthday. To be able to include all of us in different time zones, my joining in time was 11pm, so we didn't spend much time online.

Nadine's husband was in on the surprise, and as soon as she got up at 8am, he gave the thumbs up and started filming her reaction to our zoom call. She was so surprised and became quite emotional when we all sang Happy Birthday. 

I love how my parents even got all dressed up for the zoom call with the granddaughter :)

On Thursday 13th it was my parents 62nd wedding anniversary. I called them and urged them to go out to dinner, but my Mom said the weather was cold and she didn't feel like going out.

I thought I would then surprise them with a home delivered dinner, and after a bit of an online search I managed to arrange a delivery service from a Brazilian restaurant in Cascais, and gave instructions for a 7pm delivery. 

It was late in Australia by the time I ordered it and as I was ready to get into bed I got a call from an unknown number in Portugal. I answered it and the young guy said he was from the delivery service and the restaurant had run out of one of the dishes, would I like to order another? Another was chosen. Five minutes later another call from the same guy saying I had requested a 7pm delivery but that wasn't how the system worked, and they had to collect it as soon as it was ready which would be around 4pm.

Oh well I tried 😉. I called my Dad and told him about the dinner they would be getting at 4pm and could he tip the delivery guy as I hadn't included a tip in my order.

The next day my Mom called to say how thrilled they had been that I had thought of something like that, and apparently there had been enough food to invite my sister and brother in law to come around.

On Saturday 15th, my niece also arranged another zoom call at my Mom request, who had provided the phone numbers from her cousins in Brasil.

With 16 families online, it started a bit hectic with many talking at the same time, until my Mom suggested we should each say something about ourselves, our lives, families... Because I haven't lived in Portugal for just over 14 years, but my Mom is great at keeping contact with the whole family, she knew them all, but I and some of the younger members of the family had never seen some of the younger Brazilian cousins.

Anyway it led to me reconnecting with some of them and even looking back at old photo books from my two visits to Brasil, the last one about 30 years ago! I scanned some of photos and sent it to them and they were thrilled. The older generation are all dead (my Mom's aunts) and even some from the next generation have sadly died young.

Our visit to family in Brasil 1990

We were affected by a cold snap from the 22nd, with a bit of rain too. Up to then we  had great Autumn weather, with temperatures that could maybe even be considered Summer temperature in some countries.

On the 24th, Perth had its coldest Autumn day in 8 years with a max of 14C. And May was also considered Perth's wettest month in the last 8 years.

 

My wet backyard - taken from my kitchen window

On Friday 28th I drove to Ikea to meet up with Grace, had lunch together then wandered through the shop.

Saturday 29th - My friend Vina who had celebrated her 87th on Monday 25th, invited me to join her and a few friends at Zamia Cafe in Kings Park, for breakfast. I forgot to take photos of the small group, just some photos of the rain falling in the park.

Zamia Cafe (top photo). View of the city from Kings Park

That evening we went to the Ambassador Chinese Restaurant for dinner, a surprise party for our friend Kei who celebrated her 70th also on Monday. A mutual friend invited Kei's best friends and we had 2 tables filled with 24 people. 

When the couple arrived we got up and started singing Happy birthday which highly embarrassed Kei who hates surprises. She though her husband was in on the surprise, but he didn't know either. Some people took cakes, so after dinner Kei blew the candles and distributed cake to all.

Kei and Tony 

I didn't paint much this month, but with extra hours at work because we had a colleague away for 2 weeks, chiro appointments for my back treatments, rain, etc...didn't leave me much time for it sadly.

I only upcycled a coffee table with 3 drawers on either side, which started as a freebie from Marketplace, but in a very bad condition. The photo on the advert hadn't shown the badly damaged, dog chewed corners on two corners...

It took a lot of hours to fill in those corners and the cracks at the top of the table with builders bog (filler), then clean, sand, prime, paint, do the wood looking top... But here it is, another one saved from the tip!

Apart from other bits and pieces, I decided to give away some of my books which I hadn't re-read in over 14 years, to the Buy Nothing Group, in my neighbourhood. Books from Bryce Courtenay, John Grisham, Daniel Silva, have almost all been taken, and the unwanted ones will go a charity shop.

The month also had other great moments like beautiful sunsets, rainbows, cute pictures of the cats, visits from the birds, good food cooked by Jose ...

A rainbow just as I was leaving work

Polvo à lagareiro - octopus, potatoes, onion, plenty of olive oil - So yummi!

Twiggy catching some sun in the garden, Shelley on the sofa

The magpies came for their nuts, and an array of doves waiting for their seeds

Hope you also had a wonderful month of May and that the month of June has started well for you.