June Wrap-up

June, the start of Winter. Bbbrrrr, not my favourite season for sure, I would hibernate if I could 😉. 

Luckily our winters aren't too cold, with mostly sunny days and maximum temperatures that might reach 18 to 20C (64 to 68F). We had a couple of days this month when an Arctic wind blew and the minimum temperature dropped to 1,9C, luckily well before my time to get out of bed in the morning.

On Monday 31st May, I woke up with a sore throat, messaged my colleagues if anyone could work for me, and from the 3 colleagues who didn't work that day, the reply was "they had other appointments". Oh well, I got dressed and went to work!

When I got there my boss was already there cancelling appointments for one of the Doctors who had called her to say he was sick. I told her I wasn't feeling too well either, but no one could work... She just sent me packing and said she would work at the front desk with the other colleague. 

My colleagues must have felt guilty, as eventually two of them volunteered to go and work. 

I went to the Doctor on Tuesday 1st at my clinic, and believe or not he sent me off for a covid test!  I couldn't understand why, when at the time we had not a single case of Covid in the State, nor had I been anywhere outside Perth. All he prescribed was rest and hot liquids.

Both my colleagues saw one of the other Doctors who did not send them for a Covid test...  Anyway, it was negative as I expected.

I returned to work the following Monday 7th.  In the meantime 2  colleagues had fallen ill with flu over the weekend and I had to work every day for 9 to 10h a day to cover both their shifts! No fun at all, out the window went my restful week replaced with a lot of stress.

On Saturday 5th, feeling better I joined a group of 30 ladies, members of the WA Portuguese Women Association, for a screening of a French movie with English subtitles, and a couple of sentences in Portuguese - "La cage dorée" - (The guilded cage), about a Portuguese family of immigrants living in Paris, who inherit a property in Portugal and decide to return home.  The main actors are all well known Portuguese actors, and we all enjoyed it.

Actors from "La Cage Doree:  (photo from net) 

On Sunday 6th Jose and I went to Burswood Park, by the Swan river and Crown Casino to join in the celebrations of WA Day (Western Australia Day) which is celebrated on the 7th, a public holiday. It was a wet day, but still lots of people filled the park. We arrived at about 2pm and spotted a South African food van -  Big 5 - where we bought meat samoosas - I so missed these, and they were delicious.

We then shared a waffle with ice-cream from another van. 

Big 5 food van, food area, swan people walking around, waffle with ice cream

Mince samoosas (photo from net)

We walked around checking the music stage, the various kids entertainment tents, the petting zoo, the massive fire van, etc.

A music box VW, more swan at one of the entrances, a swan statue and Dutch Captain Willem de Vlamingh

Panorama view of the Swan river from Burswood park

Then we sat at some benches by the water's edge with a bag of popcorn admiring the sunset... 

Sunset - the Matagarup bridge with 2 swans gliding by, and stadium on the right

And to end the night's celebrations there was a 10 minute firework display. Magical!

Jose started a new job  on Wednesday 9th.  He hadn't been working for a while waiting to go back to his old company in Perth who had been awarded a new rail project last year. Somehow almost 10 months later they still haven't started recruiting for this project...  

He could have gone back to Sydney where he worked for the same company on other projects during 18 months, but neither of us was keen on the idea - it was expensive for us, and Jose had enough of the big city stress and I didn't want to move there either.

He's now working for a smaller company also in Project management for rail projects.

That evening we went out to dinner to our favourite Japanese restaurant - Yuki - to celebrate the occasion.

On Saturday 12th we went to a dinner/dance at the Portuguese club to celebrate the Portuguese national day. We booked a table for 9 which included one of the Doctors from my clinic.  The food was great, the music by "Carbon Taxi" with Portuguese singer Chantal Basilio (on the right in the video), was fabulous and we danced the night away, leaving at midnight!

Prawn entry, Codfish, potatoes and rice, and a pineapple cake I baked to take

The hall, the band, the dancing floor and our guests at our table

Thursday 17th someone from St Johns Ambulance came to the clinic to administer a CPR course to all of us at the clinic from 5,30. Our boss arranged for snacks to be eaten midway through the 3h course. This was needed for the clinic's Accreditation in July.

Saturday 19th my colleague Suzanne from French class delivered a chest of drawers to be painted. It belonged to her brother who passed away about 6 months ago and she wanted it to be revamped to pass onto the brother's partner. It wasn't in a very good state, drawers needed gluing, the back panel had to be removed and replaced with a sheet of plywood, an extra support was added to the back and I had to add another top too as too damaged with stains to be able to be stained.

Apart from the top and drawers the rest was painted in black. 

Not yet finished as I still need the cup drawer pulls, so I'll show it next month.

Sunday 20th we drove about 30min north to go to Ikea, to look for a desk. 

You can see the stormy weather we had that weekend ...

The following Sunday we went into a 5 day lockdown because a person came from Sydney with the virus and one of the exposure sites mentioned was a couple of hours at Ikea on the 22nd.  Uff, we escaped!!

Saturday 26th we went out to dinner with friends to the Italian restaurant Ruocco's  in Fremantle. The food was fantastic, service was tops too.

Jose's chocolate and orange mousse, starters, my Creme brulee, my octopus and chips dish

Monday 28th we started administering the Astra Zeneca covid vaccines at the clinic. We just book about 10 people a day, but it makes a lot more work for us receptionists - booking, rebooking 12 weeks later, phoning patients from a list to ask if they would like to book, charging Medicare...

Jose and I picked olives from our olive tree, about 7kgs of them! They are now curing in water which gets changed daily and then will be put into bottles with brine.

We've had plenty of rainy days, and as I roll out my painting projects from the garage to the backyard there hasn't been much of a chance to paint.

Apart from the yet to be finished chest of drawers, I painted another bedside table, this time in pink :)

Shelley and Twiggy ....

And I end the month of June with a visit to Bunnings, a hardware warehouse after another big downpour that left the parking lot flooded, but the sunset sky was pretty.