COLOURFULWORLD

Wednesday 11 May 2022

April Wrap -up and Signs

Also joining Tom for the signs meme. You can check other signs from around the world in Tom's blog via this link

Friday 1st April, I met up with two of my former work colleagues in Coogee for lunch. It's always nice to catch up with them every 2nd or 3rd month.

         

Saturday 2nd - We went to the 60th birthday lunch of our long time friend Wendy. We met each other in Germany, recently arrived from South Africa, and our husbands worked together on the same project in Siemens Braunschweig. Our kids are more or less the same age and they are still friends with each other too, which is lovely. I took two desserts - a pineapple mousse and a milk flan.


Tuesday 12th - About 3 weeks after being diagnosed with a large tumour, we sadly had to put our 15 1/2 year old Shelley to sleep, when she stopped eating. It was a hard decision to make, but I know she was wasn't well and had been losing even more weight since the diagnosis.  Our son Michael joined us at the vet which was comforting.

I wrote a tribute to Shelley, which you can read here.

We had a long weekend over Easter from Good Friday 15th to Monday 18th, and were invited to our friends W and L on Saturday 16th for a Barbecue and I took a salad and dessert. Otherwise we didn't do anything special for Easter.


Friday 22nd - I had to take Twiggy to the vet, as the day before when I arrived home I noticed a little bit of blood on her blanket. Upon inspection she had a sebaceous cyst below one ear which she had managed to scratch. 

She is a scary cat and I couldn't put her in the carry case, so drove the 10min to the vet with her on the passenger seat howling as if she was going to the gallows. On the return trip now inside the cage she once again howled the 10 minutes until we got home.  She was prescribed a course of antibiotic during 10 days and the cyst has healed.

Twiggy peering at me through the top of the carry cage

Cat signs - the middle one - Cat parking, was at my vet, the others were from a magazine

      

Friday 22nd - our oldest friend Idalia celebrated her 90th birthday at the Swan Yacht Club in Fremantle. It was a lovely party with a buffet, music, speeches and we got to meet some interesting people sitting at our table.

She was one of the first Portuguese women to arrive in Perth and she is such a clever and feisty lady and she makes friends easily.

Her husband who died about 3 or 4 years ago, came a few years before her in a fishing boat with around 20 other people, all the way from Madeira Island via South Africa to Perth, a trip that took them over 70 days! Brave "discoverers"!

The sun setting a we arrived, view of the terrace and from the terrace to the yacht club below

Seafood entree, choice of roast meat, chicken, fish... and a mini pavlova for dessert

The birthday girl blowing the candles on her cake and Jose and I with her

Monday 25th - Anzac Day was a public holiday which is still a very important celebration in Australia.

I didn't go to the city this year but near us the local RSL (Returned and Services League) office had some wreaths by the commemorative plaque.

          

Friday 29th - attended a coconut yogurt and ricotta workshop with Megan Radaich  (a food preserving guru), organized  by our "Community Harvest Group". A great morning, learned new skills and brought home what we made. 

We started by making a berry and chia jam which we then ate with yogurt when we had our coffee/cake break. Then we made one of the recipes for the coconut yogurt using coconut meat and then the ricotta which was for me the most exciting process.

Saturday 30th - Jose and I went into Forrest Place, in the city to see "Bindaran" , a 6 metre high puppet, to mark the change of the Nyoogar weather seasons. The puppet operated by 10 local puppeteers and stories from Aboriginal Elders were shared through speakers inside the puppet.

The Nyoongar calendar has six weather seasons - Birak, Bunuru, Djeran, Makuru, Djilba and Kambarang.

Bindaran puppet

Afterwards we went to Chinatown for dinner.




A few photos taken in the city.... I also saw a few murals...

      

A few of Perth's iconic buildings

Probably my most productive month in furniture painting!                                             I painted a few pieces of furniture - this chest of drawers, from my neighbourhood's verge collection had a damaged bottom drawer and I tried a new technique with narrow wooden slats which were glued to each drawer. It took a lot of cutting....



The white one is the before ...


A MCM (mid-century modern) small desk, which I picked up from a verge after seeing it announced on FB Marketplace. It was in a good state, just needed a cover at the back of the drawers and a good clean.


 
A navy blue bed side table

A pink and purple bedside table


I also sold two of my biggest pieces - the recently painted round table and chairs and a corner unit painted last year. The pic on the bottom corner is the before of the side-tables.



We had a few controlled burns around Perth that made for some gorgeous sunsets where the sky turned orange.



The birds keep coming to my front garden to feed on the seeds I put out daily.



I went to the South African shop and in the parking lot was a car with a sign that resonates with me :)



30 comments:

  1. A wonderful month filled with beautiful things and all that delicious food.

    Have a fabulous day and rest of the week. ♥

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  2. Nice meetups.
    So sad About Shelley. But, unlike what our Mum decided with our very sick German Shepeard the better way.
    Poor Twiggy - it´s like going to the dentist!

    Nice cat-signs.
    And Birthday party.Ricotta-making.

    You did a great job again with the furniture! And I love the sunsets. And all the birds.
    Nice last sign.

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    1. Sadly it progressed very quickly with Shelley. Thanks Iris :)

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  3. ...Sami, you had a busy month, thanks for sharing today. Take care and stay well.

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  4. There is some very nice looking food there, and some cleverly decorated furniture.

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  5. Dearest Sami,
    My goodness, only 4 days after letting go of Shelley, you had to ride with Twiggy to the vet. Glad that we live only a couple of minutes from the Veterinarian clinic as Bandido sure can howl as if he's going to the slaughterhouse...
    Great for staying in touch with former colleagues and friends!
    Your 90–year old friend sure does not look her age.
    ANZAC ought to be celebrated to honor all those that fought for FREEDOM.
    It must be great for still being young enough and super fit and healthy to accomplish all that you did.
    As for me, I must adapt to my decline of kidney function with all its complications. Due to a strict low protein diet, it makes ones muscles weaker and so on. I fell in the hallway, not as stable anymore and luckily I fell sidewards but my middle finger got badly bruised, still hurts. Also a black thumb and my other elbow got bruised. So, I got myself a walker for having near my bedside, IF I have severe cramps when getting up and not being stable...
    But life goes on and at a rapid pace!
    We enjoyed Easter, I sang in the choir and we did Händel's Hallelujah as our final. Pieter enjoyed it and both of us got invited by the daughter of our late friends. She is the one that got me involved with the choir again in October for Händel's Messiah. I loved the singing so much that I stayed for their Sunday chancel choir singing. As long as I can manage... my breath is limited due to my CKD stage 4.
    So I had to prioritize also certain blog visits, can't do it all!
    Big hugs,
    Mariette

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    Replies
    1. So sorry to hear you aren't doing too well Mariette. Lung problems are quite life limiting. Good that you got a walker to help you as falls can be quite bad. Singing is very good for the soul, so keep on singing :)

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  6. O gato na máquina de lavar roupa é um mimo :))))

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    1. Nao e maquina da roupa Pedro, esta dentro da caixa onde a levo ao veterinario. Aquilo tem uma portinhola em cima e ela esta a olha por la, lol.

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  7. I am happy to say that I too have left many footprints in Africa, in various regions of the continent, gentle footprints too, the kind that enables the grass to spring back immediately - at least I hope so.

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    1. Thanks David, Africa stays in our blood. Your comment landed in Spam, not sure why some of the regular readers are getting their comments going to spam!

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  8. I left a comment, Sami, but I think it has gotten gobbled up by reCAPTCHA.

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  9. You've had a tough cat month with dear Shelley and poor Twiggy. But I'm glad the antibiotic kicked in and she'll be OK. Loving that furniture -- you really are terrific at converting the old into the beautiful!

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    1. Thanks Jeanie. I really feared for poor Twiggy when I saw the lump. Thankfully it wasn't bad.

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  10. Really nice to see a 90 year old lady who doesn't look a day over 60. What a lovely person she must be.

    As always, your wrap ups are filled with food. I am always hungry once I see one of these posts.

    Poor Twiggy. I'm glad she will be OK. There was no way you deserved to lose two cats in the same month. LOVE the cat signs.

    Nicely done on the furniture. That one piece is out of this world and you did a LOT of cutting to create that facade.

    Nice bird and sunset photos. Sounds like you had a great month,except for cat problems.

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    1. Thanks Elizabeth. Idalia is lovely, always looks immaculate, loves to dress well, lives alone and still cooks and cleans her house. Has facebook, messenger, mobile phone... very modern!
      Twiggy is much better now thank goodness, I was quite worried until the vet said it was a sebaceous cyst.

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  11. I’m impressed with that chest of drawers. Where did you get the hardware for it, specifically the drawer pulls?

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    1. Thanks Linda. The drawer pulls were the original ones that I spray painted gold, just changed the ones for the two small drawers with wooden knobs that I also spray painted. They look so much better in gold than black.

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  12. a lot of activities during April...
    delicious foods and nice cat...

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  13. Lovely pics. I hope to leave my footprints in Africa one day.

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    1. Thanks Haddock. I've already left them there as I was born in Africa :)

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  14. You are the busiest person I know!! : )

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