April Wrap-Up and Signs

Joining Tom's signs on Wednesday at:  https://backroadstraveller.blogspot.com/

Wednesday 1st -  Jose and I had coffee with a recently retired Portuguese couple. He used to work with Jose a long time ago, and we met them again recently at a birthday party and rekindled the friendship. We even discovered that when they lived in Johannesburg (South Africa) they lived in the street behind ours! Small world!

That evening I was invited to have dinner with my friend Maria and other of her friends at Tiramisu Pizzeria near our place.

Panna cotta :)

Thursday 2nd - Spark Club at the Riverton Library - "Way out West" - an entertaining 2 hours with the Jukebox lady who talked about important events in Western Australia from the 50's onwards and sang an Australian song for every decade. A great way to meet people and sing.

Saturday 4th - Jose and I joined Dr S and her husband at The Windsor Cinema in Nedlands to see one of the French movies from the 2026 French Film Festival - "The richest woman in the world" with Isabelle Huppert. After the movie the four of us went to Dr S's house for snacks and drinks, and sat on their balcony overlooking the Swan River.

                   

PS: I've discovered there is a Netflix documentary about French heiress Liliane Bettencourt, who died in 2017, one of L'Oreal's principal shareholders, on whom the movie is based.

Monday 6th - Easter Monday, a public holiday here in Australia, and we had friends over for lunch. One of them, John was a childhood friend and his parents were friends with my parents ever since they were young too.

Friday 10th -  Codfish dinner at the Portuguese Club.

Grilled Codfish, potatoes & chickpeas and grilled meat

Saturday 11th - I drove to Mt Lawley, one of Perth's northern suburbs to pick up 2 elderly friends - one of them visiting from Portugal, and had lunch with them. We dropped Vina off first and sat on her balcony having tea and biscuits and a curious Kookaburra joined us on the balustrade :)

Sunday 12th - Jose and I drove to Mandurah, about 1h south of Perth to pick olives from their 3 trees. The four of us picked about 75kgs in 3 hours which was amazing! After that, pizzas were ordered and we sat on the patio facing the canal enjoying the rest of the 31C day. 

Mandurah canal, black swans and a Willie-wagtail by the pool

On the way back home we swang by South Perth to attend the "No more blank walls" mural inauguration party at the Karawara Shopping Centre.

At the "No more blank walls" inauguration party

Monday 13th - Drove to the Swan Valley and Jose and I joined Angela to pick olives in the Swan Valley at a farm of a friend of hers. The olives were tiny hence it took ages to pick 2 crates, about 50kgs.

On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I again picked olives from houses in my suburb, as well as from our prolific olive tree in our garden, this time with Jose's help. Angela picked elsewhere closer to her house. 

     

It was about 3pm by the time we finished picking and there was a pub nearby where we had "lunch" before driving home.

PS: We kept some olives to cure but most were taken by Angela to an olive press to be turned into olive oil. We picked 166kg in total and we got 22lt of olive oil in return, to be divided by Angela and I.

Olive crates in Angela's truck on the way to the press

           

Thursday 16th - A visit to the dentist for a clean, then a visit to the Medical clinic where I used to work to say hello to my former boss and colleagues. Then a quick drive to see 4 or 5 murals still being painted in South Perth, where I found the mural of the owls by Amok Island, which was the first one to be finished, just had someone putting a protective coat on it.

At home we had a roof crew cleaning the roof and gutters and replacing broken tiles. It was a hell of a racket and of course the surrounding area was full of 40 years of gunk! They did a good job and the house can now withstand the next big downpour! 

Left - the cleaned roof/ Right - the dirty roof

Friday 17th- Today it was the turn of the window guy to install a new patio door (our old original door no longer bolted, made a racket when sliding it open...

The laundry which had a window that opened from the outside and not the inside, and had ugly security bars, was also replaced. Again this guy did a great job, left everything clean and even changed the slightly damaged mosquito net on two small windows in the front of the house.

Now we only need new gates on the side of the house and if the neighbour agrees to pay half, we will replace the fence on one side - as when they demolished and built a new house the old asbestos fence started leaning towards their side... 

While I stayed home with the workers, in the late afternoon Jose had to go to the Portuguese club to help with preparations for the anniversary dinner of the Codfish Association being held there on Saturday.

Saturday 18th - After lunch we both went to the Portuguese club to help with the dinner preparations. It was a long, long day of standing up cooking, washing, putting butters, bread, olives on the tables. Then after a rushed dinner lifting plates from the tables... then taking fruit platters, and anniversary cake to the tables...

The committee of the Codfish Academy- Jose and I to the left of the President who is cutting the cake

After the wonderful band finished playing at 11pm, and the guests left, we cleaned up the hall, helped putting the kitchen stuff in order and we got home at 1am! A very tiring  12 hours of work!

Sunday 19th -  after a very restful and long sleep my friend/neighbour Maria picked me up to join her at the temporary exhibition "With love from Nonna" at the Maritime Museum in Fremantle. We also attended the Q&A with 5 lovely nonnas, hosted by the beautiful Tina Altieri (from 7 News Perth) who is of Italian descent. Her proud Mom who she introduced to the audience was also there.

It was a wonderful celebration of tenacity and resilience and the audience laughed and shed some tears too listening to the emotional stories of their experiences in Australia since their arrival many decades ago.

Maritime Museum in Fremantle

When Maria and I were walking around the exhibition I saw a familiar face, and a second later placed him in the "Piano" episode I had watched the week before on ABC TV. 

I went back and spoke to 19 year old Louis, who represented Perth and was chosen as one of the 5 finalists. He told me the final would be shown on TV the following day, so I made sure to watch his Elvis performance on Monday 20th.

It's such a great program with emotional and loving stories.

Louis Rebeiro on "The Piano" on ABC Tv

Wednesday 22nd - Met up with my friend I, who I hadn't seen in a while, at the Cioccolato Cafe in the suburb of Applecross. Had a wonderful hot chocolate and almond croissant :).

                

Our friend Rita was visiting from Queensland, and at her request I had arranged a dinner with a group of common friends, so that same evening we went to dinner at "7 Spices Indian Restaurant" a few doors down from the cafe where I had been in the morning.

Friday 24th - Took the bus to Fremantle and had lunch with 2 ladies from the Portuguese Women's Association. After that took photos of a new mural and some statues on the way to the bus stop.

Thursday 30th - Last minute things to do before our flight to Europe next week -pick up foreign currency ordered online, finish planning our 3 days in Istanbul, etc.

We are trying to just fly with carry-on suitcases - have tried out the "Sudoku" method of packing - 3 tops, 3 bottoms, 3 layers, that can apparently create 27 different outfits. Will see how it goes, if needed can always wear Mom's tops or buy a couple of things and leave them at my parent's house. Have you heard of this packing method?

             

At night we met up with our friend's Wendy & Lido and Dr Y for dinner at the Subiaco Hotel and then went to see the "The Light Within"  a free, immersive, and giant floral, inflatable lantern installation at Market Square Park, that will run until Mother's day on the 10th of May.

I managed to get in some painting done - a small chest for toys and a small box and another bedside table that Jose found in our neighbourhood, which went into the bedroom I recently painted and renovated.

Toy chest and small box with butterfly collages

The middle one painted in April - the one on the right painted in March

Saw lots of personalised number plates this month. 

   

                                                                * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I'll be away until the end of June, flying out next week via Kuala Lumpur, Istanbul (where we will stop for 3 days), then Lisbon, arriving in time to celebrate my parent's 67th wedding anniversary. On our return we will stop 2 days in KL before returning home.

I'll still post the Monday Murals, which are all scheduled, hopefully no mishaps there, and I'll still at least visit your Monday Murals.

Signs: Personalised Number Plates

For other signs from around the world please check Tom's blog.

April Wrap-up and Signs

Monday 1st - a public holiday (Easter Monday) and Jose and I decided it was time to fix up our garage.

We had bought new shelving and lots of plastic boxes to keep stuff inside... We threw lots of stuff out, others are in boxes to be donated... but still lots to do!

No photo - it looked too messy to start with and not yet finished 😉. Instead, you get a photo of the sunset taken from our front garden across the park on the other side of the road.

Can you see a couple of magpies across the park?

Friday 5th - Codfish night at the Portuguese club. Took my neighbour Maria, who really enjoyed the dinner and atmosphere. 

Saturday 6th - Joined 2 other couples to go to the French Movie Festival to watch "The President's Wife" with Catherine Deneuve. 

At the age of 80 she's still a classy lady who in this film plays the wife of French President Jacques Chirac - "Bernadette"- a supportive wife who finds herself brushed off by the French as being cold, and old-fashioned. With the help of her chief of staff, they embark on a campaign to restore her reputation and assertiveness as the country's first lady.

It was a great movie, a comedy based on real facts, and I found yourself laughing a lot and empathising with Bernadette, while she transforms herself from a lonely figure to one who most French admired and respected.

Friday 12th - after 33 dry days, the spell was broken with unexpected showers and thunderstorms, and some of Perth's northern suburbs copped 100mm of rain in one-hour, inundating roads, and a shopping centre even lost part of its roof! 

Luckily, we didn't that much rain or chaos in the southern suburbs, in fact in my suburb we had about 10 min of light showers.

                                

Friday 19th - When Jose arrived from work, he suggested we go out to dinner in Victoria Park, a hip suburb with a main street full of restaurants and pubs. We chose an Indian restaurant that had good reviews - Colaba Social.

The food was indeed very good, service also very good. When we left, we decided on an ice-cream for dessert. Just next to the restaurant was a frozen yogurt shop that had a queue of dozens!  How good could it be? No queues for me!!

Closer to where we parked we came across "Donut Worry" where they sold ice-creams and it only had 3 or 4 waiting.

An empty plate of Chicken Korma, the huge queue for frozen yogurt, "Donut worry".

Monday 22nd - I attended a "Decluttering workshop" at Morley library, in the northern suburbs. It was quite interesting and inspiring, and I learned where to recycle or donate a lot of things we don't really want to throw out. 

Some of the books on display at the workshop

Thursday 25th - Anzac Day. I don't usually work Friday, but Jose took a day's leave, and we joined 2 other couples and went camping before the rainy weather starts.

We drove about 3 hours south of Perth, to "Big Valley Campsite" in Rosa Glen, less than 15 minutes drive from the lovely town of Margaret River.

Sunset when we arrived, full moon behind fluffy clouds, our 3 campers in a row (ours is the blue one)

The campsite is a working sheep farm and just before 4Pm every day the owner would come to one of the paddocks and about 25 hand reared sheep would come to the fence and be fed by the camping guests.

Those sheep had been hand-reared because either the ewes had rejected them, or they were born with a defect (one had only 1 ear, another had skew legs).

The sheep coming to their 4pm feed - Jose feeding a few of them   

They had about 600 sheep in another paddock, but they didn't associate 4pm with food, so they didn't come close to the fence.

There were chickens and guinea fowl roaming around and 2 roosters that would wake us up at 5am! In an enclosed yard they had lots of guinea pigs and lots of wild birds would visit too, specially close to the kitchen area - magpies, ring-necked parrots, crows, magpie-larks...

Guinea pigs, guinea fowl, chicken, rooster, black chicken with 6 chicks, Australian ring-neck parrots

The site had 2 fully equipped kitchen/eating areas, toilets and showers.

There were bins to collect left over food, veggies and fruit for the chickens, but I'm sure they got well fed just roaming around the caravans. 

Sign for what chickens can eat - the toilets/showers and kitchen block

Saturday 27th - the camping site had a food van, wine tasting and sale and music for the campers from 5Pm. We sat around for a while, and it was quite a nice evening. The only thing missing was a campfire, but fires were still banned at that time of the year due to fire risk.

Food and music in the camping site

During the day we visited Margaret River - lots of new murals, the nearby beaches of Gnarabup, where we rented an Airbnb a few years ago when my daughter's in-laws came to visit.

Gnarabup beach, The White Elephant Cafe in front of the beach

This beautiful old car (an MG) was parked in the Gnarabup beach car park. Jose was excited as it was one of his dream cars in his youth.

We also visited nearby Cowaramup, named by the Wardandi people and meaning 'Place of the Cowara', a purple crowned lorikeet that once inhabited the area. 

Also known as "Cow town" as many people think the name has to do with the 42 life-sized fibreglass cows and calves, scattered around the once sleepy town, which were installed in 2014.

Nowadays the cows have made the town famous for those visiting "down south", and it is abuzz with people strolling the streets and posing for photos with the cows, visiting the wineries, gourmet food merchant, chocolate shop, ice-creamery, gift shop... We visited Millers Ice-creamery  :)

                  

A few of the cows at Cowaramup

Sunday 28th - We returned home in the morning and stopped in the small town of Bunbury where I wanted to visit an outstanding statue that was installed in the foreshore at Koombana Bay in February 2019.

The metal statue -"Wardandi Boodja"- of an Aboriginal man stands five metres high and 6 metres wide and is the work of Western Australian regional artists Nicole and Alex Mickle.

Dolphin Discovery centre and Bunbury Beach 

We then drove home stopping in the suburb of Baldivis to have a late lunch at Nandos Chicken.

Monday 29th - I've been going for Occupational Therapy at Hand Works for the Tenosynovitis (inflammation of the fluid-filled synovium within the tendon sheath) on the middle finger of my right hand, and I'm now wearing a splint and doing gentle bending exercises. This has been going on for about 2 months, and with the splint I don't seem to feel as much pain.

I received a box of goodies from a good friend in Portugal. Every Easter she sends sugar covered almonds and chocolate almonds, plus pens and coin purses.

Personalized Car Number plates seen in April - some better than others!

Joining Tom with the Signs meme. Please check his post for other signs from around the world.