My building was renovated back in the early 90s and I have to say they did a lovely job of it. Just two apartments, with two shops on the ground floor. I live on the second floor and share a light-filled glassed-in patio with my downstairs neighbour. We have marble floors, wood doors and window frames, charming plaster ceilings and – one of the things I love best about this Casa Azahar – a gorgeous tiled bathroom with a walk-in shower. Ok, the kitchen is a bit poky, but I bought a small IKEA pantry that sits in the hallway outside the kitchen door that helps. There’s also a shared rooftop space (azotea) which is mostly used for hanging laundry, but during Covid lockdown both neighbour Encarni and I took advantage of it to get some much needed fresh air, sunshine and exercise. 

The decoration throughout the house is classic, I think mostly done by Encarni who has lived here since the beginning… so there are a few fake plants here and there in the entrance and stairway, as well as a few tiled depictions of this or that saint on the walls as you go up… and there are also these lovely glass wall light fixtures. I didn’t pay them much mind other than to notice how pretty they are UNTIL… I had my new mattress delivered last month. (psa reminder: this is the world’s most boring blog – continue at your own risk)…

 

The delivery guys showed up on August 5th with my brand new crazy expensive mattress and I told them via the intercom that they would have to TAKE THE STAIRS… I’m still not sure they didn’t try to bend it into the lift. ANYHOW… on their way up I was standing outside my apartment door and could hear them huffing and puffing and then suddenly I heard a CRASH and oh fuck no. Just before they got to my floor they knocked the glass casing off one of the wall farolas. Smash, crash… I couldn’t believe it. 

When I finally got the mattress inside the house, and the old one was taken out (which one of the guys bent in half to stuff into lift saying, hey don’t worry I didn’t try this to your new one… um what?) I mentioned the broken farola. The other guy said he would take some photos and send them to his boss. I said I was also going to take photos and asked for his boss’s name and contact. Suddenly they were about to leave and I said WTF… you are cleaning this up! There was broken glass all down the stairs… I mean. You should have seen their faces. I brought out a brush and a dustpan, a plastic bag and said get to work. Seriously, they were just going to leave? 

Anyhoodle… turns out it hasn’t been so easy to just replace this farola, which I discovered had last been manufactured by a German company in 1992. I had already suggested to Encarni that we could take the farola on the top floor rooftop landing, swap it out for the one on the second floor, and put a new similar farola up there. That way we’d still have continuity because who goes up to the top floor anyhow. Fine. 

But then it was August and nothing was open in terms of traditional shops, like the two specialist lighting shops I’d had in mind. Meanwhile I’d been in touch with the delivery company and El Corte Inglés to put in a formal complaint… blah blah… nothing happened. Until hopefully today when I went back to El Corte Inglés and REMINDED THEM about all this. Apparently it should be moving along now… 

So this is what I found at the second shop I tried (the first one told me how to track down the manufacturer). It can be ordered with the metal a lighter silver to match the others and also with “cristal viejo” so a bit opaque but not tinted. And I am (obviously) too happy about this. I don’t know why. I guess because I never expected to find anything similar and the guy at the second shop knew exactly where to look. Now I just have to get it sorted between El Corte Inglés and the delivery company. Yep, slow news week.