• about azahar (that’s me!)
  • my cancer story
  • azahar’s kitchen
  • azahar’s sevilla
  • sevilla tapas
  • personal trip planning

casa azahar

~ my life in sevilla

casa azahar

Category Archives: change

Rain, rain, rain…

30 Thursday Dec 2010

Posted by azahar in change, home, sevilla

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

apartment hunting, seville

Started off the day listening to the RAIN totally peeing down around 5am … then it just kept on raining. I thought after last winter’s non-stop rain it wouldn’t be possible to have two such winters in a row, but it seems to be happening again.

Then after coffee and making a mess of my WordPress.org updates I decided to take a quick trip to the gym before going to see two apartments (I’d set up the appointments yesterday), so after getting home from the gym I got changed and headed out… even though it’s really not a good idea to look at possible new homes on grey rainy days. Anyhow, after getting a bit lost we got to the first place and I really tried to like it. In fact, if it had been on the top floor rather than on the first then it would have stood more of a chance. But I have to remember that I’m not desperate YET and that there are still two months left to find a place.

The second apartment was much nicer, though not without some drawbacks. The main one being that it’s just too expensive. I’ve set a limit of 700 euros as being reasonable (am now paying 650). But this rather lovely place is 760. Another drawback is that it’s a bit small, though it’s on two levels with a terrace (also air-conditioning, also a lift, and even a storage room in the garage where I can keep my bike, and it’s freshly painted and very clean).

Meanwhile, I had stopped by a neighbourhood bar on Tuesday to ask the owners if they knew of any apartments in the barrio. And well! It turned out that the two women who run this bar (Gloria used to be in my yoga class) also know my landlords and don’t think too highly of them. When I told them what was happening they both said to me that I had nothing to worry about and that another better apartment was going to turn up soon. At which point Gloria took my phone number and repeated that I shouldn’t worry. Weird. Like they had something or somewhere in mind? Well, we shall see.

Back to today… four hours after leaving home I got back soaken wet after getting caught in torrential downpours no less than three times – the final one is shown in the photo. Now my one pair of wearable shoes are no longer wearable and I’m a bit worn out myself.  Which reminds me that the main reason I don’t have a second pair of shoes is because I haven’t come across a pair I like and that fit well. Kind of like a new apartment. New shoes have always just happened to me and I suspect new homes – the best ones – are the same.

oh right, flip, not spin…

26 Sunday Dec 2010

Posted by azahar in change, christmas, london, travel, trips

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

christmas, london

I never get these things right. It’s also hard to believe it’s only been ten days since I first found out about the possible dream come true of going to London at Christmastime – feels like this indecisiveness has been going on forever. I tried to let it go and, short of physcially flipping a coin, I thought and re-thought all the pros & cons … and ended up thinking so much that I lost my flight this morning. Or, found out it had gone up by 100€ overnight, which is the same thing. Right after I had decided that the gut feeling to go to London was the right one, which ended up being my coin flip, waiting until this morning to book my flight. Once it came up tails, so to speak, I realised how much I really wanted to go.

So now I’m just waiting to hear back from S (whose house & cat I would be looking after) because I’ve actually found another flight just as cheap, but it leaves on Tuesday. Which means I’d end up missing S and her family (they leave tomorrow) but it seems the neighbours could let me in and show me around. And then I’d come back to Sevilla on January 6th, when S’s lodger gets back to London, which means I’d also be home for my birthday (7th).

I know, I know, I should have just flipped the damn coin rather than spinning it in every which way direction. But without that process I don’t think I’d have felt as sure as I do now that  taking this week in London would be a VERY GOOD THING to do. Especially as I just received two Paypal prezzies which will take care of about 2/3 of the transportation costs. So please keep fingers crossed that I haven’t driven S totally nuts with all my dithering and that before I go to bed I will have a confirmed flight to London Heathrow on Tuesday…

already missing…

20 Monday Dec 2010

Posted by azahar in cancer, change, death & dying, home, life stuff

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

home

This may sound silly but I am already missing my home so much, and I’m still here! I first noticed it a couple of weeks ago when the “tunas” were singing outside my house on the night of the Inmaculada, when traditionally they sing all night to the Virgin in the square down the road, and I thought “this is probably the last time I’m going to hear this!”, and I got ridiculously SAD. It was almost like last spring when I was listening to the procession of the Virgen de Los Dolores that stops right below my bedroom balconies every Tuesday night during Semana Santa. I remembered how the year before I’d been on chemo and wondered if I’d ever hear it again, so this year I got up and taped it.

But I don’t know what to about all the same feelings I’m getting now … all these “this is the last time” moments. It’s really getting to me.

I guess it’s because it wasn’t my decision to move, to leave this place that has been my home for over 16 years. And it hurts, like having something I love being torn away from me. It just feels so bloody unfair, like…

You’re probably way ahead of me on this one, but it took me awhile to realise that having my home snatched away from me was not unlike getting cancer and suddenly being told I maybe have a 50/50 chance of living another five years. Because I’m not ready to go, I don’t feel done with living yet. And this is just how having my home taken away from me feels like. It’s not my choice, I don’t want to go, and it hurts.

And so I find myself looking at things in my apartment now just like how I started looking at things in my life when they first told me about the cancer. It’s making almost every goddam day-to-day moment too poignant to bear. Kind of like a double whammy. Stupid f*cking landlord just thinks I can go out and get any other apartment, even though I’ve told him this is MY HOME. And this is my street. I am so used to all the sounds and the changes in the light and how the different seasons feel… this place *is* me. I identify with it, and I love it, stupid warts and all. And I don’t want to go. I don’t want to live anywhere else.

Which reminds me of when I said here just over two years ago, “I really, really don’t want to die. Not like this, not so soon …”

It’s all mixed up together, you know?

cosy

17 Friday Dec 2010

Posted by azahar in cancer, change, home, sevilla

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Apartment, moving, seville


Thought I’d share a cosy moment that happened this afternoon. Wish they could always get along so well, but I think the fact that it’s 12º in the apartment has something to do with the boys snuggling up like this under the sofa cover.

And the fact that I’m freezing and there’s practically a gale force wind coming in through the cracks in the balcony doors makes me think that today’s phone call from my schizoid landlord wasn’t such bad news after all. Yes, he has changed his mind – again – about renewing my contract, even though just two weeks ago he’d told me there’d be no problem giving me a new one … aargh.

So much for flipping a coin about Christmas in London, as I will now have to save every penny to move in February, plus I’ll need be here to look. I mean, I haven’t stopped looking around since I was first given notice, and I have ads of my own placed, but I liked having the option of staying if nothing better turned up. It really irks that this is happening, and it worries me too in case I get bad news in January and have to go back on chemo, or have another operation. On the other hand, having an apartment with double-glazed windows and heating/air-conditioning would be nice…

should I stay or should I go?

03 Friday Dec 2010

Posted by azahar in change, home

≈ 22 Comments

Tags

home, moving


The landlord has said he’ll write me a new contract with the “phantom 30€” added, and then we can take it from there. Which in some ways isn’t a bad offer because a new contract means he wouldn’t be able to throw me out again for five years, and even at 30€ more a month it’s still a reasonable amount for the area. Well, except that I don’t have air-con or a lift. And I have crazy landlords living downstairs. The real issue is that I don’t think he’ll agree to stop charging me for extra things whenever he feels like it, and if anything ever breaks down here I doubt he’ll fix it, and anyhow, now that I’ve seen Pepe’s dark side I know I can’t trust him. Except I love my house. And moving would be so upsetting and also expensive. I wish I knew what to do…

← Older posts
Newer posts →

patreon (1)

OR

comments

earnestlydebra's avatarearnestlydebra on caturday march 14th 2026 (lock…
sledpress's avatarsledpress on dafuq
azahar's avatarazahar on caturday march 14th 2026 (lock…
sledpress's avatarsledpress on caturday march 14th 2026 (lock…
azahar's avatarazahar on dafuq
Unknown's avatarnew sherry class! |… on Pam & Gibert
Unknown's avatarnew sherry class! |… on katie & co
Unknown's avatarlockdown | casa azah… on momentos coronavirus
Unknown's avatarcaturday march 14th… on lockdown
sledpress's avatarsledpress on dafuq

meta

  • Create account
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

visitations

  • 968,922 peeks

categories

archives

Enter your email address to subscribe to casa az and get email notices of new posts.

Join 2,235 other subscribers

azahar on Instagram

No Instagram images were found.

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Subscribe Subscribed
    • casa azahar
    • Join 1,968 other subscribers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • casa azahar
    • Subscribe Subscribed
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...