… I arrived in Sevilla with a car full of cats (Lua & baby Sunny) and all my worldly possessions. A friend had driven me down from Salamanca, where I’d spent my first year-and-a-bit in Spain. A couple of weeks previously I’d come down to Sevilla to look for an apartment and found this little top floor studio in Mateos Gago, which I couldn’t afford but by some miracle the landlord let me take it without a deposit, so I reckoned it was fate. Looking back I have no idea how I thought I would “make it” here, showing up with no money and no work, and there were indeed some very tough times. But I’m not one to give up on the things I love and Sevilla was, and continutes to be, one of those things.

Just like last year, I will be spending my anniversary working. I have a meeting this morning with the tourism-marketing people at El Corte Inglés, then a lunchtime Sevilla Tapas Tour. And this evening I’ve been invited for cocktails at the opening of a new bar. They say you should never look back, but sometimes it’s good to cast an occasional glance pastwards, in order to see how far you’ve come. Twenty two years ago I couldn’t have dreamed that I would end up so happy with my work, and my life here. It’s going to be a good day.  🙂