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OMG… this little tiny box on my wall is about to change my life. I haven’t had central heating since I lived in Bristol (1990-1992) and today I finally bit the bullet and turned the thing on. I’ve been wanting to save money but we’re going through a cold snap here, and I decided I have enough to deal with having a painful sprained ankle without also sitting here shivering away as I try to get some work done. So hang the expense! At least for today.
I’d much rather have this kind of aircon/heating system, with just one unit in the livingroom and another upstairs, but oh well. I am hoping that the double-glazed windows in the livingroom and my bedroom will help conserve heat (and cold air in summer). And anyhow, if the heat was shut off upstairs it would probably just go up the stairwell, so there is nothing for it but to heat the entire apartment. I was talking about this to Agustín last night (who has the wall unit system) and he said that if I set my thermostat to a low but comfortable temperature it should be cheaper to run it all day than to keep turning it off and on again. Given that it’s taken an hour for the temp here to go from 14º to 18º he could have a point. Once the place reaches 20º it’ll take less energy to maintain the heat than to turn it off and start from scratch again. I’m actually already feeling more comfortable at 18º but I guess it’ll be a question of trying out various combinations of space heaters and the central heating to see which is more economical, but right now I’m very glad to have this option.
Though I recall my friend Paco telling me how he hates his central heating because in summer cockroaches come out of the vents (!!!!!). But I already have a plan for that. One apartment I looked at during the search also had central heating and I noticed they had attached plastic mesh screens over all the vent openings, which was all I had to see to walk away and not take the place. So here’s hoping this won’t be necessary. According to an engineer friend who works for the water company, each and every house in the old centre of Sevilla is stuffed full of roaches. He had a few horror stories of breaking open walls to get at the pipes… but apparently they usually stay where it’s dark and damp. We’ll see what happens here.
But it’s such a fabulous place. Every day it feels a little more like home. Wish I could walk though…
Ever since 
I know at least one person who loves apartment hunting, and I suppose if I could afford to pay more and didn’t have a deadline then I might feel less stressed about this. I think I’ve seen over a dozen places now and not one of them felt like it could be home, and I’m getting worried as time runs out that I’ll end up in somewhere I don’t like at all.
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 
casa azahar 
