Tag Archives: home

la vecina

06 Wednesday Sep 2017

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I have been waiting to meet my Vecina since I moved into the new Casa Azahar at the end of July. At the time I was told that Encarne was away for the summer and would return to Sevilla in September. Meanwhile, all I knew about her was that she keeps a rather splendid patio (a shared space, though I only benefit from the extra light). I had worried that she might smoke in her patio, which would kind of be like smoking in my house, but so far this hasn’t happened.

What did happen, however, was that we went out for lunch and got to know each other a bit better. Encarne is thrilled to have neighbours again and – so far – her only complaint about us is that we don’t make enough noise (!!) so that she knows she’s not alone in the house. Because it’s just the two apartments here. She even said – “just drag a chair across the floor from time to time”. Ha.

Anyhow, we had a fab lunch and lots of chat. Encarne is also an animal lover and, although she prefers dogs, she has already briefly met Loki and thinks he is a very handsome and friendly beast. In fact, she wants me to let the cats roam free throughout the building, so they can still take advantage of having stairs to run up and down, and of course so Encarne can make friends with them. A few months ago she lost her dog after 16 years, so not having animals around is hard. Well… we’ll see how that goes, but for now it’s nice to have met Encarne. She is quite the character and I like her a lot. Phew!  😉

lunch at Cafetería Donald

night lights

23 Wednesday Aug 2017

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So I don’t know about you but I CANNOT sleep in a totally dark room. I know lots of people install black-out curtains or blinds so not one bit of lights sneaks into their bedroom at night, but for me this is like being inside a coffin. Opening my eyes and not being about to see ANYTHING. GAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH…

And so, when I moved into the new Casa Azahar I realized that my bedroom, which has a window opening onto the shared patio, doesn’t actually let much light into the room at night. I have been used to bedrooms with balconies that face onto streets, so there has always been streetlights and moonlight to keep my room gently lit during the night. At first I tried to brave it out, thinking I’d get used to it. But there was no way. I started leaving one of the bathroom or hallway lights on all night, but these were actually too bright. And then remembered night lights.

You know night lights. They are usually for kids who are afraid of the dark and need a bit of a glow in their rooms so that when they wake up in the middle of the night (just like me!) they don’t find themselves in TERRIFYING TOTAL PITCH BLACKNESS. So I had a look around the shops but couldn’t find them anywhere. Then a friend recommended the obvious – Amazon – and sure enough, there they were. So I bought a 4-pack of these guys, which were the style I was looking for, that plug straight into the socket. The only thing is that there is no on-off switch. They are light sensitive, which would be fine in a room that actually got bright during the day. So as they are on almost all the time I’m not sure how long they’ll last. I’m even travelling with them this week as my friend’s bedroom (with the blinds down) is a bit too dark for me. Love ’em.