Catastrophes at number 7B

This is the view of Seville from my window! No Filter (lol jk)

It's not yet been a week since we arrived in Seville, but we've been on an emotional roller-coaster as we adjust to life in our new flat.

When we arrived, late on Friday afternoon, the scene was one of extreme jubilance. We are living on the seventh floor! That's five floors closer to heaven than I've ever been! Even better than that, our building is situated so that when we wonder onto the balcony - and when I look out my bedroom window - we see a view of the whole of Seville, from here in the Macarena right to La Giralda in the city centre, and it's just resplendent in the sunshine.We giggled and scuttled to and fro. We have a key to our roof terrace and up we went, marvelling at being out in the sunshine on a ROOF! In SEVILLE! IN SPAIN!

On the second day, everything came crashing back down to earth. Firstly, there's this fun aspect of Spain where loads of flats aren't connected to gas pipes - instead you have a massive metal canister of gas that you have to fill up/replace when it runs out. This (apparently) is done by little vans who drive around hitting metal sticks together and shouting "GAS! GAS!", then you have to hang out your window and wave and shout "OI! COME TO FLOOR SEVEN I NEED GAS!". When we arrived our gas cannister was almost empty, and there was none of these little gas men bumbling around, so we were a gas-free zone. So cold showers and no cooking. Then, our internet stopped working, which makes me anxious because and sad, and also made it a bit complicated to try to contact anybody else in our group. Contemplating our misery, I attempted to wash some manky old towels that we'd found in the bathroom, and all the electricity cut short and went out. No electricity ... no gas ... no internet... it was like living in the middle ages. Even in Cuba I had hot water!!!!!!!! I mean can you imagine our level of suffering? The pain? The inconvenience? The injustice!?

We had a little look at the fuse box, and there were a lot of switches and nothing was helping, so I toddled over the corridor and knocked on our neighbour's door to see if they had any helpful insights. You can say what you want about people from Seville, but they are friendly. A little old lady came out in her dressing gown, and immediately summoned a small hoard of helpers from our floor who spent the next half hour pottering around and poking things.

Its now Thursday, and EVERYTHING is working!!! We've got electricity - we've got internet connection - and I'm gassier than I've ever been before! Hurray! Even better than that, despite being January, Seville has that special feeling in the air of SPRING! I think its the combination of the sunshine, cold air and a slight breeze. It feels fresh and just like Sundays in April. So we feel all jammy and pleased with ourselves again.

Coming soon: the big Ikea idea.

A view from Las Setas/El Parasol, that we took whilst distracting ourselves from misery at home...

ALLLLLLL my love xxx