Sitting down to reflect on the past week, thoughts and images parade through my mind at a languid pace, out of order, drifting here and there. The day is hot and my fingers feel lazy now that I have put them to work at the keyboard. What can be said about this past week?

Well, we have at last moved into our own flat. I have unpacked everything, found places for things,  hung our Sunshine Coast calendar on the wall, and begun to settle in and stretch out like a cat in its favourite box. There is a desk to write at, space to practice yoga, and two balconies with wrought iron railings to lean out over and watch the scurrying day unravel below. We can reach the Spanish school in a five minute walk, the river flows wide and deep a block or so away, and this old apartment—with high ceilings, a quirky mix of furniture, sloping floors—is large enough to give private lessons or small group classes in English and yoga. The plan for finding work is developing. We have ventured deeper into the country, seen the coast, explored another city. We have made a few friends, both Spanish and foreign. The days grow longer and the sun shines hot in the afternoons and the breeze rocks the open windows gently back and forth. Things are coming together.

Sound echoes around the Casco Antiguo—the central area of Sevilla, all old buildings—as though conversations could take place in midair, right outside a balcony two storeys up. If this balcony leads to your bedroom, and you are sound asleep, you might curse the narrow lanes and their excellent acoustics. But when some flutist in the opposite building is practicing with an open window on a sunny afternoon, or the night is warm and laughter drifts up from below, it feels like a privilege.

Finding myself here alone for a few days, I have found the sounds a friendly companion. Robin is in Madrid meeting his parents, who have come to visit all the way from Australia; the three of them are spending several nights in the capital before they make their way to Sevilla. I am looking forward to their arrival, and in the meantime I have been enjoying the time to myself—the first I have had in many months. Living in this old apartment, I like to imagine myself as Amelie from the lovely French movie, making dinner for one, enjoying the simple pleasures of watching people from my creaky old window in an old European city, cracking the tops of crème brulée and things like that—not that I have had any crème brulée, but I have enjoyed other sensual food moments like slicing up strawberries and bananas and eating them with honey, or cooking myself a mushroom risotto with a glass of a wine and music. Moments like those make me feel independent and chic, but also a bit like a kid who has finally been deemed old enough to be left home alone. Either way, a bit of solo dancing round the kitchen lends itself to making the most of a night by yourself.

Late at night, the silence settles in. Sometimes it settles softly and serenely, while at other times with a lonely hue, like a cool night through a thin sweater. But these ebbs and flows are part of the natural order of things—our very breath moves in and out with the same organic cycle, and I am doing my best to embrace such movement in my daily life as well. Certainly one half of that equation is easier than the other but with a bit of patience we generally do come out on the other side—just as my fingers have thankfully managed to rouse themselves after all.