We woke this morning to glorious blue skies and warm ‘buen aire’, made even more heavenly by the glowing green glass windows within the apartment building and the sweet bird song early in the morning. On that, I have to tell you that as lovely as these open-to-the-sky light wells are, noise travels…and with our neighbours’ predilection for eating and entertaining late into the night, chattering loudly away almost without intake of breath (how do they do that?), some scratchy old tango music playing somewhere below until 3 or 4am, I have to tell you it can be trying…very trying. But that’s how it is here. Perhaps it takes a little longer than two months to properly acclimatise to these local idiosyncrasies.

I think if we ever do end up living here then we’ll need to adopt a different body clock, one that’s more attuned to local conditions – that’s getting up late, working say from mid-morning (though shops do open at 9am and everything always seems well underway by then – Ant), a spot of lunch around 2pm, a snooze mid-afternoon, working until say 9pm then having dinner around midnight. Then of course, the night would be our oyster. As we’re constantly told here, BA has a night time culture and, if you’re into clubbing, you wouldn’t be seen dead at a place until well after 2am… I’m afraid we’re too old for those shenanigans.

With the recent rains, I swear every living thing here has had a growth spurt, none perhaps more so than the Trumpet Vine (AKA Seymour) that’s taking over the whole house! It’s alive I tell you, creeping over the walls from top to bottom and threatening to break into the house. I’ve been looking around for a machete but can’t find one, even in the ever-surprising cupboards of the house.

Yesterday morning, as the rain was clearing away, we headed over to the Reserva Ecológica Costanera Sur for our 11k walk to the river and back, but it was closed for the day because of flooding. Well, it is a wetland I suppose, but disappointing all the same. Maybe we’ll get there at the weekend.

Meanwhile, it’s wonderful living in our light-filled sprawling Casa Chorizo. It’ll be hard to leave this place after almost two months, but leave we must, for the UK (if it’s still intact) awaits.