But like, properly new beginnings – finally…

I’ve just taken delivery of (almost all) the deposit for the old flat and handed back the keys. The daughter of my cantankerous, old landlady was, not too surprisingly just like her mother – on speed and a thirty a day Marlboro Red habit; with all the pent up anger of a five-foot-nothing volcano about to erupt. Or someone who needs a bloody good rodgering. You choose. Someone who says, “listen to me!” before every freakin’ sentence, talks over you and and gets all up in your grill – deserves a kicking. And by all the heavens above, I’m sure if my friend had not been there with me, we may have come to actual blows. So a huge thank you to him, for everything these last days.

The flat is immaculate, freshly painted, bleached to within an inch of its life and cared for, and everything works perfectly – as one would expect from someone of my years (and a lifetime of experiences with bad landlords in various cities). Let’s be real, the place has not experienced the kind of raucous house parties of my college days in London, because quite frankly, I can’t handle it. And I doubt very much, the property could either, so little in the way of maintenance had ever been done. But it has seen a liddle action, if ya know waddamean *does exaggerated winky face*, but nothing that might see broken water pipes, exposed electric cables, a smattering of lifeless bodies and a littering of pizza boxes and alcohol debris. And yet she saw fit to withhold two hundred fifty euros to cover outstanding electric and water bills for three weeks, usually €60 a month, and to pay the cleaner – €10 euros/hour for four hours. Haggled down to two hundred, I’m supposed to return to the old flat for the missing money later today, but you know what? We’re done, I’m done. I’m tired and I want to move on. I need to move on. Between navigating the end of a the old contract, the palaver of getting the new one and the end of my relationship (and ensuing month of messages, the final one last Friday being an epic list of things he didn’t like about me, just in case I wasn’t absolutely sure) – I’m really rather reluctant to continue this episode of my life. As you might imagine. And also……. I have a very low tolerance threshold for histrionics and unnecessary fecking drama and stories of bad tenants you’ve had in the other ten properties you rent (that you haven’t declared). Yeah, I know about that. It’s irrelevant to me and the state of the flat in Lioness street.

So keep the money, be happy, find joy, get a massage (or laid), it’s on me. I don’t care. Being chill, and not having to worry about any of that shit for at least another three years, fills my whole being with abject happiness. That’s it, we’re finished. All of us.

To Señora V, senior y junior, Señor C and the little flat behind Placa Reial, and all the fun I had there, I say –

…….. gracias y lo más importante, con todo de mi corazón – adiós.