I have been staggered by the love and compassion shown to me by this town where we made our home only 10 months ago.

Within the hour my neighbours arrived to offer their condolences and anything else I might need. I received tea, coffee, soup, fresh fruit, yoghurt, milk, biscuits, cakes, sugar, homemade membrillo, all sorts of things so that I didn’t need to worry about shopping. My neighbours came and sat with me so that I wouldn’t be alone – at one point I must have had 40 people sitting in my hall giving me comfort.

The funeral was also quite amazing. I had decided to do this in as Spanish a way as possible so when the hearse arrived we all followed it from our house to the church on foot, about half a mile, but it felt a lot further. As we walked through the town people came out of their shops to show respect and as we reached the church four men separated from the crowd, stepping forward to take the coffin. They were Curro, who runs Bar La Cantina, Elias who often joined us for a drink in Bar Estepa, Rafael who used to run Bar Polo and someone I didn’t recognise – but I’m sure you recognise a theme here!

As we followed the coffin into the church I was overwhelmed by the number of people, there must have been 200! The Father stepped up to me as I arrived at the front pew, he would do the service in both English and Spanish because so many Spanish had attended. Even he was amazed!

After the cremation we did the English thing. We went to a local bar for a drink. I asked Maria, the owner, if she would lay on a little food for us and within 10 minutes they laid a table for 22 and put on a light lunch.