Today is Day 2...

Dear Thomas,
This is Day 2.
Day 2 is better than Day 1.
Day 1 was all soggy tissues, tangled blankets, feverish cold mixed with a sense of absolute loss I haven't felt in a long time.
Which is strange when you think of all the good things before me.
Change is tough. Some adapt to it easily - but for most of us, well, it takes a bit longer.
And I suppose leaving your job, moving house and saying goodbye to home, family and country all in such a short space of time was always going to knock an amount of stuffing out.
And so we'll write off Day 1. I don't care to dwell on it.
Now, today! Today I have held conversations in French with the concierge, Fawnzi (I know! Though the resemblance to the '70s TV star ends there!), I have whirled like a dervish with dusters, limescale remover and multi-surface cleaner and I have partaken of a simple lunch. Now that's progress!
I have heard footsteps on the stairs as neighbours have come and gone, but have not yet ventured out to say hello. Feeling, idiotically, a bit wraith-like, I have wandered from room to room, feeling not quite here. 'This is it', I keep telling myself, 'this really is it'...but part of me isn't listening. Part of me won't compute.
Outside, the sky over our cobbled square is that sharp, hard-frost blue and the sun makes long shadows on the impossibly-grand church making it stand out more sharply somehow, as if in high-definition.
There is a huge flock of pigeons wheeling across the sky. Round and Round, their shadows flashing across the buildings, round and round until they settle on a ledge, all in a line - a long line! - on the old hospital building across, to the left, from us. They are hassled by crows and fly off again en masse before settling as before.
Below, in the square, everyone is wrapped, bobble-hatted, booted and brisk.
Brussels beckons. And at some point I will find the 'courage' (spoken in French accent, of course) to venture out and do things like open a bank account, buy a phone and some light bulbs, order chocolate chaud, sit in the Grand Place and watch the world go by.
That all feels a bit beyond me at the moment for some reason. For now much smaller steps are required. I have mended the shower and, most importantly, have found out how to stream reassuring, comfortable, solid Radio 4.
I think they call it nesting Thomas.
All is calm at last. The fact that I'm writing to you, on Day 2, is testament to that.
Xxxx