At 75, Spanish singer Paloma San Basilio has closed a concert career spanning over half a century - and instead of retreating into silence, she did the opposite: she sat down to take stock of her life, without bitterness and without fear of solitude.

She ended the "Gracias" tour in Miami in April this year, a full stop on a career of over 50 years on stage. But she didn't stop - now she performs in theatres across Spain with the show "Dulcinea", writes novels (the third, "Uxoa", has just come out) and paints in vivid colours. "I'm happy that at 75 I feel like this - with enthusiasm, with energy and with health, still able to carry complex texts", she says.

Her home is an old country house in the Baztan valley in Navarre, bought back in 1999 and restored with respect for its history. She calls it an "autobiography" - every corner tells a part of her path. But behind that peace there is pain: "The loss of my sister, who passed away during the pandemic, meant I had lost my emotional anchor. That's when I realised I needed a place where I could truly breathe."

Her thoughts on love sound like something worth reading at any age: "Every person is already a whole. The healthiest relationships form between two independent people who choose to walk together." And on solitude - "I've never been afraid to be alone, because I'm comfortable with myself."

In a culture where a woman past a certain age is too often wiped from the stage, San Basilio's story is a quiet revolt. Years, she says, "more often exist in the head than anywhere else". The Balkans know the same grandmothers who at seventy-five still keep the house, the family and their own song - only rarely does anyone ask them how.