On 14 January, Coetmore embarked for her planned concert and recital tour of Australia and New Zealand. She and Moeran had spent a month or so together over Christmas and New Year, partly at Belsize Lane, partly in Devon with members of Coetmore's family and partly in Ledbury. According to a letter Moeran wrote to Percy Grainger dated 3 March, much of December and early January was spent dealing with the acquisition and occupation of lodgings in Cheltenham and selling Coetmore's Belsize Lane flat, with the attendant requirements to relocate its contents to storage or to Moeran's new lodgings. The fact that Coetmore had decided to sell the flat is significant, given that she had let it during her previous extended absence between December 1943 and September 1944. Although not conclusive, her action supports the assertion that she had no intention of returning for some considerable time. Equally significant is the equanimity with which Moeran seems to have accepted the fact of the sale of the flat. He clearly regarded it as a positive move, perhaps in that when Coetmore eventually returned, the two of them would then be able to find a home together that would accommodate each of their working needs. He had never settled into Coetmore's flat, and during the years of their marriage – except for July to December 1947 – he had stayed there only for infrequent short periods.

Songs from County Kerry

By the beginning of February, Coetmore's liner was approaching Port Said in Egypt, and Moeran was settled in his lodgings at Park House West in Cheltenham. He wrote to Herbert Murrill at the BBC, ‘thanks to good doctoring here, my insomnia & other disabilities have been disappearing and I am able to work much harder.’ It seems that Dr Hazlett's treatment regime was proving efficacious. Moeran also mentioned a collection of settings of Songs from County Kerry: the culmination of his folksong collecting trip in Ireland the previous year. However, when the set of songs was published in 1950, Moeran included a Composer's Note: