Home sweet home. Yes it truly is. This Italy where I have been largely in residence for almost twenty years, for all its ups and downs has become my true country. Although I retain affection for my country of origin it has considerably decreased in my opinion, especially under the last thirteen years of Tory rule where the nation has been subject to corruption and lying on a scale which I only associated with Italy. Labour aren’t much better. Their motto seems to be ‘No talk about Brexit please, we’re British’ and the Lib Dem just lack more recent experience in handling a nation ever since they were ousted from that position of governance before the Great War.

After the unpredictable maritime climate of the UK with its almost hourly successions of wind, rain and sunny intervals we are now facing the remainder of the central Italian summer with trepidation. Grecian horrors await us what with Cerberus and Charon. Records have been broken and are being broken continuously. Not the shellac sort but the ones dealing with that death-sentence on our planet – global warming. Whether it be Man’s neglect or whether it be cyclic climatic change is beyond discussion before the essential fact: the Earth is getting warmer more quickly and more radically. Flying to the UK just a few weeks ago I was shocked to see how the Alps had far less snow on their Majestic peaks than I remembered previously. Glaciers seemed almost non-existent and only a few peaks retained their incandescent whiteness. Returning to Italy it was even worse. Just a few white streaks on the mountain chain. Perhaps it was because the plane flew close to the Maritime Alps ….but even then!

Arriving at passport control at Pisa airport it was two queues: EU citizens and non-EU citizens but with the unfortunate difference that Brits have to join the non-EU queue together with the rest of Third World countries including everything from Iraq to Somalia and Peru. I was worried in case my passport would be stamped but I needn’t have worried; I showed the officer my recently acquired Italian permanent residency card and my regional ID so was waved though. All that hassle and queuing to get these documents was really worth it!

The only difficulty we had in our journey to our Italian home was getting the car started at the Bagni di Lucca station car-park (on which progress has finally resumed to finish it). Thanks to the ACI rescue truck, the Italian equivalent of the RAC and AA, the engine’s battery received a welcome boost and we were off. Arriving home was a truly welcome treat and an even more longed-for retreat after the bustle of London.

Despite its large areas of open spaces the metropolis almost gave us social indigestion with the vast populace it harbours. We are not really used to meeting so many people everywhere on a daily basis after our secluded sylvan setting.

Thanks to valuable local help in feeding them during our absence our cats were in good condition. Of course, Cheeky had wandered off somewhere just before our arrival as she is wont to do but my wife knew exactly where the cat would be found: near the chapel of Our Lady of the Snows and went forth to retrieve her and so Cheeky re-joined the pack (or whatever one calls a collection of cats. .. perhaps ‘a whiskerful’ may do) of cats.

There is truly no place like home! We are so glad to be back after the enjoyable rigours of London life where in two weeks our activities ranged wonderfully from Evensong in Westminster Abbey to ‘La Traviata’ at Covent garden, from the National Gallery exhibition on Saint Francis to the one at the Tate Britain of Rossetti, from Boston Manor to Leighton House, from eating Vietnamese to Fish and Chips from an organ concert in a Templar’s church to a Quartet in Brentford and from visiting one set of cousins in Reigate to another set in Sittingbourne.