So, the Italians have broken up for Summer and gone are my leisurely mornings and afternoons alone. 

I’m feeling like an total boss. An absolute champion. 

Today, I mastered the market. It may have taken me over six weeks, but FINALLY it happened. It was such a smooth and seamless experience, I’d rank it up there with the time I graduated and the time I managed to convince my sister that soap was white chocolate. 

Last night G assiduously laid out all of her clothes for school today, an entire outfit made of pink (very strange sight as usually she doesn't even change out of her pyjama top for school), asked me to wake her up at 7.30am (instead of usual ten mins before bus arrives) and brushed her hair (something I have never seen her do before). 

Have been on weather patrol for last five days (Italian Riviera has been submerged in near biblical heights of water recently) so as soon as I opened shutters and saw that big, yellow ball of joy in the sky I was out on beach. 

Was walking up hill with grand plans to go for a run, when I spotted Claudia and her very elderly mother sitting outside their house under an umbrella. 

This is what I learnt from trying to go 'out-out' in Italy. 

The family are currently obsessed with doing two things: 

1. Feeding me as much as humanly possible 
2. Finding me an Italian boyfriend 

Everything you’ve heard about Italians and Nutella is true. It’s not even remotely similar to what Marmite is to the UK. There is no love-hate relationship, just pure love. 

My experience of the Festa di San Fortunato was somewhat different to the way I’ve described the festival in the more ‘serious’ chunk of my blog.

The thing you should know about Camogli is that its all hills and steps. You have to walk up a few dozen stairs to get anywhere, and in order to get from nursery to beach you have to walk across a bridge and three stone staircases. 

Italians love their dogs. Dogs are allowed everywhere - in the supermarket, at the beach, on the train.  I’ve spotted one sitting on its own chair in a restaurant. 

I've started ‘volunteering’ at the nursery a couple of days a week. I use the term ‘volunteer’ loosely because it conjures up images of pensioners lending a helping hand at their local National Trust stately home or bored parents helping middle class children to learn to read on a Friday afternoon. 

It’s actually bloody hard work. 

Monday is market day in Recco, the neighbouring village. I love a market and Claudia (M’s sister-in-law) invites me to come along with her.

Was perusing a big beefy Italian recipe book, trying to work out the difference between various salumi, when neighbours come in all guns blazing saying 'e pronto!, e pronto!' 

All excitement in the house as everyone scrambles to get their shoes on and M says I must come for a 'new experience'. 

It happened. I weighed myself. I knew I felt a bit chunkier than usual but I thought, hey-ho, they’re always banging on about the virtues of a Mediterranean diet, must be in my head. 

Today is my first day alone in Camogli. Heaven.