It was never our intention to give up so easily on Italy but almost incessant rain, mortally dangerous regional flooding and temperatures lower than Eastbourne forced our hand, Stanley, sorry, and we’ve replanned both our homage and our itinerary.

With the benefit of experience, perhaps our attempt to retrace your culinary tours of Italy was a little over-ambitious, given that you had the backing of experienced and professional CNN TV production crews; probably months of intense pre-production and on-location research; wranglers; drivers; drone-pilots; local guides; Michelin-starred chefs and fixers, while we just had – well, ourselves and a Knumptywagen, which – on reflection – was probably not the best vehicle in which to penetrate off-road agricultural hinterlands or indeed, busily trafficked Italian city-centres. 

Both of which we actually managed, to our credit, although the continually pissing rain put a damper on most of the anticipated pleasure. 

But let’s just draw breath a moment and reflect on where we did actually get to: A dentist’s parlour in Bardonecchia; a municipal car-park in Alba; an isolated vineyard at the end of a perilous farm track in Castell D’Arquato; a muddied truck-stop outside Modena; a motorhome repair-shop in Massa; a visit to the very heart of Parma; a floral farmyard in Albenga; a swim in the Mediterranean (not me, obviously) at Vallecroise; an epic cycle ride to botanical gardens just this side of Menton and a final Italian ‘hurrah’ in an isolated and fairly vertiginous mountain village way up behind Ventimiglia.

And now we’re in France. Having arrived – with a degree of delightful Knumptywagen eccentricity via the Promenade des Anglais in Nice. Although that, my friends, will need to be the subject of yet another story . . .