At first I was excited. Then I was terrified. Now I cannot believe my luck. Like one of those befuddled characters caught up in a Hollywood find-yourself comedy, I was that person who, on a dark winter’s day, received the unexpected phone call: a voice at the other end saying I had just inherited a 15th Century farmhouse and 50 acres of rolling Tuscan countryside.

I had no idea it was coming; the journey of how it had ended up with me being a convoluted one of marriages, divorces and death. But as a result I found myself the recipient and sole owner of an Italian property and, I just as quickly realised, all the responsibilities that would come with it.