Every year August Italian-style takes me by surprise.

Everything closes, from Sonia the candle lady to Tonolo, the purveyor of fruit tarts. There’s nowhere to buy flowers, nowhere to get a photocopy made. And this morning Mr Bassich the fish man informed me he’s closing Saturday until September.

Our building is practically empty, the builders who are renovating an apartment on the piano nobile have scarpered, leaving everything under a pall of plaster dust, and the street is like a morgue. Mr F assures me that Piazza San Marco is like Times Square on New Year’s Eve but you’d never know it over here. Over in San Pantalon you can hear the sweat drip from the end of my nose.  

They say the heat will break, but what do they know? Nothing for it but to lie still, turn on the electric fan and dream of autumn.