Have a read of the following short extract from the book. Pay particular attention to the final sentence and bow down to the small inoffensive (French) word ‘en’. It is number 100,000 in the book…

My short break also allowed me to look at the map in a little bit more detail and consider how exactly I was going to get to Sora, my destination and ponder over the arrangements that had been put in place allowing me to spend the night at the ‘farm stay’. The route was not too complicated and would take me through countryside and via the towns of Palestrina, Fiuggi, & Alatri. My map implied an up and down route as I would be trying to avoid the main road in the bottom of the valley. The plans that had been put into place by Massimo, my online contact who I would be meeting the following day in Benevento were a little clearer if only because they were so simple; I was to meet a man called Tomasso at 6pm at Sora train station. I knew nothing more about Tomasso or indeed the ‘farm stay’. The whole thing had an air of mystery attached to it and I was half expecting Massimo to text me a coded sentence that I would have to utter upon suspecting that I was standing next to Tomasso at the station;

‘The birds fly high in the sky in a Puglian summer’ I would perhaps have to whisper.

‘Welcome to Sora Mr Bond’ he would reply.

It all works better if you read it again with an Eastern European accent and for the moment at least, assume that I have changed my surname.

If the strong coffees were doing wonders in allowing me to write the script of the next 007 movie, they were having an equal effect upon my ability to put some distance between me and the big city. It wasn’t long before I was in beautiful open countryside en route to Fuiggi.