There are two things that foreigners who are learning English seem to know first.

One is (are) swear words (although Italians do have a few problems pronouncing ‘sheet’ and ‘can’t’ – which invariably come out of their mouths as swear words) and the other is ‘It’s raining cats and dogs’.

And I hate it for it sounds so twee; so perfectly 1950s.

However, it has, indeed, been raining. A lot. You may have heard about the couple of disasters in Italy over the last week or so. First there were some towns in Cinque Terra – a rather spectacular area on the west coast of Italy – just up from F’s summer house and to which he has promised, repeatedly, to take me. And then, over the weekend, much of the centre of Genova got badly flooded and some people died.

Yesterday it was forecast that the river Po, that runs through the centre of Turin, was going to burst its banks.

At the moment, if you say anything about the rain (although we have some respite today), the reply is, invariably, Well, at least we’re not in Genova’.

But in case you imagine it can’t have been that bad, here is a little video. I am a bit surprised by the people who, at the beginning, are walking around and, towards the end a guy who seems to be standing in the middle of the street! However, right at the end it looks like the person in yellow is trying to push the cars back – but eventually they realise they have to run.

On the slightly bright side (so to speak) the sun is shining here. Let’s also hope it’s doing the same in Genova and Cinque Terra!