Having established that money is necessary for survival, and that we were running essentially on empty yet unequivocally intended on surviving, we made the prudent and timely decision to jump the first ferry back to Italy, where Kylie’s apartment awaited.
For a small town, L’Aquila has a bit of a problem with noise.There’s the 12 howling kittens that have made a home for themselves on Kylie’s kitchen balcony (born to the cat formerly known as Mario, hastily renamed Maria after the event).

Then there’s the new cathedral bell-ringing boy who has a bit of a problem respecting the whole Catholic notion of restraint – he tends to get just a little bit too inventive every hour on the hour and the whole town is forced to stop and clap their hands over their ears to drown out his exuberant clanging.

But worst of all is the anti-busker. He’s made a home for himself on the street outside Kylie’s apartment: his weapon of choice, a broken set of bagpipes. Dead painful at any hour of the day, especially at his chosen period of 2–5am each and every morning.

‘Basta!’ Kylz bellows down at him. ‘Enough!’ To which he simply continues playing with one hand and stretches out his other for silence money. Hence the term ‘anti-busker’.

We refuse to bow to the pressure simply because of the principle of the thing…but our resolve is waning.