"Okay, let's get started on the subject of food then..."

I'm trying to get my student to pick up the pace of our 'conversation' class. He's obviously a manager or company director from the smart, expensive way he's dressed, but the poor guy is lost for words when it comes to English. "Can you tell me what's your favourite Italian dish and what's the best English one, in your opinion?"

Shifting restlessly in his chair, I'm able to sneak a peek at my watch as I count down the last few minutes of my final lesson ever. There's no way I could do this for a living and it's almost a relief to know that I won't be coming back the next day. The unbelievable patience needed for this job is crazy, let alone all the time it takes to plan the classes.

Taking the ride back up to Città Alta, even though I chew my nails, I'm oddly optimistic about my up and coming search for a new job. At least I know what I don't want to do for a living. Something with customers involved would suit me more, I'm beginning to love meeting new people.

It's about 9pm when I step out of the station and into the dark square. The hotel bar opposite the station has its lights on, welcoming any last strays. Those going home from work and the ever-present foreign tourists, limping their way back to rest from the hard walk back up from Bergamo city and its main train station.

I'm just about to go on through the square and continue my route home, when I hear a sharp whistle and a yip of a small dog. There, waiting outside the bar's entrance is my husband, Simon beside him holding his hand and last but never allowed to be least, Sissy pulling at the lead.

I cross over to them and Simon runs to be cuddled. It's surprising how much I miss him while I'm at work.

"Thought you might like a bit of a pick me up after your last night." Jack explains. He sees my wistful expression and adds, "It's okay, we can afford one drink out now and again."

We go in and sit at a table by the window in the almost empty room. At this time of year, they'll be ready to close up around 10 pm. As we chat and commiserate over the state of our coming lean Christmas preparations, Simon and Sissy are keeping each other company.

Apparently, my son is the only human being that this little gremlin has some kind of affinity with. Sissy allows him to stroke and brush her fur, push and roll over together and even sit smugly curled up on the sofa, all the while grimacing at me whenever I appear.

"We won't be able to make it to your Mum's this year," Jack laments. "It's too expensive for the three of us to go and we've left it too late to get a cheap flight. Besides... " he grins at me, "how can we possibly leave Sissy all on her own?"

"Alberto put up with her for months before we got here so you know that's not a problem."

Hearing my voice the little dog stops fooling around with Simon and yips in my direction.

"You know you can't live without her." Jack laughs.

*****

We spend a quiet Christmas period with a very happy Zio Alberto, who is obsessed with showing me how to prepare the perfect Italian Christmas dinner. He came to our apartment to cook, because his monolocale is even smaller and has no working oven at the moment.

"Why do I need it, ey?" Is the motto that he should have printed on a t-shirt so that he might not need to say it all the time.

He painstakingly slices tomatoes and mozzarella, ordering me to lay them in the correct manner with just the right amount of basil, salt and olive oil gracing the top. The lasagna takes even more effort and Jack liberally refills all of our glasses as the drawn out process continues.

I have to admit that the final results are delicious and I share them over a video call with the family in England. Alberto singing carols in Italian being the highlight for Gran all those miles away.

Città Alta is truly beautiful at this time of year. However I'm not completely able to appreciate it as my heart is empty, a gaping void for family faces and snapping Christmas crackers with ridiculously bad joke papers. These are completely absent from the shops, along with mince pies and stodgy Christmas cake.

My job hunt has provided no fruit so far either, and the bars and hotels around both Alta and Bassa are sick of the sight of me trailing up and down the streets handing out my sad, short C.V.

One manager of a small café said that if I couldn't speak Italian then I'd have no chance of working. Fair enough, that was something I'd have to rectify. The local library had already started its free foreigner's language classes and I had to be content with being put on the waiting list for the new term to start in February.

So, while Jack fits in as many hours of physical labour as he can, I have the job of mum and Sissy-sitter. Luckily there's no mortgage to pay, but the bills for the building as well as our own apartment are not to be sniffed at.

I pass the days from December back through to spring 2011, strolling around Alta's, quaint, narrow cobbled streets, one hand grasping my two-year-old, the other grasping a lead.

Sissy has a routine. When it's close to walk time, morning, afternoon or evening, my little furry 'friend' has an inbuilt alarm clock that inspires her to hide my shoe. Just one, and with some bizarre paranormal ability of hers it's always the pair that I need that day. If not a shoe, then my keys. I still have no idea when or how she manages to get hold of them but it happens as regularly as the missing shoe.

Our walkies regime takes care of my feeling of uselessness and even with thick snow hampering our way forward, we spend a lot of time outdoors. I pass a small grocery shop everyday on our regular trek up to the cathedral square and resist the temptation to buy more than is absolutely necessary due to the high prices. Alberto takes me to a supermarket in the main city once a week for the 'big shop' as we call it.

Alberto happened to be in this small shop one morning. I spied him in there and tied up Sissy to the drainpipe outside, jumping down the step from the road into the shop with an excited Simon. Shops usually mean sweets or pastries.

I tapped Alberto on the shoulder, said my helllo's and continued my shopping. After taking my few items to the ancient man behind the till, I almost gasped to hear the price requested. Bounding out from behind the shelves of cereals, breads and tins, Zio Alberto rages to the shop owner all guns blazing.

"Oh! Giuseppe. Vergogna!"

The following heated discussion left Simon gasping like a fish as he turned from angry man to angry man, like a spectator at a tennis match. Things eventually began to die down, the shop owner looked at me sheepishly and gave me a much different and much lower asking price. I left the shop with Alberto carrying out Simon under one arm, explaining the situation to me. "He tries to make you pay more because he thinks you are a tourist. Now he knows that you have the resident price, yes?"

I begin to feel much closer to Simon during this time of unemployment. He is my company during the long days and my reason for stepping out of my often-times cold but safe zone in the apartment. Well, him and Sissy.

We also spend a lot of time in the natural history museum. Sissy now being a regular visitor and admitted under the premise that she sits in the pushchair instead of Simon. This works out quite nicely, as Simon loves nothing better than belting up and down the often deserted stuffed animal displays and Sissy enjoys the chance to look superior.

Finally, an opportunity arises and I have the chance to rejoin the real world once more.

There's a bright, pink star-shaped card in a shop window along one of the main antique streets one morning as we saunter past.

Shop assistant wanted. English speakers a must. Young and attractive. Apply within.

Turning a blind eye to the ageist and probably sexist requirements, I decide to give it a go. And so, with Simon hanging and pulling on the back of my inadequate light spring raincoat, I come to meet Ruben. A modern man with an old-fashioned shop.

We like each other instantly. He's a thirty-year-old, short, bleached blonde man of dubious descent, not distinctly Italian or foreign of any particular denomination known to him or anyone else. He is always clean shaven, smelling good and has a wicked sense of humour.

The shop sells eclectic collections of clothing and touristic knick knacks which match his personality perfectly. We agree on a real contract of sorts after a week of work, Zio Alberto stepping in to babysit. On the rare occasions that he or Jack are unavailable, Ruben insists on having his 'piccolo principe' help out in the shop. Sissy is not welcome.

Ruben's kryptonite happens to be dogs. For this motive, in between work breaks and lunches, I trawl up and down the via Porta Dipinta, for the satisfaction of Sissy's ten-year-old bladder.

By the time summer is in full sweaty swing, I'm blissfully at home in my work and enjoying the chance to meet native speakers and attempting speakers of the tourist lingua franca. Mine. It's such a relief to be able to speak my own language again, and Ruben loves to practise his English too. On the other hand, Jack is enjoying his job less and less. The hot weather is making his hard labour twice as difficult to handle and the money is constantly late and missing the promised amounts. Finally after yet another blow out with his boss, Jack lost his patience and took up a new offer of work more to his liking.

He's there today, as I get ready to close up shop. Sissy and Simon get to go along with him in his new vocation, when he's playing locally that is. Seeing him sing in a band again, happy and distinctly sexy, I become a squealy teenager once more. Aided and abetted by prosecco and Ruben's enthusiasm.

This evening, my boss is already at Piazza Vecchia - or the old town square as we would call it, perching his ample chino-clad bottom on a reserved seat at a table for two. He'll be watching my husband ferry Simon to the side of the stage while he sets up with the folk rock band.

I'm finishing up the folding of clothes and organising the displays for tomorrow, when I notice a tall, rather striking man staring at me through the shop window. He bares a resemblance to a recent James Bond actor and for a moment I wonder if this is my first case of a celebrity shopper. Looking at him harder, I'm both relieved and disappointed to be wrong. Whilst I've been fixing this non-the-less attractive man with my forensic glare, he has been doing the same. I pull back quickly, recognising what an impression I must be making, but it's too late and he ducks under the low old doorway and enters the claustrophobic shop with a flourish.

He stands staring at me for a moment, it feels more like hours, then holds his hands out to me and says in a perfect Oxford English accent, "It is nice to play tennis these days." He then smiles, puts his hands in his pockets and ducks back under the doorway and out, continuing on his way down the hill.

It takes me a few minutes to recover from the surreal event and I gaze transfixed out of the window. Then, shaking my head, I finish up and turn off the lights.

I reach Ruben's table, outside the first restaurant to the left, in Piazza Vecchia, and regale him with the story of the strange visitor. At the mention of his appearance and James Bond similarity Ruben slaps his forehead in despair. "Damn it!" he squeals, "That's it, I'm closing up from now on, I'm not missing out again."

Jack's band is kicking off and the strains of penny whistles, piano accordions, drums and guitars play a jaunty tune with Jack singing and messing around with the drummer's equipment as he laughingly entertains the growing crowd.

Ruben eyes me jealously. "You've already got yours." He smirks, passing me a glass and offering a clink for a toast.

Simon spots me from the stage and toddles over pulling Sissy by the lead through the mingling legs to reach us. Ruben scoops him up and onto his knee and plucks the lead distastefully from the little hand, throwing it to me.

The summer rolls on and I begin to get used to my new life. The only thing missing is Jack.

Since he's joined up with the group, I get to see him even less and when he is around it's usually with a blinding headache or very little patience for me and Simon. He travels often to the surrounding towns and cities, playing, singing and drinking from early afternoon till all hours of the night. Sometimes I smell a strange flowery perfume on him and I know that he's bound to be getting plenty of female attention. What I don't know is how he responds to that attention. However, what really bothers me is Sissy.

She's stopped growling at me and every time I hear Jack's key in the door at ridiculous hours of the early morning, I also hear her growl. At Jack.