After 30 years of office life, I was deluded enough to believe I was owed a sabbatical – in fact, four if I was to be fallow like a field in the seven-year cycle laid down in the Torah.
After the publishing grind of four bibulous lunches and two book launches a week, a sabbatical appeared as a semi-spiritual nirvana in which I would glide through art galleries after a long lunch – only this time, in the sun. All cares and worries would be left securely behind in dreary Blighty with all you benighted workers.
My wife, Josephine, and I had often talked about driving from the top to the bottom of Italy in an open-top car. We decided against this during a
