As fickle as the seasons, as enduring as the earth - that's Italy for you

The nights and even the days are turning chilly now, but Saturday was one of those bright sunny late autumn gems that make you glad to just be alive, walking along the bit of the Aurelian wall that's at the end of our street, past the Pyramide and castle gate, through parkland and the first falling leaves to a new foodstore enroute from the market.

The cooler weather has also brought an end to many of Rome's less savoury odours (dog poo and rubbish - although you still need to watch where you walk, even just after it's rained). These past few days I've felt as if I'm making memories of the Rome I will always love best - the sweet smell of yeast and sugar from the cornetti sold from the cafe at the train station, roasting chestnuts on every other corner in the centro storico, and dark and stormy nights where, even though the roof is three floors above us, and the pavements two below, the rain hammers on every surface it touches and drowns out normal-volume conversations. These are the nights where, snug and smug beneath our blankets, we listen to the long rumbling peals of thunder, that lumber through the sky for up to an unbroken minute, or crash above your roof like falling sheets of corrugated metal and fractured tin.

Wandering around the city, I'm reminded by every weed protruding through neglected paving stones, every subsidence in the bitumen, or eruption of grass in the centre of roundabouts, that despite 2000-plus years of civilisation, Nature is boss here. From the strictly seasonal foodstuffs (you just can't buy out of season veg, even in supermarkets!) to these awe-inspiring storms, there's something about Italian living that seems to deeply respect the laws of nature, no matter how much the Italians flout the laws of the land. And despite the immaculate grooming and pretty face the Italians present constantly (I've met several folk who I would readily describe as 'smiling assassins), I keep wanting to believe that Italian society isn't 'rotten to the core' as some would have you believe. Neglected and a little battered round the edges, and very 'me'-centric for lots of people. But the deeper magic never gets questioned. And I like that about this place.