One of those days when you really know that you are alive.

It began at 10am, with Shannon. She's lovely. From Oregon, from New Zealand, these last 4 years from Genova ... is how I would describe her because she doesn't really fit into any kind of everyday frame. She's remarkable.

I interviewed her, we wandered, we ate at Il Genovese ... which is one of those things you should do if visiting Genova. I continue to order their Ravioli fatti in casa al “tuccu” di carne because, to me, it is the most exquisite dish in the world. It combines so many things that I love and somehow it calls to mind memories of childhood and food that makes a soul remember what it was to be safe and loved.

Seriously, you shouldn't laugh until you have tried it. I keep meaning to photograph that particular dish but perhaps it will have to wait until next time.

Then we met with Arianna, the loveliest soul, and the student who saved me from incomprehension on a train to Arenzano, more than 2 visits ago. I had some of that delicious, really thick, Italian hot chocolate that is being served up all over the city at the moment, and we 3 talked in a mix of Italian and English.

Okay ... I didn't actually speak in Italian. It turns out that Shannon is almost fluent in Italian (she's modest) and that Arianna is almost fluent in English (she's also very modest). Me ... I was kind of hopeless but I am used to this role when it comes to languages of the countries I live in and love.

Then it was home to unpack things gathered and get ready to meet with Anna from Beautiful Liguria. She has a new website launching soon but for now she is here. If you're coming to Liguria then Anna is the person to contact for advice on everything from accommodation to what to see and do.

Then 6pm came round and I was off to meet Barbara for aperitivo but I also met Alessandra. It's been a truly excellent day here in Genova. 11.22pm finds me back at the kitchen table by the window that looks out over the carruggi I live on while here.

And photographs ... well, there was this one, found while Shannon was introducing me to some of her experience of the city.

I remember my surprise on reading poet, Kapka Kassabova's poetry collection, All Roads Lead to the Sea.

She was writing of her new country, New Zealand and I was left thinking, does she imagine we're a small island nation or something ...?

Turns out New Zealand is very much that and not the continent I had imagined us to be.

And now, here I am, so many years and so many countries later, searching for her poetry collections, wondering if there was actually a poem with that title because here in Genova, it occurred to me that so many roads lead to the sea.

I found another of her beautiful poems ...

Love in the Dark Country
Kapka Kassabova

Tomorrow for twenty-four hours
I’ll be in the same country as you.

The sky will be constantly shifting,
the morning will be green, a single morning
for my single bed. And in the night

as the dark country goes to sleep
a church bell will measure
the jet-lag of my heart.

I’ll open my suitcase and unfold my life
like a blanket. In the dark country I will lie
all night and wonder how this came to be:

the one light left in the world
is your window, somewhere in the land

of thin rain and expensive trains.
And instead of maps, I have an onward ticket.

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