Italian is a beautiful and wonderfully rich language, and there is so much more to it than grammar rules and vocabulary.

For me, the real beauty lies in its accents, dialects, expressions and the different ways the language is used from one region to another. Every corner of Italy seems to have its own way of speaking, its own words and, sometimes, what feels like its own language entirely.

When I lived in Italy, I often found myself sitting around the kitchen table with my mother-in-law, who was from Calabria, her best friend from Sicily, and her neighbour from Milan.

It was like listening to three different languages being spoken at the same time.

How the four of us, with me speaking my rather questionable mixture of pigeon Italian and English, ever managed to understand one another remains something of a mystery to me!

And that is where our journey begins...