One evening, three days after we moved into a studio apartment in Venice for a month, my husband got sick. He vomited all night, until we fell into an exhausted sleep around 5.30am, only to be woken by the church bells next door at 7am, then forced up by the dog whining for breakfast. We wearily started work, cheek by jowl in a tiny space. A few hours later, as my husband started his third speakerphone call of the morning, my noise-cancelling headphones died. Was our dream trip proving to be the stupidest idea ever?
We had wanted an adventure to mark our newly empty nest when our younger son headed off to university last autumn. I had a clear idea: the pictures of Venice that circulated in lockdown (silent, clear waters, heart-swellingly beautiful) had filled me with longing. We both work remotely anyway, and the 40m deep dive pool a short drive away sealed the deal for my free-diving-mad husband. We started plotting.
