I write this under unusual circumstances. I am slightly tiddly, and in Puglia. This is because I have just had lunch, and you can’t have lunch in Italy without a glass or two of the local wine (here, Primitivo). I am also writing this on a computer whose screen is about the size of a Fiat 500 and with a rather adorable dog wandering in and out the room to check up on me and see if I want to play. I would love to, but I have work to do, and this is it.
You may ask what I am doing in Puglia. I have been asking that myself from time to time, as if in a dream, and the answer is that I am in the town of Putignano, where I have been, for a few days, until tomorrow, the writer in residence. Apparently officially. I’ve met the mayor and everything. When I’m done here I shall be putting on my shoes and a clean shirt and going off to look at the archives dating back to the town’s foundation. It is all rather grand. And yet, in the way of things Italian, at the same time rather intimate and relaxed. It is not exactly dolce far niente but it is not far off.
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