Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Other


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Snowed in

The First of February came with a heavy snowfall, that started in the night and added up to the 30 cms we had got a week ago. This caused the day’s plans to go somewhat askew – we were supposed to drive to the supermarket for provisions, and will do it tomorrow instead, and spent the warmest hours of the afternoon shoveling snow off the lane.

This is the sort of thing I should post as an example of the funny surreal things that happen to writers when they should be writing instead. Shoveling snow or, like two days ago, running barefooted in the snow to try and catch the postman before he disappears.
What a cartload of laughs, uh?
You read of things like that and instantly you decide to follow me on Patreon.

But I’m being uselessly snarky.
I did need a bit of exercise, and shoveling snow was a good opportunity.

I keep writing, and tonight it’s going to be one long writing session. Also, I’m going to try a new writing trick. Then on the weekend I’ll be working on another project.


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New year’s clean-up (and hot soup)

The idea of going out for a pizza and some talk with my friends on Twelfth Night was good, because I needed to recharge my batteries – and as a result I wrote two stories in two days afterwards. But I also caught some kind of seasonal bug, so now here I am eating hot veggie soup, wrapped in seven layers of blankets.

And because I am too wrecked to do anything intelligent, I am tweaking a few of my things: I’m cleaning up the Patreon profile, launching a new Pinterest account specifically for this blog, and I might do some smaller changes to Karavansara.
Like, a new header, or something.
No hope of sleeping anyway.
Don’t panic should you see things change and then change again in the next few hours.


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On the brink of 2018

A little less than thirty-six hours and we’ll be in 2019. This year passed in a flash, with a load of worries, surprises, adventures and misadventures. I read somewhere that as we get older, time seems to run faster. If it is so, then I am really old.

And yet, I’m getting used to this state of uncertainty. Sometimes I worry the stress and fatigue will have a bad effect on my health, but then everything seems to go smoothly. But I still have a lot of fun writing, and writing is paying the bills, and I’ve learned to let go of the rest – useless to worry about what you control, because you control it, useless to worry about what you do not control, because there’s nothing you can do about it.

I think I will rest for these 36 hours. Enough writing – I have submitted four stories to as many magazines in two days. Now I can rest.
Read a book, listen to some music, plan tomorrow night’s dinner for me and my brother. The countryside is silent and deserted, and there’s little to do – bring a little wood in for the fireplace, sketch some kind of menu for the celebration, and wait for 2019 to come around.

I hope it will bring good things for everybody.
Best wishes, ladies and gentlemen. And have fun.


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Boxing Day

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the Boxing Day is

“the first week-day after Christmas-day, observed as a holiday on which post-men, errand-boys, and servants of various kinds expect to receive a Christmas-box”

We don’t do that in Italy, but back when I was a kid there was a thing called “Auguri dal Portalettere” (Best wishes from the Postman), and it worked like this: as it was not allowed to give tips to the postmen, they had small calendars printed, with Auguri dal Portalettere printed on, and would drop them in the mailboxes around Christmas, expecting a small tip “that was not truly a tip”. The official name of the thing was Calendario Postale, and the most recent one I’ve been able to find is from 1991. I don’t knbow if it’s stilld one somewhere. Here, it is not.

Now we get calendars from the supermarket – we got one a few days back – not in exchange for a tip, but as a bonus for buying our food there. It’s not the same thing.
Also, once our bank gave us gifts for Christmas – diaries, pens, books, all stamped with the bank’s logo. But that doesn’t happen anymore. All we get with the bank logo stamped on are the bills.

The bit about calendars got me thinking about my grandmother, that was a janitor in an apartment building in Turin for most of her life, and had a stack of those old calendars by the postman. And also about my father, who used to come home from the last visit to the bank, a few days before New Year, carrying a paper bag with the gifts, and wearing a tired look, and said, “this year, to, the accounts are settled.”

Truly, the December festivities bring about ghosts.