Tales from the Lake published by Amazon Kindle

This collection of short stories was written in and about Italy during the time I was living there, from 1992 to 2001, and then until 2009 for a large part of the year, after which health – particularly eye problems – suggested a return to the UK and closer proximity to Moorfields Eye Hospital. Not that I do not have the greatest respect for the Italian health service; it is just that most people feel more comfortable discussing their medical problems in their own language, and I am no exception.

The stories concern themselves mainly with the interaction between expatriates and the indigenous population. Around Lake Trasimeno (The fourth largest lake in Italy and the biggest on the peninsula at 11 miles by 8 miles) there are said to live 2,000 British people. Together with expats from Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Sweden, the Philippines and various other countries, they come to live in Italy for a number of reasons, the high quality of the food being one of them, the stunning landscape another, the (usually) agreeable climate yet another. No one comes because they think the Italian government is better than their own, but possibly incompetence and incorruption are less unacceptable when clothed with the exoticism of a foreign language.

If you live in Italy, there is always a lot to do, most of it in the open air. In Italy the sun is the defining element. There are cold days, wet days, days in which you trudge up to the post office against a biting east wind that has travelled unchecked from the Urals, only to receive a postcard from a friend in Britain saying ‘How I wish I was in warm, sunny Italy, like you.’ There is also plenty to write about, if you are any kind of a writer. But there always seem to be better options – harvesting the olives, buying wine from a newly recommended vintner, driving down to the town in the valley (where there is a big weekly market), eating fresh fish at a lakeside restaurant, driving to Assisi, Siena, Gubbio or Arezzo to see masterpieces of Renaissance art, or to Pienza for some wonderful cheese. Or even just to wander up the mountainside with the scent of thyme in your nostrils, keeping an eye open for vipers, wild boar and the seldom-seen porcupine. Often, in the late afternoon, it was our pleasure to take our little boat across to Polvese island, there to swim or, in the early autumn, to walk round the tiny island amid a sea of wild cyclamen, stopping to pick delicious porcini (if the fishermen didn’t get there first, which they usually did).

With all these delights at hand, it is a wonder a single word ever got written. But it did; and Tales from the Lake is the result.