Happy Anniversary!

On 27 September 2007, Louise sat down to write. And she didn't stop. At five in the morning, at 11 at night. She wrote. In between the last few breast feeds and in between nappy changes. She wrote in her head while walking her son up and down the hill for asilo, and she wrote at the computer during precious nap times. She made notes in the car, on the bus, in cafes and on planes. Gradually, as the world turned and the seasons changed, a year went by. And today is 27 September 2008, the first anniversary of A View from Carmine Superiore, weblog, personal notebook and burgeoning portrait of a village.

The original idea was simply to stay sane. As a mother of two very small children rattling around an unfinished restoration project, surrounded on all sides by people who speak a different language (including those two small children), and perched on a now-famous granite outcrop of rock with not much in the way of permanent neighbours, my sanity was in serious peril. Writing every day offered a discipline outside of mothering and housewifery that ensured I took a step back from the daily brouhaha and got to see the funny side (to remember which side the funny side was).

Without meaning to get so serious, I gradually also found myself trying to make sense of living here on top of a rock in a depopulated medieval village with no vehicle access, to try to understand that accidental life-choice I made when I came here to live permanently in 2003.

That's my excuse for adding one more drop in the ocean of, reportedly, 8 million weblogs online.

And I'm sticking to it.

In the past year, the site has received more than 13,000 hits. While the phenomenon of the floating IP address makes it difficult to be totally sure, a painstaking process of scientific triangulation leads me to believe that it is read regularly not only by Carmenites, or by members of my own family, but also by kindly lunatics as far away as Canada, Queensland, New Delhi, Jakarta, New England, Houston Texas and Hobart Tasmania. (Hello, Hobart Tasmania. Why don't you leave a comment? I'm fascinated to know who you are!)

A recent surprise article in the provincial newspaper outed A View from Carmine Superiore from the cyberspace closet, and onto the streets of the region. The response was, actually, wonderful. My 15 minutes of fame. Friends, acquaintances and total strangers approached me on the street, at the asilo, in the supermarket 20km away, even in the cemetery, to tell me they liked what they saw. For a moment there, the glare of publicity was so great I looked out my old 80s RayBans and started to price smoked windows for the Panda. Thank-you neighbours all for so many kind words!


So, as the world turns, the leaves start to change, and the people of Cannobio start to shove their hands in their pockets and complain about the cold mornings, I'll go on writing. Perhaps not at 5am - I am, after all, a year older and I'm starting to need my beauty sleep - but I'll try for once a day. And I hope you'll keep checking in periodically to see how we're doing up here on Sasso Carmine.

Thank-you for reading,

Louise (in RayBans)

Copyright © Louise Bostock 2007, 2008. All rights reserved. Please ask first.