Circa 1640

Our loft aspirations turned to dust. Someone else reached the finishing line before us and we were back to square one. Do not pass go, do not collect £200. This is what happens when dreamy loft lodgings are offered to several letting agents simultaneously: chaos and disappointment run amok. Still, at least our reservation fee was promptly refunded. Decent billets were flying off the shelves at a rate of knots so we rose early to catch the elusive worm, zipping back up the A11 in our borrowed Renault Megane at the crack of dawn. It was a fruitful tour. On our first viewing we bagged ourselves a genuine 17th Century weaver’s cottage at the edge of Norwich’s medieval quarter just a short sashay from the action. So, instead of a writer’s garret, I shall be weaving my words in a converted artisan’s flint and brick dwelling dating from the 1640s. Just think, the original weaver first moved into his brand new designer hovel (no mod-cons at the time) when the humourless Protestant Taliban chopped off Charlie Stuart’s head, established the English republic, banned music, closed down the play houses and outlawed Christmas (and let’s not even talk of the unspeakable things they did to the Irish). It’s no wonder the Commonwealth didn’t last; it was so boring. I wonder what Killjoy Cromwell would have made of us? Off with their heads?

Imagine the absurdity of two openly gay, married, middle aged, middle class men escaping the liberal sanctuary of anonymous London to relocate to a Muslim country. I chronicled our exploits with the mad, the bad, the sad and the glad in a blog for the whole world to ignore. Then came the book which became a critically acclaimed best seller. Its success opened out a whole new career for me, firstly as an author, and now as an indie publisher. Who'd have thought it? Certainly not me. In June 2012, we ended our Anatolian affair and paddled back to Britain on the evening tide, washing up in Norwich, a surprising city in eastern England, then to the wilds of Norfolk as the only gays in the village. I’m sometimes nostalgic for our encounters with the hopeless, the hapless and, yes, the happy go lucky. They gave me an unexpected tale to tell and for this I thank them.

19 thoughts on “Off With Their Heads!”

  4. I see you blocked the door up to make it harder for the other agents to give any viewings – or is that a local tax dodge ?

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  5. Shame you lost flat. Considering our homes are the most important and expensive items we invest in you’d think by now we’d have a more civilised way of finding and securing one! However, this cottage with a history sounds great. Shame you have to get in by climbing through the window but then if you are like me after a night on the pop I can never use door keys successfully anyway. You’ll have to invite the TimeTeam in to dig the place up looking for treasure. By the way, I take back my comments on missing “real” weather i.e. storms and torrential rain, although we saw none of it in Cardiff, just the usual mild drizzle. Good luck.

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      1. Ha. Should’ve realised it’s the tradesman’s entrance. What with it being in industrial cottage of course;) Looks great.

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  6. This is adorable! I lived in a cottage as old as this in Oxfordshire for a couple of years… Only problem was I was afraid to go down in the coal cellar – it was, for some reason, really really scary… 😦

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