Norwich’s river is called the Wensum. The name derives from the Old English adjective wandsum or wendsum, meaning ‘winding’. It’s aptly titled. The river caresses like a feather boa, arching around the town and providing ample opportunities for boozy afternoons in riverside inns when the weather’s right. So far, the weather’s been right for much of the time. The Wensum is a lazy river with a slow flow. Apparently, this is caused by a large number of redundant upstream water mills. Plans are afoot to modify the mills to enable the river to behave more naturally. In the meantime, the idle waters are a fertile breeding ground for mosquitoes. We’re well acquainted with the sipping beasts of Anatolia. After four itchy years, our tough old hides eventually developed a natural immunity to their veracious appetites. Their slower, more timid English cousins don’t stand a bug in hell’s chance with these old pros. Top up, anyone?

You might also like Mosquito Massacre

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.

8 thoughts on “Still Waters Run Deep”

Share your thoughts

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.