Lunchtime at the Iron House Brasserie on St John Maddermarket is an egg lover’s heaven – Florentine, Benedict, Royale, fried, scrambled, poached, omeletted – you pays your money, you takes your choice free-range wise. Being contrary in lunch as well as in life, we plumped for the dish of the day instead, a spicy lamb burger with a distinctive Turkish twist washed down with tap water and a fruity Sauvignon Blanc. The venue is classy but unpretentious, the staff attentive but unintrusive. All in all, a fun gig.

After the first bottle, we got the taste. Well, you do don’t you? The sun had got his hat on putting everyone in a bright mood so we opted for a boozy crawl home, first to the Sir Garnet  then on to the Champion. I took a few snaps along the way.

Liam was a tad tipsy by the time we fell through the front door of our micro-loft and was snoring like a whoopee cushion by 9pm. ‘Tis my cross to bear.

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 a 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.

9 thoughts on “The Sun Has Got His Hat On, Hip-Hip-Hip Hurray”

  2. Well the sun shone for an hour or so here yesterday then it tipped it down before rendering the balance of Saturday as a damp – and grey – squib…looks much better where you were.

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