It’s Christmas Eve and, after a year of sensible eating, tomorrow we’re looking forward to calorific grub (thank you M&S), artery-hardening afters, saturated snacking, a barrel of vino, and a little peace and tranquillity. The latter two seem to be rare commodities these days. Whatever Christmas means to you, may your day be merry and bright. I’ll leave you with Norwich’s festive Tunnel of Light. Unassuming by day, by night it’s a dazzling riot of twinkle and glow – a bit like me.

Tunnel of Light

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.

10 thoughts on “Twas the Night Before Christmas”

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