Long-suffering readers may remember that during our last days in Turkey I developed peripheral arterial disease which affects the blood flow to my legs. My blocked tubes meant that taking a stroll for more than a short distance was a bit of a pain. Back in Britain, I went under the knife for an arterial bypass to my nether regions. The op worked well but was only designed to fix one limb so, rather than hop to the shops for the rest of my days, the quack suggested the best long-term therapy was to walk, walk and walk again. He told me that the body, when pushed, has a remarkable ability to create new channels to pump blood. Me? Walk? I’ve promenaded many times down the years but I’ve always been more talk, talk than walk, walk. The trauma of compulsory cross-country running as a spotty schoolboy left me scarred for life. I don’t hike, roam, ramble, trek or yomp.

But I heeded the good doctor’s advice by joining a local gym, called simply, ‘The Gym’. It does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s got all the instruments of torture anyone could possibly wish for – a masochist’s wet dream. That was in 2014. I’ve been going ever since.

Here’s the torture chamber:

Has it worked? Well, yes, it has. It’s still a gruelling work in progress but I reckon I can now mince triple the distance without having to rest. And the view from the exercise bike of the sweaty gym-bunnies strutting and straining provides some distraction from my labours.

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.

11 thoughts on “Heal Thyself”

  1. I may need to do the same and join up. I do like to walk, but ever since a bout of dengue fever (have I ever said I now absolutely loathe mosquitoes?) I cannot walk a distance. I was up to 6 and 7 miles daily. Post dengue, a leisurely stroll of two blocks did me in.
    It wasn’t the dengue that did this to me. It was the scorching fever which could have left me brain damaged, so perhaps I should feel grateful rather then being a grump about this. But it has damaged my inner ear and left me slightly dizzy and off balance.
    But I hope to maybe, possibly, hopefully, get across that blasted pond next fall and I want to roam as much as possible in my allotted time, not merely gaze from a window. Hence the gym.
    If I push, I find I can do more, but when I push, I tend to get weak, dizzy, and wobbly. I do not like broken hips and prefer staying upright. A walking machine? Well, at least I can hold on, and push push push!

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