I realised I had entered Norwich from the wrong side. The houses were characterless rows of tired terraced houses, and when I arrived and looked at the river, my harsh Virgo side took over and wrote: ‘The river is so flat, it’s as if someone punched it in the face and knocked it out!’

The river, which can hear your soul, did not take that kindly. I woke up the next morning unable to stand on my feet. My chronic condition decided it was flare-up time and the balls of my feet felt like fresh boils that would have burst if I’d placed my full weight on them. The next three days I sat a lot at the desk and took ten breaks on a ten-minute walk to the local Morrisons. The river now felt a kind place to sit on a bench and watch the swans rush up to me, hoping for some food; a huge painted sign on the side of a red brick building saying ‘no fascists welcome here’, a willow with tiny buds, and a comforting view of boats lined up in front of a white building.

I was forgiven by the river, but the target we had set for our translation project was ambitious, like the three of us. 600 verses of Saif al-Mulook needed to be edited, proofread and refined. I was here for two weeks and by the end of the first, we were on track and felt like the author Mian Mohammad Bakhsh was sat with us, guiding us through the many dictionaries his work was sending us to. It was better to have his ghost at hand, as we needed to ask whether this word was from Punjabi, Pahari-Pothwari, Saraiki, Hindi, Sanskrit, Arabic or Persian. His calling it Hindi in 1863 meant it was an amalgamation of all the above. We also needed context and a nod from Mian Sahib, who I had placed above, on the left-side of the ceiling, for ease, where I could look up and ask or complain to. He seemed happy in that space too, and often gave an amused look, or sometimes one of awe as the three of us dug deeper and wider for the best possible word that would do justice to this 500-page rhyming, metered poem with double meanings: secular and spiritual.

I had received a superb mentoring session from Arshia Sattar and besides my tour of the captivating Dragon Hall by the lovely NCW team, I had seen nothing of the city.

Those that know me will go back and check that they are reading a piece written by me. I love nature, architecture, art, and an adventure. But it was time to meet Norwich, so I took Saturday off.

On Friday night I spread out all the touristy brochures on the table and a map and decided which area to target. Castle Quarter seemed close enough and led to the rest of the museums, churches, art galleries, shops, The South Asia Collection, and a mosque founded by British converts in the 1970s.

Walking along King Street, seeing more medieval timber framed buildings and an imposing church helped me take a full deep breath. Today was going to be a memorable adventure.

At the end of the street, I turned left and crossed the road. I could see the walls of the castle and a cube which presumably was the castle itself. I decided to walk around it, passing by a huge modern building offering co-working spaces and some tall old trees leading me to the junction where Norwich University of the Arts greets you. I followed the wall until I saw a glimpse into a street with a book shop and a toy shop in view. Both useful, as my eight-year-old niece had just settled into her wheelchair-friendly extension to the house and I was searching for an appropriate gift. Also, whilst looking at the NCW website, I had read an interview with Tharik Hussain about the fourteen-hundred-year history of Muslim Europe and wanted to buy the book for my sons, as knowledge might help them when disinformation tells them again that they do not belong here.

The street was lined with cafes and I browsed the menus. The Book Hive had the book I wanted. As a teacher of Family Learning in a past life, I had a favourite calendar that I provided parents with the resources to make. It used Velcro to allow users to change the day, date and weather. It was in front of me here, with all the words embroidered on soft material. I checked with my sister and she liked the idea, so I bought the calendar. Tick and tick.

I came out of the shop and was mesmerised by a grand building with the name of Cosy Club. That made me smile and I pointed my camera towards it. I usually am a nature and landscape photographer with an obsession with flowers, trees, country gates, benches, and stone walls, but who can resist a good building or body of water? As I turned around, there was this long narrow alley in front, leading to another beautiful church-like building. I had read there are a lot of churches in Norwich. Norwich was definitely rich through the ages, as each church has stunning architecture and beautiful stained-glass windows.

The first shop in the alley was a café selling delicacies from Baghdad, with an old oil lamp amongst the cakes in the window. Snap.

The church-like building turned out to be St Andrew’s Hall but there was a poster over the Norwich Museum sign outside St Andrew’s textured church of ‘The Man Who is God’. For a minute I thought I should check out the times for this play and see if it was on whilst I was there. Just for a minute.

The building and the open space in front of St Andrew’s Hall, including the benches under its shade, invite you to sit and daydream. Normally, I would accept that offer, but Amaretto Delicatessen had caught my eye. An olive and artichoke pizza slice, an old-fashioned flapjack and a vegetable samosa were the perfect food for eating whilst ogling and taking photos, and they completely met the needs of my eastern and western palette.

Now, down an alley, was an imposing four-story, dark brick building on the river. After the lovely arches of the university’s St Georges Building and over the bridge to the left was Norwich Theatre Playhouse. This was good fortune indeed, as I had booked tickets for TOAST, an evening of spoken word and poetry with Anthony Joseph and Caroline Bird headlining. A few tips from these spoken word artists would be useful. A couple of snaps there, of course, of the stunning old doorways around every corner. There is something about these old ornate doorways. Like you have to mean it to enter them. I wasn’t sure, so I took photos and walked on.

The lamps hanging from the ceiling of the Arcade made my day, as did a plant shop called B Leaf. The art gallery inside the arcade was displaying a painting of a goodbye scene of a soldier and his partner and, considering it was not a detail-focussed painting, it captured the emotions as well as any photograph. I asked and took a picture of it.

Coming out of the other end of the Arcade and walking straight ahead, I came across the mural of the City of Stories on the side of a wall, just before you catch a glimpse of the castle on top of a hill in front of you. I had been describing Norwich as ‘York times three’ to my son during my phone call and this image reminded me of Clifford’s Tower in York. This mural summed up one thing that you feel everywhere: the people of Norwich are proud of their city and proud of its status as a UNESCO City of Literature. In the following days, whilst I captured the stained-glass windows of St Peter’s, the volunteer guide said this in words, as she guided me towards the steps to take the best photo of the original wood ceiling alongside the windows and St Peter Mancroft Tapestry c. 1573. ‘I love Norwich’, she told me, as I adjusted the lens on my camera. A few days later, a volunteer who hands out maps to lost tourists found me staring at a map of the centre and approached me, offering his services with the same pride.

I come from Bradford. A complicated city; once one of the richest in Europe with plenty of evidence left behind in its huge mills, grand architecture and history of leading working class movements such as being the birth place of the Labour Party and free school meals. Sadly, it is now mocked by mainstream media for being multicultural and poor at every opportunity, and by those who don’t want to look at it now but focus on what it was and anything to justify their biases. It felt light and uplifting to be in Norwich.

While I found the castle underwhelming, the greenhouses were beautiful. Though they are used for arts and food, they made me long for plants. That day my feet had afforded me several thousand steps and were now beginning to speak, so I decided to head back to Dragon Hall.

Over the next week, I visited The South Asia Collection and chatted with the founder Phillip Milward, who told me about his visits with his wife to Pakistan since 1979 and how they were in Rawalpindi the night Bhutto was hung, travelling across the country gathering textiles and other art; how northern Punjab was one of his favourite parts of the world, and we both reminisced about how the drive for modernism is meaning the loss of centuries of local artisan skills and the appreciation of handmade unique artefacts. I bought seven keyrings, one for each of my Koyal writer friends, to give to them at the annual reunion in Leicester straight after this residency.

I visited the University of East Anglia to hear the author Nicola Dinan talk about her second book, Disappoint Me, leaving a career as a lawyer, and her experiences of writing as a transgender author and about transgender characters.

I discovered Sourpear and their tomato quiche and salad box, £2.70-a-piece heart-shaped strawberry yummy macaroons, and Ivy, where I bought a lemon-lime prayer plant with a scalloped edge terracotta planter and saucer. I visited another art gallery featuring a Richard Rowan image of a single tree in a huge flat crop field, a sculpture of two leopard heads by Steve Winterburn, and a huge poster hanging from chains in the window by James McQueen saying, ‘Shut Up And Kiss Me’. Biddy’s Tearoom, with its range of experimental teas, was quite comforting on a grey day.

In the end, I hadn’t gone into any of the museums, many of the churches, visited the mosque, the Plantation Garden or the Sainsbury Centre, so I was left with plenty of reasons to return to this city of stories.