Christmas for Shropshire expats: Simon Clode in China
Few Salopians will be celebrating Christmas like Simon Clode, who two years ago decided to swap the comparatively sedate environment of Shrewsbury for the buzzing metropolis of Beijing in China.
"On Christmas Eve we're going up to the Great Wall with some friends and their families to stay overnight at a hotel there," says Simon, who moved from Bayston Hill.
" Then we will travel back to Beijing to cook a turkey and full Christmas dinner at our flat with some other British, and one Icelandic, friends."
Simon, 31, now manages a British marketing company in China after emigrating with his girlfriend Holly, after she got a job in the UK embassy in Beijing.
And while the weather may not seem especially appealing here at this time of year, it will probably be warmer than in Beijing, where it will almost certainly be below freezing.
"It will be below zero, but hopefully not too far below zero," he says.
Simon says it will be the first Christmas where he hasn't returned to Shropshire at some point, and it will be a strange feeling.
"I'll definitely miss the fresh air and plentiful supplies of cheese," he says.
But whenever he feels the need to reconnect with his roots, Simon can always visit a monument dedicated to one of his home town's most famous sons: Shrewsbury-born naturalist Charles Darwin.
