Summing up (2011)

What an incredible year for me. I have lived the greater part of it as a woman, including great swathes of time when no maleness was required at all, notably the first half of July. I've taken holidays en femme, had whole weekends of fun with girlfriends, worked as a barmaid at Olympia, celebrated an all-female Christmas and enjoyed no end of shopping, eating out, getting pretty in beauty salons, theatre trips, clubbing and socialising as Sue. Complete bliss! I could get used to this. Maybe I have. This is how life is supposed to be for me, I can feel it from the top of my hairdo to the tips of my stilettos.

Will there be a new beginning in 2012? Hardly necessary. I plan the same joyous female existence, only more of it, and with a feeling of satisfaction that life as a woman is the right life for me.

Thank you to all my trans friends for making life so wonderful. Too many to mention individually here, but you all know who you are. Love and joy to all.

And thanks to the many readers who have dropped in on this blog in the last few months. I hope it's been entertaining, an encouragement to live life as one's true self and an illustration of how friends do so much to create our happiness. And maybe it shows that being transgendered can have a positive side.

Sue xxx

Painshill Park, Surrey; August 2011

A lovely Christmas

The usual family Christmas was not going to happen this year. I mentioned this in a phone conversation with my friend Dawn a while back and she suggested Christmas together. And so it came to pass (a Christmassy saying, I believe).

I went down to Dawn's on Christmas Eve on a very quiet train and spent the next 48 hours with her. We ate lots and drank lots and slept in and exchanged presents and, frankly, that's what Christmas is all about. Dawn is a superb cook and for Christmas lunch we had venison, slow-cooked with bacon and veg. Beautiful. Plenty of cheese, too (we like cheese!) There was time for lots of photos (well, T-Girls have a symbiotic relationship with their cameras).



Dawn gave me a lovely set of beauty stuff and a rather tasty looking bottle of wine; I gave her some silver earrings which I think looked beautiful on her (see photo), but then she's a good-looking lass herself (see photo again).

Boxing Day saw us do the Sales thing: off to the furniture store to look at the sofas which Dawn was thinking of buying for her living room. We then drove to my house as we'd decided our Christmas would be a shared thing and again ate a large dinner, Italian style in this case, with cold meats, salmon and plenty more cheese. The following day we decided that we really needed some exercise at last and walked in the park and by the river. The squirrels were out in force, and the parakeets (yes, really) were making a racket. It's like a jungle round here!

Sadly, on the 28th, we had to part as I had a family gathering to attend. But all in all it was a lovely and memorable Christmas with a lovely friend. And who could resist four festive days in a frock? Certainly not me.

Thanks and hugs to my pal Dawn for being such a nice companion throughout and for being thoroughly fabulous.

Sue x

SEASON'S GREETINGS


To all my readers…

I’ve realised I won’t have much time online over the next two weeks as I prepare for my first truly transgender Christmas, so I’m sending you all my love and best wishes, and hope that you have a wonderful Christmas yourselves. This has been one of the most amazing years of my life, thanks to the many people who have given me so much love, support, kindness and friendship. Indeed, I started this blog as a witness to that.

Not only am I looking forward to Christmas, which I am planning to spend with my beautiful friend Dawn, who took the lovely shot below, but also to 2012, which I know will be special as I grow ever more confident in womanhood.

Thank you for reading. May you have a joyous Christmas and New Year season.

Sue xxx


Best wishes for the season from London 
(Covent Garden Christmas Tree 2011)

First friends

I take an epicurean view of life (if you hadn't yet noticed). I avoid needless pain, am not oppressed by religious or political affiliations, enjoy what's enjoyable and, above all, have friends who make me happy.

Yesterday was an important day: I met up again with some of the very first friends I made when I started going out as a T-Girl: Tiff and Mrs Tiff, two very lovely, humane and generous people; my fabulous friend Ange who is the first T-Girl I ever met (and is something of a T sister to me as we joined Angels on the same day and have so many shared experiences); Gayna Starr, who was really encouraging and something of a role model my early days; and Maddy Watson and Joanne Durkin, two stunning girls who are delightful company.

We also met up with Tina Natalie Scott, a very nice and chatty local girl who is starting to get out and about, and the gorgeous and friendly Tanya Wiliams. All these people are great and I love them to bits for having been so quick to befriend me. It was a shame that I couldn't stay in Milton Keynes and go to Pink Punters, so I missed Bobby and Mrs Bobby whom I meet regularly. Absent friends must also include Emma Walkey, Evie James and Josie Safir - but they were there in spirit.

I just wanted to thank my friends for being so ... well, friendly! I know I wouldn't have got so far in my life as a T-Girl without their love and support.

So, thank you, girls. You mean so very much to me. As do the dozens of other friends I've made in the last couple of years of being out as a T-Girl. I'm having the time of my life simply because of all the encouragement that T-Girls share between them.

Sue x

I should start a restaurant column!

Now, I like my food. And my drink. Yesterday, I had a lot of both! I'm thinking that maybe all this blurb on this blog about where I've been and what I've eaten should go into a blog of its own.

Lunch with Andrea at the usual Bistro 1, Frith St. The quality/value ratio is second to none anywhere. E. Med slant with British and French options.

For dinner, I'd recommend La Petite Auberge, Upper St, Islington. A very good, romantic, French restaurant which I went to with my great friend Joanne. My mushroom, garlic and cheese starter was not bad - and Joanne's duck and foie gras was very good. The rabbit stew was superb and the chocolate mousse was THE VERY BEST have EVER tasted ... and I know my chocolate desserts. The Cotes du Rhone to wash it down with was not at all bad. The staff were suitably attentive, the loos are pleasant, the company was very relaxed and the Londoner and his French girlfriend at the next table were very friendly. A lovely girly night out.

3 course dinner and wine £35 a head. You may need to book. Nearest tubes: Angel (Northern Line) and Highbury & Islington (Victoria Line, Overground).

Sue x

Lunching, and other depravities


   Well, what a fun weekend last weekend was. Katie Smith, a sweet and very pretty friend of mine, came to stay for two nights and we had planned various outings in London. On Friday we started our day at the South Bank, firstly with a coffee at Vergnano’s by the Royal Festival Hall. They really do make the best coffee in London. However, I was irritated and surprised in such an upmarket establishment, that the woman before me in the ladies, who’d chatted to me a bit whilst queuing, had peed all over the seat and not flushed either. And they say men are like that! They are nice loos, though, despite certain clients!

   We strolled round the German-style Christmas market by the Millennium footbridges which is very pretty and merits a closer look when there’s more time. Then we walked to Soho to eat at Bistro 1 in Frith Street where I had booked a table. Our friends Irene and Helena joined us. The food was good as ever, and great value, and the wine was decent. Katie and I went with Irene to the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) on the Mall where the exhibition was, I’m sorry to say, the worst of pretentious modern art. Oh, well, at least we had a dose of culture!



   Irene left us and Katie and I went to Covent Garden to look at the market stalls – I get so much of my jewellery there. We also dropped into Charles Fox for makeup. Katie had never been to the Kurt Geiger shop on the corner of Covent Garden piazza and James Street, so we had to go in. She loved the mirrors and I loved the bargain pale grey ankle boots that I just had to buy. We were aiming for Oxford Street but I needed a rest so we stopped at Lick in Greek St for a cup of tea. The gorgeous-looking ice creams would have been tempting on a warmer day. Susan Sometimes texted me and she was, incredibly, at Cambridge Circus just round the corner so she met us there. CafĂ© Boheme, which Susan suggested, was quite full so instead we went to the downstairs bar at the Curzon cinema on Shaftesbury Avenue and ended up spending three hours there as it was so enjoyable just nattering and sipping strawberry cider, amaretto, winter warmer cider … perfect! Such a simple and relaxing day, yet we did a lot.

   On Saturday I had to work but we’d decided to go to the Way Out Club in the City of London that evening. Now, this is one of the few London trans clubs and, as I’ve never visited any, this was an Important Event, like I was now going to qualify for my tranny license at last!

   We got there quite early, about 10.45, so got in cheap and got our complimentary cocktail (which is, as Helena had warned, like orange squash with a tiny drop of vodka). Oh, well, never turn down a freebie! The bar staff are pretty efficient there, to be fair. Irene was there and later my great friend Joanne Frost and Michelle Collins joined us. The club isn’t a patch on somewhere like Pink Punters, and the ‘admirers’ really are the scrapings of the barrel. Dear God! What a bunch of ugly, fat, scruffy, sad losers! The Thai and Filipino girls there do, however, put the rest of us to shame for their fabulous looks, and for their charity in talking to the ugly, sad, scruffy, fat losers! (though I suspect most of the ‘admirers’ have to pay for the attention). I quite enjoyed the floor show, Vicky Lee introducing her disabled nephew who made a good ‘sit-down’ comedian, and then two singers, one of whom was Vicki Vivacious (I shall remember the other’s name in due course and add it. ... ADD: it was Vanilla Lush). I thought they were quite good. And had fab legs, of course. It does all have an air of an am dram production, though. Katie and I sat around for a bit looking at outfits, watching spontaneous pole dancing girls and taking photos of each other (hey, we’re T-Girls, what do you expect). I’m glad I went and saw the place, but honestly the tranny clubs in Leeds, Manchester and Milton Keynes are much better.

   Sadly, the evening had to come to an end and we went back to Katie’s hotel room where it was much easier for us to stay rather than trying to venture back to my home in the suburbs at 3am via the lovely night bus network.

   On Sunday, Katie and I went our separate ways home. Mid-afternoon, though, I went out again to the Cambridge pub on Cambridge Circus where Joanne had agreed to meet me and Michelle. I had a mulled wine, which was just nice on a cold day. We decided to choose a previously untried Soho restaurant at random and went to Piccolo Diavolo in Old Compton Street. The food was OK, but nothing special. The Italian chardonnay, another random choice, was surprisingly good, though. We finished with a warming Irish coffee in a pub just off Southampton Row.

  All in all, a very sociable and nice weekend.

   Many thanks to Irene, Helena Love, Susan Sometimes, Joanne Frost and Michelle Collins for making it such fun and for being such good company, and an especial thanks to Katie Smith for being such a perfect companion.

Sue x