The Princess and the Shopper, or How to Get Noticed

It’s been a very busy month indeed and I’ve been working flat out, as well as dealing with roofers, dentists and other people with noisy equipment. But there came a point where I decided I’d had enough and needed a break. Fortunately, my friend Pippa was in town and wanted to brave public transport for the first time and going shopping. It’s almost exactly three years since I first left my own front door dressed as a woman and I know how nerve-wracking and difficult it is to build up confidence to present to the world as you feel is right for you. Many girls such as Andrea Huntingdon and Emma Walkey helped me in my early days and it’s now my pleasure to accompany girls on their first attempts at new feats.

So I went over to Pippa’s hotel in Paddington. “Dress down,” I said, “we’re only going shopping not partying.” I had on almost exactly the outfit you see in my wallpaper image on this blog, that summer skirt and white T-shirt. Pippa, dressed in a beautiful soft coral dress, five inch nude heels, long blonde wig with a flower and lots of sparkles and perfume sprayed all over, obediently eschewed her favourite spotty stockings for delicate lacy tights and wore less sparkly eye makeup than usual. Let’s face it, Pippa is never going to be Dowdy Shopper Woman but will always be a princess. Thus qualified for public duty, we headed to Paddington tube station for Pippa’s first ride on the Underground. It was mid-afternoon and quite quiet so the journey to Leicester Square was uneventful and not too hot for a June day below ground. I did warn her of the wind up the tunnels that has a habit of blowing your skirt up if you’re not careful but we had no mishaps, apart from the bloke trying hard to pretend he wasn’t eyeing Pippa’s legs on the Piccadilly Line.

We strolled through Chinatown a bit and a nice family of tourists took this snap of us. 

By this time we were starving, not helped by all the cooking smells in the area, so we had a very late lunch at Melanie’s which was pleasant as ever, especially at a table by the open window. It was slightly spoilt by two silly men at another table shouting “bye, gents” as we left. I guess it helps to show my companion that it’s pretty much the worst sort of abuse one can occasionally get in these parts and generally people are polite and friendly. We popped into the Cambridge round the corner to say hi to Joanne behind the bar and then went shopping in earnest.

It's just water, honest

I thought Pippa would like to see the Kurt Geiger shoe store in Covent Garden, always a hit with TGirls and, well, anyone who likes shoes, which is at least half the population. I was instantly attracted to a pair of kitten heels in candy pink and I just had to wear them for the rest of the day.

We went hunting for coffee. Belushi’s is supposed to be a café bar, but we found that their coffee machine was bust so, tragically, we just had to settle for a jug of cocktail instead! They had a live blues singer but he was actually a bit distracting so we took a turn round Covent Garden market, blaming the cobbles for our being a bit wobbly, and had our coffee at Pain Quotidien in the square. Pippa was full of confidence by now and we happily made friends with a policewoman and her horse ...

... and generally found other ways to get noticed, like going up and down the tube just for kicks, you might say.

Hey, enough of this drivel, you just want pics. The words are just to show how you may pass as you please in this world if you really want to.

Thanks to Pippa for being such a fabulously bubbly companion. No thanks for making me look like a frump! And for honouring me with being her mentor on the tube and the mean streets. Honey, you graduated with honours. You don’t need my help any more because you’ve seen for yourself how straightforward it is. And you went and did it all again on your own the next day!

Ladies, please curtsey to Princess Pippa.

Sue x