Women's clothes are so much nicer

It's that rarest of days, February 29th.

Having pretty much recovered from my various seasonal illnesses, and not yet apparently having caught coronavirus, it's time to celebrate healthy womanhood!

First, here's one thing I hate: I hate having to shop for men's clothes. There was an era when I spent so much time living as female and buying only women's clothes that in the end I forgot my sizes in menswear. I'm having to live officially as male at present as I go through the huge number of formalities needed to live abroad. (Incidentally, those who say that moving about within Europe is easy - or rather too easy - have no idea what they are talking about.)

So I needed some new trousers (shudder!) and when I got to a suitable shop I was delighted to find that some women's trousers had been mixed in with the men's. And in my size. So I did buy a pair of horrid boy trousers, but also a pair of black skinny jeans. I wish I knew why men's trousers are so horrible, always rough, stiff and misshapen. These women's jeans have lycra and fit perfectly as a result. And, they make me happy, as clothes do only if they reflect my reality, not the demands of the world.

Anyway, I returned a few days later and bought some blue jeans, some leggings, some sneakers and a hoodie from the jumble of clothing. Styles are often unisex these days anyway and all these items, even the leggings, could be worn by men or women pretty indifferently. Which suits me perfectly right now.

I did go more feminine than this recently, including proper care over my makeup and hair, and remembered to take some photos out on the terrace. I'm on the top floor part way up a steep mountainside so the views are pretty impressive and I've tried to capture some of that in the photo above.

As in my previous post, I have also, and not before time, updated my blogroll. Must try to get a suitable index or system of links to help navigate.

Sue x

The blogroll revolution!

It always used to be an awkward chore changing items in one's blogroll but Blogger now seems to have made its system more user-friendly. As I recover from flu I am spending time indoors and so have been able to do some much needed weeding and planting in my blogroll (which is low down on the right), and do it swiftly for once!

My friends Ann Drogyny, Roz White and Helen Turner stopped blogging at least a year ago and so I have now removed their blogs. The same for the "Rhiannon Rambling" blog. I did enjoy all these very much, but obviously people have their priorities. Helen essentially uses Flickr as though it were a blog and her trans life is very positive, her wife, daughter and parents being very accepting and she having a very active time as a woman (https://www.flickr.com/photos/52912530@N04/). She's also very pretty!

Mandy Sherman and KD have started new blogs ("Mandy's Miscellany" and "K.D.'s Life and Ramblings") so I've now added these but am still keeping links to their earlier blogs for the time being since they are still interesting.

I've added a couple of new blogs: the excellent "Femulate" (that, frankly, should have been up here years ago) and "Shadows of a Dream (on my Travels)", which is the blog my friend Karen Cameron writes about her adventures with other girls in places like Manchester and Leeds.

Of course, the blogs for those super bloggers Lynn Jones ("YATGB"), Bobby Sox, Lucie ("The Girl Who Should Know Better"), Jonathan ("Male Femme") and the tour-de-force who is Hannah McKnight are still there, as they have been for years, and make fascinating and useful reading. T Central remains the main umbrella blog here for the trans community.

Enjoy these. I certainly do.

Sue x

A run-in with viruses

In ancient Rome, the seventh of February was traditionally the first day of spring, when the favonius, a gentle westerly breeze began to blow, bringing warmer air to the Mediterranean. On the eighth day after that, February 14th, that same tradition said that birds began to choose a mate for the year, and hence the origins of Valentine's Day.

It's certainly pleasant here in Italy with warm sunshine and light breezes and, by and large, it's doing me good. Three weeks ago I went to Milan to conclude some administrative business and probably because of suddenly being thrust into the bustle of a big city in winter at the height of the flu season, squashed onto public transport with bug-ridden commuters and having to spend time in health authority facilities, I picked up a vile winter vomiting bug that left me unable to move for days and took over a week to recover from and start eating again. I escaped from the city as soon as I felt able, but not before picking up flu which left me pretty feeble for another week and I've been coughing ever since.

So the moral is, stay isolated and don't mix with people! Not really, but it just goes to show how the crush of the big city is perfect for spreading germs. The coronavirus threat from China has become a source of hysteria - Chinatown in Milan, which is Europe's biggest, was deserted because in the public mind any oriental person is a vector of death (and white folk cannot distinguish between Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese and so on). Human stupidity and prejudice know no bounds.

How do we kill the viruses of racism, discrimination and stupidity? They seem to be very prevalent at the moment.

Sue x