A postcard from windy places

 Hello. I am still on my travels and blogging using a phone is never very satisfactory, hence these quick postcards. I’ll be back home in a few days.

My tour of Scotland en femme with my good friend Roz was a delight and I will write about that properly in due course. Scotland is famous for its wind and taking my brand new wig there was a bad idea! It needs serious care after being turned inside out. 

I take Luggy the lugubrious LGBT Crab and Lizzy the Lesbian Lobster on my travels to spot any LGBT news. There was little to report, though. Luggy feels at home by the sea and sends greetings to all LGBT readers and allies.

I had forgotten how interesting the rail journey up the East Coast of Britain is, through beautiful cities: Peterborough and its Norman cathedral, Newark and its castle over the Trent, old York redolent with history, Newcastle and its spectacular collection of bridges, fortified Berwick and its mighty Royal Border Bridge, magnificent Edinburgh …

The Royal Border Bridge over the river Tweed at Berwick, with train. When completed in 1850 this was the largest bridge in the world and still carries the railway between England and Scotland.

I get as many comments on this blog about the food I’ve been eating as about the frocks I’ve been wearing, so recent meals have included classic staples like fish and chips (not bad, but we had to have haddock since cod is overfished) and that uniquely Scottish dish, haggis, with roast parsnips and mashed potato (what, no neeps?). I would like to single out the excellent and generous portion of shoulder of lamb with assorted roast vegetables in Berwick, just back across the border in England. That was a treat and genuinely local.

I hope to post properly again this weekend.

Sue x

A quick postcard from Scotland

     Quick greetings from Central Scotland where I have just spent the day in Perth. A pleasant town with a significant art gallery, a well-stocked local museum that houses the coronation stone (last used in 2023), a very Victorian cathedral, even an old house said to have been that of Walter Scott’s Fair Maid of Perth. She was fictitious but the Royal Scottish Geographical Society who now occupy the building are very real and very friendly and even showed me their rather cosy library with fire in the grate where polar explorer Ernest Shackleton once used to preside over meetings. 

    I’m off to Inverness this evening, capital of the Highlands.

    I did come here via London but having to deal with an insurance matter deleted my opportunity for a Sue day out shopping there. This is really annoying as that was one of the original reasons for planning this trip but I am getting quite a lot of financial compensation so that should enable me to book another trip soon. But there will be girly time in the Highlands over the weekend. It’s never possible to be sure what the weather will be like here in September so I have everything from a light skirt to a heavy coat ...and two suitcases to carry it all in!

From my last trip to Scotland, spring 2024

    It’s been a trip full of interesting food, too. Last night’s dinner of local Scottish dishes was one to remember: warm, home-made Scotch egg, beautifully tender venison with black pudding dumplings, and the most amazing chocolate mousse with honeycomb crunch, lemon balm and steeped amarena cherries. To finish, a foaming parma violet cocktail that was super delicious. 

    More when I have a quiet time to write. Have a nice weekend.

Sue xx

Joy in picking clothes for the season

 Blogger (run by Google) is going through one of its clunky phases and the blogrolls are not updating properly so I've no idea if readers will see that there's a new post here. So if you're reading this, thanks for making the effort drop by. 

The problem seems to be improving little by little. Google and all its services also seem to be going rapidly to pot these days, like all the other online stuff that was once worthwhile has already done (I'm looking at you Facebook, Twitter, and more). As for Google's AI on their search engine, it is so atrocious it should be banned.

In the interests of Posiblogging™, though, let's talk about better stuff. 

The weather where I am is wonderful. It's what the summer should have been - warm but not oppressive, sunny but not scalding, dry but not arid. 

I'm packing a suitcase to travel to the British Isles for the next two weeks where the weather in September could be almost anything. So although light summer dresses and strappy sandals are lovely, there's something satisfying about getting ready for autumn with its need for more clothing. We TGirls rely on our clothing to emphasise who we are so, in some respects, more clothes = clearer feminine intent. 

I'll be going to Scotland for several days and, actually, although I love the feel of hot sun on my bare skin, after this long summer I'm now also looking forward to changing into a longer skirt, a good pair of smart boots and a pretty sweater. I'll be glad to suffer a lot less perspiration, too.

Whether I get any shopping time in London as part of the same trip really depends on circumstances. I've lost a lot of property in a flood in June and dealing with the insurance has taken a lot of my time recently. But it also means I'll almost certainly go back to London again before the end of the year to finalise things. London in the run-up to Christmas has always been impressive with its lit-up shops, illuminations and huge Christmas trees. 

So it's fun to plan my outdoor outfits for the coming seasons. Autumn colours and motifs, smart skirts and coats, robust footwear, warm soft hosiery... As I implied above, clothes are more significant as a trans woman than a cis woman and need more planning and preparation. In some ways that's a pest; in another, it's one of the joys of being trans. 

 

Spring

Summer

Autumn

Winter

Have a nice weekend, and thanks for making it through Blogger's broken update system. 

Sue x

My littlest black dress

 It's been longer than usual since I last wrote anything. Have I nothing to say?

Well, truth be told, these last two weeks have been taken up by some very difficult problems. 

So I was glad when my next door neighbour invited me to lunch last week as I thought it would make a nice break from insurance claims, tax calculations, family issues and other troubles ... but then he had a meltdown about geopolitics. He is terrified of nuclear war and the Ukraine situation, not assisted by online algorithms' plugging him with stuff that he "might also like", i.e. reinforcing his outlook of fear and hopelessness. 

I and my family for generations have worked in international affairs and I have more sang froid about the current situation, but the fake news, prejudice and propaganda reinforcer that is the modern internet has got him rattled, despite his good educational and professional background. It's more than high time for governments and rational people to get to grips with the chaos of AI fakes, the jungle of junk you find online, and deal with populist grifters, too.

So when a TGirl is frustrated or stressed or upset, what does she do? 

She gets frocked up, of course! 

I hear that Princess Diana's "revenge dress" is up for auction. So as I've recently been reunitied with my littlest little black dress, I thought it was time to try it on again. Thanks to my slimming regime this year, it fits me again. So here's one trans woman's defiance of all the stupidity, violence and malignancy out there. I am trans and I am cute and the world is better with trans cuties in it.

I managed an outdoor shot before sunset, too. 

 

You can see I've developed quite a tan in this boiling hot summer. 

It's so good to be a girl. Everything seems much calmer and less worrisome when you have a dress, heels and makeup on.

Sue x