Back out in London after all these years

 I've spent the last couple of weeks away, often in places with little in the way of modern communications, so I'm slow in updating my blog.

But as with my previous post giving a brief description of my first time out fully femme since 2018, there's a similar event I'm excited to report about last Monday when I went out dressed in London to do some shopping, to see how the city has changed, and to meet with a friend. Just like old times.

And I barely felt nerves. As one friend had said to me the day before, going out in female mode is like riding a bicycle even after several years: you never really forget how.

Although it was not a very warm day, I was determined to wear a summery dress. But winter tights couldn't be left behind either.

It was a day of crowds, as it was a bank holiday (foreign readers, in Britain, public holidays are called bank holidays because the banks are permitted to shut). I took the train to Waterloo, walked past the Festival Hall and across the Millennium Footbridge to Charing Cross. There's an elevated walkway above Villiers Street where I took this photo.

I wandered through favourite places like Covent Garden

I was looking for some ankle boots but it's the wrong season as the shoe shops only sell sandals at this time of year. Despite the cold and rain! So no luck. 

I'd been warned by my friend Grace, whom I'd seen the day before, that London has changed a lot and, in truth, most of the shops, businesses, cafés and restaurants I knew have been replaced. The junction of Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street is unrecognisable after the works to install the new Crossrail, or Elizabeth Line as they finally called it.

I tried taking photos in Piccadilly Circus but ended up with this ridiculous one of me wearing an Eros hat!

I had agreed to meet lovely Stephanie Monroe, who I haven't seen for six years, and she suggested we break away from the crowds of the West End and go to see the Little Ships of Dunkirk that were gathered in St Katharine's Dock by Tower Bridge. Here's us by the Tower of London.

At St Katharine's we found a place to eat, Ping Pong, where we both enjoyed the katsu curry and happen to have been served by a trans waitress, which made us feel the world wasn't all out to get us. UK transphobia has been through the roof these last few years.

 We went next door to the Slug and Lettuce (yes, dear readers, this really is the name of a chain of bars in Britain) and had some silly cocktails because why not?

I was tired by the time I got back to my hotel but very, very happy to have relived my trans life in London for a day. 

Many thanks to Steph for her company and for being generally lovely, and for recent moral support in getting out again from Roz and Grace.

A dip in the archives

My last evening out with Steph, in July 2018.

An evening in Chinatown.

 

Sue x

Back out in public at last!

 A quick post but with great news. 

It's been nearly six years since I was last able to get out in public. That's thanks to moving abroad, a damaged leg, Covid lockdowns and having my life scattered in various places.

But today I put my makeup on, tidied up my hair (which the wind promptly untidied again!) and went on a tour of the far North East of Scotland with my wonderful friend Roz acting as hostess, chaperone and driver. She's a star.

We visited the towns of Tain and Dornoch, Dunrobin Castle, and the watery beauties of the Dornoch Firth, Loch Fleet and the Kyle of Sutherland. An amazing day in spring sunshine.

There will be more on my British break soon but I just wanted to share this wonderful news and some photos as proof!

I did feel nervous first thing this morning. After all, it's been a long time. But soon I was back in my stride. I guess going out dressed is a bit like riding a bicycle. Once you have got over the initial nerves and uncertainties, it's something you ease back into readily enough. 

I plan to be out and about next weekend, too.

Rose garden in Tain

Dunrobin Castle

Dornoch Firth

Struie Hill

 Sue x

Checking in, checking out

 Hello blog, just checking in with a short post.

I had a rotten week last week, hence no posts as planned, but all is well now as I have arrived in Scotland and had a nice 24 hours in Edinburgh followed by arrival in Inverness where I an staying with my friend Roz.

Royal Mile, Edinburgh

We have hired a car and today, being a perfect spring day, we went on a grand tour of the Highlands. Much more detail in due course but I feel a lot more relaxed. Thanks, Roz.

Loch Ness

 Sue x

Movements: France

 I don't like flying. It's not the flying part itself that annoys me - looking out over the clouds or the land below is amazing - but the way that airport security, services, prices and overall treatment generally leave you with a sense that you are being abused all the time. So for journeys that don't involve travelling across oceans I prefer to take the train. I am on a five week trip, part business, part social, part domestic, and I'll be taking the train much of the time. The train lets you see more and is less cramped.

I'll be seeing a lot of friends and family but my companion is Coco Peru and Little Miss Alien that I wrote about a few weeks ago. 

I set off at the end of April, piling my boy case and my girl case into a taxi to my nearest station at Sanremo, an extraordinary modern structure with platforms buried deep inside a mountain with a long tunnel with four travelators that takes you from the station entrance to the trains. 

 

They say to allow ten minutes to get to the platforms from the taxi rank outside and they're not wrong. You can run it in five if you're fit!

I can get from home in Italy to Britain by train in a day but I prefer to take it gently and so I spent my first night away in Nice. The train journey along the coast from Italy to Nice is one of the most beautiful in the world, trundling along the corniche that overlooks rocky coves and passing through attractive seaside villages like Menton and Beaulieu-sur-Mer, and even the tiny country of Monaco. 

Nice itself is famously attractive with its palms, azure bay and beautiful buildings. It's overpriced, though. But I had chosen my hotel well as it was set back from the street at the end of a leafy drive. I hadn't realised when I booked that the Hotel Oasis had once been occupied by Russian writer Anton Chekhov, for whose plays and short stories I have the great admiration, and is said to be where he wrote one of his most performed works, Three Sisters. 

Weird modern sculpture to Chekhov in the hotel garden

The morning train to Paris from Nice takes over five and a half hours so I try to get a comfortable seat by the window on the side overlooking the sea as the coast around Antibes, Cannes and Juan-les-Pins is dramatic, with pinnacles of red rock overtopping small coves and jagged headlands. 

Taking photos through the train windows is not easy, though. This is the only half decent photo I got. 

In Paris you change stations to get the Eurostar train to London from the Gare du Nord. It's a very comfortable fast service through the Channel Tunnel. I had to disappoint my newsagent who wondered if you could see fish out of the train windows. Sadly not. Maybe fish gazing could be a feature of any second tunnel?

It's always a letdown to get off the smart Eurostar and go down into the dirty, smelly London Underground. Thankfully, that journey is short. And so I arrived in London for the first part of this trip.

Sue x

Ann Drogyny: a tribute

 I'm very sad to have to write that my friend Ann Drogyny passed away last night. 

 

I am glad she is out of pain following accidents and a long illness. But I am sure she wouldn't want her friends to be mawkish and sad for too long as that would go against the whole grain of her life, her wicked sense of humour that she never lost to the last, and her love of upending expectations. The photo above of her enjoying a swim on a crowded beach in Spain sums it up. When people puzzled at this ebullient tattooed trans person from abroad splashing around with her family and asked why she holidayed en femme with her wife alongside, she'd simply reply that she liked it, her wife liked it and it didn't harm anyone. Which is kind of how any trans person wants to be.

I met Ann quite a few times in London. Here, for instance, at a bar ...

where I recall loving her beret. And here eating out with our friends ...

She just enjoyed doing things as a woman, such as visiting museums or taking her daily constitutional walk near home after retirement. This is how I remember her.

 

With her wife, she was a well-known figure on the fetish and fancy dress scene, too. For father's day, her daughter once captioned a photo of her and Ann going out somewhere in latex skirt suits, "the family that are weird together ... are weird together", a typical skit on the more homely mottoes that families are supposed to live by.

Ann centre stage at Magic Theatre at the Rivoli Ballroom

 

Ann's Flickr pages are a cornucopia of weird and wonderful outfits, modelled with typical exuberance, from floaty classics to sexy fetish.

I used to link here to Ann's blog, Androgynous Meanderings, but she stopped writing it some years ago. It's still a top example of what a TGirl living life to the full can get up to. 

Such a fun person and such a great sense of humour, from very dry and sardonic at times to quite knockabout at others. Her chosen name says it all!

I think my lovely friend Stephanie (on the right in the picture below) has today written the perfect farewell to Ann:

"You will be greatly missed, my friend. RIP you old tart."

Thanks for the good times, Ann. And for all the laughs. Will miss you greatly and am unlikely to forget you, for all the right reasons.

Sue x

So how did my slimming drive go?

 I've spent the last six months diligently losing weight because I am sick of being overweight and less healthy, and because I really want to get back into those pretty little dresses and short skirts I used to wear.

My challenging target was to lose 50 pounds between November 1st and April 30th. I wasn't able to weigh myself at the end of April because I was travelling, so my last weigh-in was the morning of 28 April when I was 71.8 kilos or 11 stone 4 pounds (i.e. 158 pounds). That's a loss of 32 pounds overall.

So I managed almost two-thirds of my target. I am very pleased with my achievement as I look and feel different and don't have all that far to go to get into my ideal weight range.

Today I tried on a couple of those little dresses I had in mind and they fit reasonably nicely. A little bit of tummy shows still, but I can wear these again now without embarrassment as the cotton material is a bit stretchy. That makes me happy. 

I'm wearing some of my smaller size black coated jeggings now and they fit me again. It's just as well because a light lunch in Chester city centre sitting near two women dressed casually but neatly with lovely makeup, jewellery and hair sent my dysphoria skyrocketing. Why couldn't I have been born a girl? Life would have made so much more sense! Anyway, we aim a least to look right so as ease these feelings.

So I think that I'll be back at my healthy weight some time this summer. Warmer weather means no stodgy winter food and lighter meals, as well as a greater desire for outdoor exercise. 

Thanks to all my readers who posted encouragement during my slimming drive. It really helped.

Itinerary

As you'll have seen, I'm back in the UK now after a pleasant journey through France by train, stopping a night in Nice. I stopped in my old town of Twickenham and I'll now be in the city of Chester for a week. Then I'll be spending a weekend with a sister in the North of England. After that I'll be spending a week in Scotland with my friend Roz and may well get some proper fem time. Later in the month I'll be visiting another sister in London and catching up with friends and, if all goes to plan, having a meal out with my trans girlfriends there, like in the old days. After that I'll be staying with a friend in Sussex for a couple of days. I'm likely to return to my main home in Italy very early in June, travelling by train, this time stopping in Paris.

Quite a complex and wide-ranging itinerary, therefore, with absolute male mode for seeing family, unfortunately, but a more natural feminine focus the rest of the time and some proper girly time with other TGirls.

I'll be posting my adventures as they happen, starting with France. I visited my deposit in London and, as well as collecting various items of clothing, I also picked up all the photos ever taken professionally of me, either by my photographer friend Stella or at the Boudoir Dressing Service in 2004-08. So I'll be able to share more of those.

Slim and hot; it's the way to be!

Sue x

His and hers packing lists

 Thirty years ago I was engaged on a work project in Edinburgh and forgot to pack something vital. I can't remember what it was - a shirt or shoes or something - but it led to a last-minute panic buy. And ever since then I have made a packing list of things to put in my suitcase whenever I leave home.

Obviously, when I started going out en femme, the list became more elaborate, with his and hers items to be included (and a bigger suitcase to match). In the end, I felt confident enough just to pack my female wardrobe and leave his stuff behind altogether. Maybe I'll be able to get back to that one day, health and circumstances permitting, but I'm currently in mixed case mode again, although the change I have made in recent years is that none of my clothes now come from the men's racks, even if I can't present as fully female. I'd prefer to be female all the time but, as I said, health and circumstances are against me.

I live mainly in Italy now but still have a lot of items in Britain so I don't need to pack any skirts or dresses. I'm contemplating whether to buy new makeup in Britain and keep a separate selection for use there rather than lugging my makeup kit there in my suitcase, but makeup doesn't last and I may not get enough chance to use it up before it needs replacing. These things aren't cheap and have limited shelf life, especially things like mascara.

Anyway, my packing lists are always comprehensive and I just cross off items that won't be needed (Sahara? No need for the umbrella, then) and just note how many of each item I'll need before wash day. Some people say I'm too fastidious but I felt vindicated when a girlfriend of mine used to make fun of my lists and only pack her suitcase on the morning of travel, invariably forgetting something crucial. 

I have a complicated itinerary this time and there's a lot to consider, so I'm taking my time to plan and pack.

 

Weight loss

I continue to lose weight slowly. I set a target to lose 50 pounds (22.7 kilograms) by the end of April, i.e. by this time next week. So far I've lost 32 (14.5 kg) and I can see a real difference in my body now. Coupled with consuming zero coffee and very little alcohol and sugar, with careful daily attention to skincare, haircare, epilation and dental health, I think my physical health and wellbeing are improving all the time.

In my favourite London coffee shop, Vergnano's in the Charing Cross Road, in 2010. No more coffee for me from now on! Not to worry, though, as they do an outstanding hot chocolate.

 

Obviously, I won't be able to achieve my target of 50 pounds as planned but achieving even two thirds of that is excellent. It should be easier to get the rest off as summer weather encourages lighter eating and more outdoor activities, although countering that is the fact that the amount you lose each week diminishes the closer you get to a healthy weight. Let's see what happens. Going away now doesn't help because I'll lose some control over what I eat.

When in Britain I'll pick up some of my old summer dresses, the ones that were UK sizes 10-12 (US sizes 6-8) as a promise to myself to slim into them. Like this simple but cute little thing. I'm almost there again.

By the River Thames, London, July 2011. It's supposed to be summer!

Sue x

Travel preparations, and celebrating queer classics

 I'm travelling to Britain at the end of next week and intend to stay for a month, and it's taken quite a bit of planning, hence the silence here. Of course, I used to live in Britain but, having visited twice last year, I now feel pretty alien in such a xenophobic, transphobic, run-down place. Brexit and the extremism that followed killed everything in my life there. But there are residual things for me to complete there so I must go. I shall be spending a lot of time visiting family and friends, too. Sometimes that will be pleasant, like a long weekend with Roz in the Highlands of Scotland; sometimes it may be tense, such as talking to my transphobic sister about her hatred for lugbutts. We'll see how it goes.

I also plan to see some of my old trans girlfriends. It's not easy to organise a meet-up like in the old days since I no longer live in London and will need to have everything packed in a suitcase. I get the feeling that the virulent transphobia in the UK that I read about is mainly directed at the younger generation. I'm not aware of particular attacks on older transwomen. Well, not yet anyway. But it all makes me nervous.

In addition, I hope to see Suki, pen name of the widow of my lovely friend Kate, the anniversary of whose death was yesterday. Suki has always been the kindest of trans allies. I miss Kate so much and I'm crying as I write, which happens every time I think about it, so I hope Suki and I can find solace by seeing each other again. 

 

Frustration

It's been a boring week dealing with accounts and business stuff, too, hence the longer than usual silence here. My attempt last week to get my hair and makeup nice were thwarted by a beautifully warm and sunny weekend that brought people flocking to the seaside and made my rather light and open flat a bit too much of a public viewing gallery. There will be other opportunities.

Commemorating Lord Byron, the queer icon

George Gordon Byron, or Lord Byron, British peer, poet and queer icon, died 200 years ago today whilst on campaign in the Greek War of Independence. He spent a lot of time on the Italian riviera (now the region of Liguria where I live) are there are various commemorative events here today, especially in Genoa where he wrote much of Don Juan, and around the Bay of Poets (or Gulf of La Spezia), where he used to swim the two or three miles of water from one side of the bay to the other. An athletic, aggressive, even wild man, no doubt, with appetites that it's best not to enquire into too closely, but a remarkable poet. 

His satire on the Don Juan legend reverses the classic character and turns him not so much into a seducer but a man easily seduced, one who is at times an opportunist crossdresser, and the details of which hint at Byron himself having enjoyed a frock or two in his time. Try this crossdressing scene from Canto V, lines 609-637, which sounds like a typical trans maid dressing service to me!

And then he swore, and sighing, on he slipped
A pair of trowsers of fleshcoloured silk,
Next with a virgin zone he was equipped,
Which girt a slight Chemise, as white as Milk;
But tugging on his petticoat he tripped,
Which – as we say – or as the Scotch say – Whilk
(The Rhyme obliges me to this; Sometimes
Monarchs are less imperative than Rhymes)

Whilk, Which (or what you please) was owing to
His Garment’s Novelty, and his being awkward;
And yet at last he managed to get through
His toilet, though no doubt a little backward;
The Negro Baba helped a little too,
When some untoward part of raiment stuck hard;
And, wrestling both his arms into a gown,
He paused and took a Survey up and down.

One difficulty still remained: his hair
Was hardly long enough; but Baba found
So many false long tresses all to spare,
That soon his head was most completely crowned,
After the manner then in fashion there;
And this addition with such gems was bound
As suited the Ensemble of his toilet,
While Baba made him comb his head and oil it. 

And now being femininely all arrayed,
With some small aid from Scissors, paint, and tweezers,
He looked in almost all respects a maid,
And Baba smilingly exclaimed, “You see, Sirs,
“A perfect transformation here displayed;

Always remember, dear TERFS and alpha males, that being gender queer is as old as time. Byron's poem is intended as a challenge to your supposedly established order.

Here's a photo of the Bay of Poets I took when looking for a home in 2019.

And the beautiful, dramatic headland at Portovenere on the opposite shore where the jumble of rocks marks what remains of Byron's Cave, where he used to meditate and draw inspiration. It was a cave until the roof collapsed after a storm a few years ago.

 

It's a beautiful part of the world. Other poets and novelists writing in English who lived in this bay are Percy Shelley and his wife Mary Shelley (she of Frankenstein); D.H. Lawrence who lived here in 1913; Virginia Woolf (whose novel Orlando is an LGBT masterpiece); and Baroness Orczy, whose Scarlet Pimpernel character is also an opportunist crossdresser.

Sue x

Working plushie

 I was delighted to receive my Coco Peru doll all the way from Canada. She comes with a glow-in-the-dark alien friend. 

 

I've always liked Coco Peru with her disapproving look and catchphrase "This bothers me". Although she identifies as a drag queen, my T-radar senses there may be a lot more going on with her than mere entertainment. Her shopping trips on YouTube, for example, are enjoyable - just like any TGirl vlogging about Walmart, but with added dry humour. She's touring the UK right now.

Anyway, I now have a bit of modern culture in my own home.

And the glow-in-the-dark alien lives in the bedroom and now gives me the heebie-jeebies if I wake up in the middle of the night.

I never used to have soft toys but a tit-for-tat good luck soft toy exchange with a friend a few years ago spawned four dragons and a cow. The dragons here are not ancient fire-breathing magical creatures who sit upon hoards of gold but modern radiation-spewing jerks who normally guard my ill-tempered printer, my mobile phones and other electronic junk that we have to have these days. Given that this afternoon my banking app failed, my printer wouldn't print and my email was down for maintenance, I am trying to avert a nuclear explosion. Meet Rosa Chernobyl, Skye Fukushima (with bunny), Spike Windscale and Sapphire Threemile.

 We met Raimonda de Ray and the whale last week. They were bought to act as unusual cushions as Raimonda's colours matched the cushions I already had.

Thank you for ideas for a name for the whale. One commentator here suggested Moby, another Marina. Thanks, I shall consider those (along with an unrepeatably crude name from some other person elsewhere).

There's also Cuthbert the Snake who lives in the spare room but he's meant to be a draught excluder.

So no toys here unless they work for their upkeep! I'll have to find a job for Coco now.

 

Weight loss and makeup

I continue to lose weight. Another pound off this past week. It's all good and I can definitely see a difference in my figure.

I hope to have another fully made-up photo session soon. My epilation is good, my nails are good, my brows are tamed and I'm feeling more positive. I think the illness (2022) and death (2023) of my friend Kate, who gave me and others so much encouragement during lockdown, really took its toll, with so many other things, on my wish to look after my appearance. 

One friend has just reminded me of this song, and I certainly don't want to be just a boy named Sue, so makeup is back in my life.

Sue x

Slim, sexy and ... windswept

 Today I reached another milestone in my quest to lose weight: two stone off since November 1st. For those who work in metric, that's 12.7 kg. If I were still in the UK at Slimming World, where my current food optimising plan comes from, I'd get a shiny sticker for the achievement.

This week, I spent two days fully made up and took lots of photos (see previous post for Sunday's). Monday's pictures were of a more contemporary look with silver-grey lace-sleeve top, leather-look leggings, ankle boots and darker hair.

Although very sunny in this outdoor picture, the wind was strong and my hair was really getting blown about most of the time.

I still think I'm beginning to look old :-( ...

... but at least I can see the weight has come off, although there's still a  way to go (or is that a weigh to go?)

This is very much a current look among ladies in later middle age here and I have always been one who believes that blending in with what other women are wearing is best.

I didn't get out in the evening of Transgender Day of Visibility in the end. This is because of a torrential downpour and high winds that soaked my legs the moment I tried to step outside. Although there were high winds and rain/snow all over the Alps over the easter weekend, this was odd in that it came from Africa, bringing sand first, then precipitation. I found this fantastic photo to illustrate it, from Alessandro of Natural Mind Professional taken at Lake Lod at Chamois in the Italian Alps, north of where I live. The red layers of Saharan dust were blown in on March 30th and the snow on top fell on Sunday 31st. That translated to the rain where I was.

I was supposed to go away in the second half of this week but that plan fell through so I'll be getting my nail polish back on and trying out a few new outfits over the next few days. I hope there'll be more photos, too, as it's been a very long while since I was last willing or able to take some.

 

Feedspot

Thanks to Feedspot for continuing to feature and promote this blog among its Top Transwoman and Top Transgender blog lists, and for recently updating some of the info. 

Do check out some of the other excellent blogs they recommend:

Top Transwoman blogs 

Top Transgender blogs

Sue x