Another effort at keeping a blog!

Okay -here goes!

September 2025 -This is another effort to keep a blog.

I'm not going to try for anything amazing.  I'll just quickly skip though the year to date. 

January: It was cold but I wanted to look hot!

February: The days were getting longer!

March: And we're into Spring and wearing retro dresses and petticoats!

April: Sunnier Days!

May: Trip to Trim!

 

 

June: Back to the Secret Garden

July: Trim Again

August: Answering the door!

September 2021 to September 2022

Another attempt to be a good blogger -we'll see what happens!

I've been busy on the going out and about front

September 2021 saw me up with Debbie for the first time. 

 2018

Let's see what happened in 2018! 

January

It seems I went to the pub -again- and posed with a rose

February

It snowed!

March

A visit to the seaside with Penny -in a gale- followed by a visit to church to confess our many sins.

April

Another visit to the pub and some more posing.

May

Nikki Kent came to visit and we had some fun times.

 

  

 2021

Where have I been?  It would seem I haven't been blogging.  Perhaps I am not cut out to be a blogger.  I shall give it one last try.

Let's go back to 2017 and attempt a catch up!

In January, I had a visit from the Sexy Minx -Miss Penny Diamond- and we chatted and drank some wine.

In February, I was busy on the creative side. I did my best Sophia Loren impression.  I tried to look sexy in black lingerie.  I went to the beach in freezing February weather.

In March, I went to the pub -twice.

April was a quiet month on the going out front.  I dressed at home.

For May, I went a little Victorian. 

In June, Penny came to visit and we headed out for lunch. I also did my best Rachel Green impression.

 

July was a busy month.  I went to the Planetarium in County Armagh to meet a spaceman.  That was fun.  Then I went to Sparkle again.  That was not fun.

August was another quiet month so I posed on the sofa with clothes on and with clothes off. 

I went out in September and I posed in September.

October was a stay at home month and I modelled a dress I bought for Christmas.

.

November came around after October as it usually does and it seems I went out only once that month.

December saw the year come to a close and I saw it out with a glass of wine.

Has a year really gone by!

It seems that it is just over one year ago that I last posted to this Blog. That's not very good! I must -and I shall- do better.

So what did happen in the past 12 months. 

What have I been doing?

Gosh, can it really be so long since I posted on this Blog?  Apparently, Yes, it is!

I won't bore you with all that I've done, not done and wished that I'd done but instead I'll focus on my visit to Sparkle in the Summer in July.

Sparkle takes place in the Trans-friendly city of Manchester (UK) on the first or second weekend in July each year.  It is billed as a major TG event and over time the number of girls attending has increased significantly.  While there are a few organised events that take place in a local park it is not so much about those events as the opportunity to meet up with friends while strolling around what the locals call the Gay Village.

I went to Sparkle in 2013 but the UK and Ireland had a very unexpected heatwave and I found it difficult enough to breathe let alone dress.  This year I decided to go again -on the basis that one heatwave in a decade is all you can expect in the British Isles.

I saw it as an opportunity to meet up with some (Flickr) friends and so it proved.

We arrived too late on Thursday for me to dress and that annoyed me but then I'm easily annoyed.

On Friday night, I went to a Vanity Club dinner –yes, you read that correctly!  I am not a member of VC but I was kindly invited to dinner by two of its members.  It was an enjoyable experience –Jaimie Pearl, Amanda Parnell and Emma Ross were in attendance and they, like the rest of the attendees, were gorgeously glamorous.

Later that night, I met someone that I have admired for a long time –none other than Princess Helen Turner and she really is a Beautiful Princess.  Earlier in the evening, I met the delightful duo of Kelly Helm and Erin Julia but we sadly didn't have time to chat for long.

On Saturday, Jaimie Pearl and I met the Karen Joanne Smith for lunch and we basically hung around together for the rest of the day chatting about everything and nothing and enjoying the sights.  I should mention that it rained most of the day so every TGirl not only had the obligatory camera but also the essential umbrella.  Definitely no heatwave this year!

On Sunday, I met Jaimie and her lovely friend Trixie for dinner.

Now, by this stage, you are probably yawning and wondering what all the fuss is about Sparkle (assuming, of course, that you ever heard of Sparkle in the first place).  As I said earlier, Sparkle no longer means anything concrete.  It’s a flag of convenience for TGirls to come to Manchester and have a good time (unless they meet me, of course).  However, from what I saw, a good time will only be had if you already know other girls who are attending.  It’s not a place to come to make new friends and I saw many girls sitting forlornly on their own which was very sad.  It made me question the alleged "community" element again.  

In truth, it’s actually much more fun to amble around Manchester itself rather than confine oneself to the Village and the TG scene.  That probably makes me sound rather elitist which I'm not or at least I hope I'm not.  It's just that the Village does seem a little limiting.

I’ve re-read the above and wondered if I could add some more positive spin to the narrative.  The answer is No.   Sparkle is a safe place to meet friends if you already have  them –nothing else. Obviously, the Manchester Tourist Board won’t be asking me to open next year’s Sparkle but I, like so many others, will go back to meet friends and that reality will ensure that Sparkle continues.

Exploring themes of femininity

I like to explore themes of femininity and aspects of womanhood.  In doing so, I love to venture outside the box of conventional wisdom.  With seven billion people on the planet, one would think that trying to fit everyone neatly and conveniently into two gender categories would be seen as unduly diversity restrictive.  On the other, some might think two genders an unnecessary luxury borne of self indulgence.  After all, too many religions has caused nothing but trouble throughout history.  

A single gender world might also prove a welcome cure for that most troubling of societal evils: namely, transgenderism -where the individuals involved are not content to be one gender but have the impertinence to want to express both and be accepted for it!

Would transgenderism exist if there was only one gender?  We could still have the two biological sexes but the sociological construct that is gender would be reformulated to remove the wasteful distinctions between masculine and feminine.

No more pink for girls and blue for boys: but yellow for everyone.  Skirts and trousers would be abolished to be replaced by something inspired by Amelia Bloomer but not so pretty.  Names would be gender neutral: Ron and Rita would be Ronita (to ensure parity of esteem for the previous names) and Frances and Francis would be no longer be differentiated by the "i" and the "e" but brought together by the "o".  All nurses would wear scrubs......hang on -they already do.

Would it work?  Probably, if it was done with sufficient vigour by a sufficient number of zealots and never underestimate the number of zealots ready to pursue a noble cause or any cause for that matter.  However, the world would be a poorer place because the positives of gender diversity that bring colour to life would be swallowed up in the shallowness of a new uniformity that somehow seems eerily similar to the philosophies of 1984.

Until that day, then, when everyone is equal with perhaps some more equal than others (and I know that I am moving between Orwell books), here's some photos of me being gender diverse in fun way that will make the uniformists mad -well. madder than they already are!!!