Burying a demon

Last evening I was able to call closure on an incident that had been on my mind for a few years.

About 9-10 years go, I went for an evening stroll in my home town. I was wearing a dark coat, black skirt and boots, trying to blend in as a woman on the way home from work. Probably the makeup wasn't too brilliant in those days, but I thought I was doing ok, until I came across a group of teenagers in town playing on their skateboards. As I crossed the road at the traffic lights, I heard one say 'That's a bloke', and then as I continued walking past, there was a 'Hey, mister'. This freaked me. I carried on, ignoring them, but had this thought of 5-6 of them following me and pestering me up the road. What would I do? I was in heels, and couldn't walk off quickly. It hadn't happened before, as I'd rarely been outside of the house in those days. There was nowhere to go, as the shops had closed. But as it happened, they didn't follow. It was more important for them to play on their skateboards, rather than bother a tranny. Perspective.

Fast forward to last night. Brown mac, dark trousers, and heels.

I'd popped in to the charity shop in town at 5pm, dropping off some of Bob's clothes. He doesn't need so many now. After that I had an appointment with Rox at the Beauty Clinic. All very cosy, and some friendly teasing with the boss. I left there about 6, and crossed the road, to the place I'd been those years ago, which I recalled. As I got to more or less the same spot, 2 women approached me, and asked for directions to a local bar they were looking for. We talked for about a minute or so, and they went. Total acceptance.

Then, 3 teenagers appeared, on bikes, messing around. Almost deja-vu. They didn't even stop what they were doing, and I walked on by.

Closure, and a happy bunny!

Are you a professional drag queen?

I was in London a few weeks back accompanying Sarah to her appointment at Charing Cross. We drove down for the day for the 4pm appointment, so had a leisurely natter in the car on the way down. Another first for me, taking a comfort break at Oxford Services on the M40. As it was lunch-time, it was like land of the giants in the ladies loo, as there was a coach party of pensioners arriving at the same time as us! All these little old ladies getting under my feet….

We got in to London with an hour to spare so took a Christmas Starbucks across the road. Then at the clinic Sarah went in for her appointment, whilst I chatted to the 2 lovely Aussie receptionists. Afterwards we headed for the shops at Westfield and had a meal in the up-market food hall. It was a great experience! The mall wasn’t all open yet, so the place looked a bit incomplete, with most people just browsing. We found the MAC store, and the first person I saw in there was Ann who had just moved down from the branch at Selfridges in the T Centre. She gave me a mini makeover and a few tips; it was lovely to see a familiar face. After that we headed for the west end for a bit of a stroll. We went to see the ice skaters at Somerset House, and walked over to Covent Garden, but it was a bit quiet. We had a coffee in Charing Cross Road before heading back to the car. On the way back along the road I got stopped by a blonde (seems a familiar story this) called Samara who was convinced we’d met at a party a few months ago in London, she just wouldn’t accept that I’d never met her before, and wanted to show me the photo of us, before realising she didn’t have her camera with her. Eventually she accepted that she was mistaken, and as we chatted generally, asked me ‘Are you a professional drag queen?!’ I still have absolutely no idea how to take that! She was a lovely girl, and we swapped contact details, but I never got a reply!

Sarah and I chatted all the way in the car back to Cheadle, where I met her father. What a lovely, sweet man! In his 80’s, and he wanted to make us tea at 3 in the morning! It was a great day out.

The Trafford Centre

When I think back to 2 years ago, when I had by first escorted shopping trip to Meadowhall, to nowadays, when I‘m happy to go over shopping to the Trafford Centre on my own, it‘s been quite a journey. In fact, I‘ve been to the T-Centre shopping almost every week in the last 2 months, and also an occasional little venture to Cheshire Oaks, to look and try on a few outfits from my favourite stores.

Nowadays, I really enjoy shopping, and find it’s fun to go into the stores, and be remembered by the staff, and having a chat with them. Last week I went into M&S to find a pair of shoes, but I wasn’t keen on what they had, and everything I tried on didn’t fit. Still it gave me the chance to have a browse in the lingerie area, and stock up with a few essentials. Later on I tried Evans, for their jewellery, and tried on a few of their shoes. I bought a lovely pair of patent black courts, with the heels just a bit shorter than the 4” ones I always wear, for wearing with my trousers.

I had a lovely chat with Emmalee on the MAC counter, who treated me to a mini-makeover, and got me to try the Studio Fix foundation, instead of the Full Cover, which I’ve always used until then. The reason being also is that I’m now using the SuperCover Blue Concealer, which I thinks works far better than the Grimas which I’ve used until now.

The Selfridges Party

Becks, Jane and I had arranged to go over to the Selfridges 10th Birthday Party at the Trafford Centre, early last month. Apparently they were selling 800 tickets, and it was all taking place in the make up area, with free food and drink thrown in, plus a lovely goody bag at the end.

We had a fun time, strolling around and talking to the girls on the various counters, and entering a few competitions as well. Some of the other shoppers in there were also very friendly and chatted with us. There were 1 or 2 double takes, but by and large, it was a lovely and friendly atmosphere, with hardly any blokes in there, as you’d expect, really. The MAC girls looked after us really well, and we all had a mini-eye makeover done by Melyssia, who’s a lovely and friendly babe. I bought some lovely eye shadows from them for the party season.

We must have stayed there until about 11pm, and it had really emptied out by that time, but we’d had such a lovely experience, and made some new friends on the counters.

Belated Happy Birthday Mrs K!

We had a lovely meal and evening out at Velvet in Manchester a few Saturdays ago, to celebrate Mrs K’s birthday!
Velvet was great as usual; not too busy at 8pm, but later on filled up, but that was where it lets itself down, as the service becomes very slow. The food was excellent, the pudding was fab, and the company was greater! I had one surreal moment in the loo’s, when a gorgeous blonde in a lbd came out of one of the cubicles, and we started chatting, as we ‘powdered’. She was very friendly, and even shared some of her Agent Provocateur with me. I know what I want for Christmas now!

Supercover model for a day!

Quite a while ago TJ had asked me to think about being her makeup model, for a course that she had recently booked on the Wirral. About 3 seconds later, I said that I’d like to give it a try.

It was a 2 day course, and I was free on those days. In the end I was only needed on the 2nd day, but what a great day last week it turned out to be!

There were 5 girls on the course in total, plus their 5 models. I was anxious to know what to wear on the day, and TJ had advised that they were all in jeans on the first day, so in the end I thought I’d be more comfortable in my combat trousers, ugg boots, and long top. I don't think I had the chance to get nervous as we got there, as it was too late by then to back out. Once the morning got going, there was a display by the tutor, and I think I noticed one or 2 in the room looking over, but I was cool about it. TJ took my own make up off, and the look they were first going for was a glam/smokey eyes look, which I was very impressed with. By this time it had got to lunchtime, where they'd prepared a small buffet for us. It gave me the chance to mingle and chat with others.

One of the delegates asked me, 'How did you get the job?' I just said that I wasn't press-ganged into it! It also gave me the chance to talk and explain to them about things-t. And, a few of them got quite interested.

After lunch, the next challenge was to achieve an extreme catwalk model look. TJ had her own ideas on this (picture a drag queen version of Gene Simmons from KISS!), suffice to say that I'll never be seen on Canal Street, or anywhere else, looking like that again! Some of the other model looks were absolutely stunning.

We later had a play around enhancing a cleavage (well, mine in particular!) by shading, and that was really impressive. I was quite pleased with the end result.

When that was finished I took the chance to have a walk around the studio to chat to the other stylists and models, who were by now quite friendly and chatty.

Finally, TJ prepared me for an evening look, as I was going out later, and by the end of the night I was very impressed with how the foundation had lasted.

One final point about the makeup itself. For the last 2 years I've been using Grimas beard cover, and then MAC full cover foundation. The course tutor did explain to me that the Grimas product was about 10 years old, and that it was now old 'technology'. After using his product all day, I can truly recommend and endorse the new foundation and beard cover, and I’ve ordered mine from TJ already!

Only a tranny...

A few weeks ago, I was over in Germany for a few days with work, and had the opportunity of meeting up with my sis for a few days, and evenings. It gave me the chance to view the scene over there, which turned out to be a bit different to what I usually see back home.

On Friday night we were over in Mannheim, for a lovely Indian meal at a friend’s house, and then over to a ‘fetish pub’ in Mannheim; shame when you have to get glammed up, and then go in to a smokey bar (Germany still has them) so that your clothes stink of smoke afterwards. Still, it gave me the chance to speak to a few t‘s in there, dressed, and in ‘bob’ mode. I didn’t discover what the German equivalent of ‘bob’ was, maybe ‘Fritz’ or ‘Helmut‘, or similar. From what I could tell, the scene isn’t as developed or ‘mainstream’ as what it is over here.

Late on Saturday night we went to the Grande Opera event in Offenbach; a rather classy bdsm event in a club, which I thought was very impressive. At the other end of the scale from Nap’s, for example. I’ve never been faced (!) by nude slaves before, nor absolutely gorgeous blondes wearing the most revealing of outfits; it was very much of an eye-opener, and as one of very few t’s there, I felt rather under-dressed in my best burlesque outfit, with black lacy skirt, highest heels, and tight corset. The venue had a lovely setting, with the entrance being though an old courtyard, and made a great background to the photos we took at the end of the night, which I’ve added to Flickr.

Included in the entry ticket was a food buffet, so towards the end of the evening, we settled on trying a bowl of their finest goulash soup. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the naked male slaves swinging his way past my table, where we were eating. I kind of gave him a stare along the lines of ‘Oi Helmut! Mind where you’re shaking that thing. I’m trying to eat my goulash.’

A fantastic all-round experience, and I look forward to going back to see one of their future events!

Another funny moment that had us in stitches afterwards, was on the way to Offenbach, sis had lost the piece of paper with the address on, in the car. We were on the autobahn at this time, so I suggested we pull over in one of those wooded lay-bys that they have on the continent. What surprised me were the number of cars parked there, at about half past midnight. Then in the headlights we saw 1-2 men scurrying across the road, and another guy coming out of the woods. So anyway we parked up at the far end, and stopped and put the interior light on to look for the paper. We found what we had lost very quickly, but when sis looked up in the rear mirror, she could see a silhouette of all these guys walking towards our car! She then said ‘S**t! I think this is that do**ing lay-by! Let’s get out of here quick!’ So we razzed out of the lay-by as quickly as we could!