A Stroll By The Canal

Off work this week, and it’s been reasonably hectic so far, which is why I haven’t got round to blogging recently. Of course the highlight of the week was Tuesday in Manchester, out with Cathy & Pippa. I’m sure most of you will have seen the pics and read the account in Life of Catherine, some of you may even have the T-shirt, so I won’t go into too much detail, much as I love doing so. Suffice to say it was utterly wonderful to be out dressed. Once again as soon as my foot touched the pavement I was instantly transported to a heavenly place, no, not Canal Street, a place within my soul filled with beauty. Complete and content and ridiculously happy. In contrast to the Edinburgh experience, (late, dark, straight into a taxi) we opened the door to a crowd of people opoosite, drinking & mingling by the canal, on a lovely warm sunny evening. The last thing Cathy said to me before we went out was, "there’s a lot of people out there, they may stare", well, lots of people? Goody! Look at me everyone! Only a few hundred scotttish people have seen me really being myself, so stare, gawp, laugh, whatever you want, I will be smiling back, as Lucy usually does. Mancunians are perhaps less reserved than Edinburghians (?) so later on in the evening we did come across one or two people (drunken blokes actually) who seemed to find amusement in three girls having a night out. I smiled at them of course. I felt no bad feeling towards them, or myself; I no longer have any reason for feeling inadequate as a person. I may still wish that physical characteristics could be improved, but I feel whole inside of me. I think we were probably more noticed than we were in Edinburgh, but it doesn’t really matter to me either way, quiet or busy, dark or light, noticed or not, I’m doing this beacause this is me.

Statistically speaking though (there I go again…) more people seemed either polite, unperturbed, or perfectly accepting towards three girls having a night out, than the few who found it amusing. Which is reassuring, but only from an amateur psychologist’s point of view. Of course we were in The Village, so the study may have been biased in our favour. Well, it felt like a nice place to be, and with two completely lovely friends, what more can a girl ask?

More of this please!