A maid in the parlour, a whore in the kitchen, no hang on that's not right...

It’s been a very, very, VERY long time since I had a dinner party, well I mean more than one friend round to dinner at any one time, but tonight I broke the deadlock. Ann, Chris and Liz came round, that’s my friend, the singer I worked with for 25 years in various bands, and his wife – my hairdresser. It’s been really lovely and I just want to do it again. For the foodies amongst you I cooked roasted fillet of beef with a white wine and cassis sauce, new potatoes, steamed chantennay carrots, and green beans in garlic butter. Now if any of you English people have been watching the new series of Masterchef on telly, you may be wondering if there could possibly be any "marriage" in that combination. Bloody food snobs, trust me, it worked, a marriage made in heaven in fact. Yum.

Liz had told her mum about me, as I’ve been to their house several times recently and her mum often pops in, and her very straight, teetotal and somewhat old-fashioned mum was fine with it. Liz gave her mum my number tonight as she was babysitting and her mum had asked who she should ask for if she needed to phone, ie "Fred" or Lucy, no, she should ask for LIZ or CHRIS…!

Anyway it really has been lovely to have such wonderful friends round, ones who offer so much support and love, amazing really. Very nice people.

I used to have various friends round for dinner or whatever quite often, but I think I stopped wanting to because it meant being in drab all night, and pretending to be the bloke that they thought they knew. It wasn’t a conscious decision, just some kind of evolution, which I was hardly aware of in fact. Maybe that’s why I stopped wanting to have girlfriends. From the age of 12 or 13, until I was 30ish, I always felt I ought to be with someone, didn’t feel complete on my own. I see that trait still in my brother and my dad, but no longer in myself, or my mum for that matter. Without wishing to appear holier than thou or anyone else, I think I see both sides of the coin, I know why people feel like that, but for me personally it seems like an invisible trap I have escaped from. At one time some of my friends and family put my chosen solitude solely down to the sad experience of my wife leaving, you know the sort of cliché – wants to avoid being hurt again, or whatever. It wasn’t like that, not at all. I’ve had to remind my family in fact that I did have several girlfriends after my wife, one who lasted about a year, I think some people have selective memories to justify their own amateur psychology. Bah, I could teach them a thing or two…

That last girlfriend I wish I could see again, to explain properly why I finished with her, because she was the only girl I ever finished with. I really liked her, but I was changing then, and it was more like she was a girlfriend in the sense of, girly mate; I wanted to be her equal. I wasn’t totally aware of how I was changing, though I wasn’t totally oblivious to it either. It was just getting to be impractical, and frankly, a nuisance having to hide all my clothes and so on every time she came round. I guess I was starting to find a new kind of freedom; the freedom of being myself, though nothing compared to what I have since discovered about myself.

So have I come full circle? Er, no. But I’m in a relationship again? Well yes but it’s different, I wasn’t looking for it and it’s with a man for a start off. But I thought you were…? Straight, yes I know, so did I, but then again, I have been wondering about that for 20 years or more. So you are… er…? Yes I would say I’m bisexual, which kind of makes it easier when people ask me about my sexuality; that really does seem to get people in a bit of a fuddle ("so if you like girls then you’re a lesbian, and if you like guys then you’re gay, I mean a straight woman, I mean… what do I mean?")

What they don’t realise they are trying to say is that I love people for who they are, not for what they are. One could say I’m not fussy, but that would be frivolous, and most of my friends would seriously disagree with that statement! (I like things to be "just so", nothing else will do).

I seem to have digressed, talking about sex like Basil Fawlty…

One thing that came up tonight… (that was YOU with the double entendres, not me), was why don’t we old fogies have parties any more? Well, we are too old, we are fogies, and well, why should we? All valid points. Something big on my mind, and growing all the time (you’re doing it again), is quite how I deal with coming out. I thought I was forming a plan in my head, a little vague, but conceptually plan-esque, but tonight I suddenly seemed to come out with the idea of having a coming out party. The room erupted, apparently it was a good idea. Quite the opposite to the vague ideas I’ve so far had about so and so telling so and so, and if I meet people in the street then that’s one way for them to find out. So maybe I’ll do that, hey I could do with a good party, and there are people out there who need educating. Besides there’s nothing like the feel-good factor for making people, er, feel good. (Sybil Fawlty, chosen subject, the bleedin’ obvious).

Quoting Fawlty Towers must mean it’s late and/or I’m waffling (I do it so well, don’t you think?)

So to bed… to sleep, perchance to dream. That was the Mrs Peignoir episode, now there’s a name! Surely there must be a Ms Peignoir on Trannyweb? Well there ought to be.

Nighty night everyone.

xx

(Yes I know Shakespeare wrote it originally, but who was funnier, him or Cleese? Answers on a postcard please. For me, no contest, verily, in sooth… blergghh).