Sparkling lights

So, Sparkle, it happened, woo hoo. I was proud to be there and be a small part of it all. Pip and I arrived mid-afternoon on Saturday, had a wander round and a coffee in Via Fosse whilst watching the world go by. A world apparently made up of mostly t-girls. I’ve never seen so many girls out in daylight, wonderful. It was a lovely atmosphere, families with children happily mingling amongst girls of all shapes and sizes, with no-one being gawked at. I saw a couple of obvious admirers who looked as though they had died and gone to heaven, hardly knowing where to look.

This is how the world should be, transgendered people openly on the street, without them or anyone else being bothered about it. In years to come that’s how it will be, it will happen, but only if we make it. This event is a start, it may not have much impact in itself but I hope that out of it will grow more and more public awareness of our plight, and a better understanding of the wide and colourful transgender spectrum. Hiding in the dark will change nothing.

I struggled to put my make up on in the evening, having hurt my hand when we arrived at the hotel. My rather heavy shoulder bag slipped off and almost took one of my fingers with it as it thumped to the floor. It hurt like hell, thought I might have broken it at first. If elephants had fingers this is what they would look like. Horrible. I cried.

So, I could barely hold a pencil, couldn’t get my lippy even, lip-liner all wonky, eyes a mess, but it had to do. We finally got out the hotel and did the now familiar short walk to Canal Street. It wasn’t long before we’d met all the Trannyweb crowd, first time I’d met Clair and Anna-marie, a long time since we’d seen JJ, Chris, Fay, Kendra and Sammy, and not so long since we'd seen Cerys and Shan. Lovely to see you all, girls. After a couple of refreshing drinks we went wandering. Saw a bit of the band Elephant Shelf, who were very competent and sounded good, but only served to remind me of my elephant finger. I wasn’t in the mood for rhythm and blues, two 12-bars and that was enough for me. But as musicians it was our duty to check them out, and 2 of the band were trannies too, so they had to be worth a look.

Anyway we wandered in and out of a few more places, ending up at Taurus with Shan, which was nice and quiet, so we sat and drank and got very silly, like we do.

After a nightcap in the hotel bar Pip and I went up to our room, took our first pics of the evening, bit late really when we’re all smudged and sozzled, but we had to have some record of the evening. We stood and held each other by the window, naked in the gentle evening breeze, looking out at the lights, our little corner of the city. It was very romantic, Paris would have been better, but it was lovely just the same.

The window didn’t close (again) and the trams woke us up at 5am, but it was lovely to be there on a special day, with my special person. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

xx