New Year

Quite a bit has happened recently so I feel the need to document it before I forget all about it...

Parents
With the snow making travel impossible for them over Christmas, my parents arrived on Wednesday to celebrate a belated Christmas with us.
Things got off to a very nice start when my parents presented me with a necklace once owned by great grandma Jenny (who my middle name is taken from) and some photos so I knew what she looked like. I was very touched by this gesture. Thanks mum and dad! xxx
Then, having missed the first day of Christmas, we swapped pressies on the last day of Christmas - Thursday (which, apparently, is a Spanish tradition). I got some perfume, a M&S token, and lots of stocking fillers. John got stocking fillers plus some Thornton's chocolates and a Sainsbury's token.
My parents also accompanied me to my laser session on Friday but only so they could have a look around Bury for old times sake! On the way there it started snowing and I had visions of us having to spend the weekend in Bury - which would've been just typical considering the trouble the snow had already caused us! - but it soon passed and we were able to return home to the safe and warm. :-)
Then yesterday we had our Christmas dinner - roast venison in a wine and redcurrant sauce with veg (sprouts obligatory of course!) and Christmas pud and rum sauce to follow. It was absolutely scrummy and well worth the two week wait... even though I had to cook it all myself! (With John's supervision)
They've returned home today, though, and I had to go to work before they were up so we said our farewells last night. Ah well, it was fun whilst it lasted!

TREC
On Saturday I was given a lift to TREC by my good friend, Jayne. Things seem to be very up in the air with TREC at the moment and I think it's beginning to have a knock-on effect as only a handful of us were there on Saturday.
The schedule wasn't entirely inspiring either so I only really fancied the music group and, here again, the 'leader' of the group was only given two days notice so she wasn't really able to prepare properly. However, she did an admirable job I think as I enjoyed it quite a bit. For the lesson itself, we stuck to the basics and just got used to making music together and being in time with the beat. It's the first time I've ever done anything like that - despite all the music I've made on the computer - so I found it very valuable. And the silliness of the session also made it good fun! :-)
However, neither Jayne nor I fancied anything on the afternoon schedule so we went shopping. First stop though was Wagamama (a Japanese restaurant) for lunch. I had chicken raman (I think it's called!) which was chicken and noodles in a soup base and Jayne ordered some duck pastries and crispy prawns (the proper names escape me!) as sides. It was all very delicious! I was also able to practice my chopstick skills some more and I think I'm beginning to get the hang of them now! :-)
Then we went shopping and made our way through the Arndale taking in M&S, River Island and New Look (amongst others) before finding it too stuffy and making our way out to the high street for some fresh air... where we took in H&M, Schuh and Primark (amongst even more!). I had to give up on looking for a new jacket though as I couldn't find a size big enough to go around my middle... and when even a size 20 doesn't fit then it really is time to give up!
After that we retired to Taurus for a drink and supper - chicken in a basket for me, chicken piri piri sarnie for Jayne - and then around to Via for another drink before calling it a night.
On arriving home, Jayne popped in for a coffee (note to self: must learn social norms in regard to inviting people in for coffee!) and then my parents arrived back from a day visiting my aunt and so we all had a jolly good chin wag before Jayne returned home.
So, all in all, it was another jolly good day out! :-)

Transition
I think, on the whole, my transition has been progressing well. There are, though, some difficulties and these are they...
I've found I'm being accepted as female (i.e. not as a 'tranny') more and more these days. The first notable one was when I went to pay at the car park in town and the second was when I paid the toll for the Mersey tunnel.
Being me, I looked for reasons as to why this might've happened and, as both the car park and tunnel attendants were in kiosks, I put it down to the fact that they couldn't see properly because of the kiosk! But then I was paying for the groceries at the supermarket and the assistant there accepted me as female and then another time at the checkouts the person behind accepted me as female and even called me "flower"! It quite made my day (on all occasions) but now I find I'm terrified of prolonging contact afterwards for fear they suddenly go "Oh, crap! You're a bloke!". It's my problem obviously but as to what I do to get over it, hmmm... it might take some time!
Another fly in the ointment is my name - or, rather, being called the wrong name and/or gender. I'm not gonna berate anyone for not trying - because they do try! - but people get it wrong too often for my liking. It's not deliberate, so for that I should be grateful, but it is depressing when you're trying to transition to have the rug regularly pulled out from under you by people getting it wrong.
Then there is the subject of my voice and "deportment". This is a big hindrance to my confidence and a factor in my fear of conversation with the public (particularly when they're being nice to me!). As much as I might think I am female and look like a female, what comes out my mouth aint female! And 'body language' is another factor. It's a lot to relearn so that I fit in and don't feel so blokey. Thankfully, though, I shall begin lessons in these subjects as of next week courtesy of the NHS (one of the few decent things I've got out of them recently!) so maybe I'll start to improve and not feel like a turd on the carpet.
The biggest hindrance to my transition, though, is my referral to a GIC. This has been because of the incompetence of the doctor handling my case and so I was forced to make a complaint before Christmas. Thankfully, it had the desired effect and the doctor has taken his finger out his bottom and actually made a start on the paperwork. However, I am still in his hands and the referral has, as far as I'm aware, yet to happen. Thusly, I shall be chasing this again now that people should be back at work after the Christmas break and I'll hopefully get the help I need.

Gremlins

Thanks to a recommendation from a Facebook friend, the book I am currently reading is called Taming Your Gremlin. It's about how to tame that inner voice - the gremlin - that constantly tells us how crap we are and makes us feel miserable and useless. I've not read very much of it so far, and I'm having to take it slowly so that I absorb it properly, but already I can feel it helping and now, when I feel my gremlin getting at me, I say to myself "Hello Gremlin!" and, even if it does sound daft, it does help. :-)
The book also suggests personalising your gremlin and I envision mine to look like a miniature version of the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang but with a personality of a drill instructor on and on at me all the time! Totally relentless!! I also believe it to be totally paranoid and maxed out on caffeine so that it's constantly telling me to wake up and be alert and not miss a single beat that is happening anywhere! Which could explain why I have such difficulty concentrating on just one thing - especially if it's people talking - and why I find doing nothing almost impossible! I become distracted very easily. And it could also explain why I'm always tired (though the hours I work might also have something to do with that!).
Fortunately, the book has given me a couple of techniques on how to 'centre' myself so that I'm in the here and now which has also made me realise that I don't think I've been in the here and now for a very long time! It really does feel like a very new experience for me! I've been able to enjoy some simple pleasures such as feeling my fingers or hearing just the one conversation. Doing so has brought new feelings of relaxation and joy to me which can only be a good thing!
But I'll tell you the best thing - in just four chapters I've realised the following truth...
I always knew I didn't care too much for people's opinions and that is why I was able to transition with a certain amount of lack of concern. But, sadly, the overriding emotion was a negative one. It wasn't because I liked myself no matter what anyone else thought - it was because I didn't like myself regardless of what anyone else thought! So if someone liked me, I would overrule them! I didn't believe I was someone to be liked!
So I ended up asking myself the following question:
"What is there to dislike?"
And my gremlin popped in with the response "Because you're useless!" but, because of what I'd read in the book, I was able to recognise this for what it was - a total lie! I am not useless!
And so my honest, heartfelt, answer to the question (after weeding out the gremlin's interference) "What is there to dislike?" is...
"I don't know. I'm not sure there is anything to really dislike."
Not a bad note to end on, don't you think? ;-)

I Don't Like Mondays... Or Wednesdays... But Fridays And Saturdays Are Quite Fun!

My week didn't start very well on Monday. I arrived at work only to discover I'd forgot my pass so couldn't drive into the car park (where I have a reserved space no less!) and park. So I went to one of the other ones and phoned into the office. My boss answered and told me by stroke of good fortune that my brand new shiney pass was ready and all I had to do was go up to security and pick it up and problem solved! So I went and collected it, hopped back in the car and drove around to the main gate again... only to discover that my pass wasn't activated yet!!
So I went and parked up and walked in where I bumped into one of the security men who'd seen my car on the CCTV and gone to investigate. So he promised to let me in if I drove back up to the gate again - which he did.
But my pass still wasn't activated and so I had to borrow Chris's pass when I went to breakfast for my teacake from our lovely new canteen (which is self-service for breakfast). My teacake then proceeded to get stuck in the toaster and smoke was pouring out and everything and every time I tried to prod it out it just crumbled! So I had one rather burnt teacake for my breakfast!!
Then just as I thought I'd had my fair share of bad luck for the day I was forced to remember that bad luck always comes in threes when one of the big wigs came in and informed me that I'd let the MEN go with the wrong "slug" on it so it said the "Main" edition instead of the "Home"! So that was several thousand copies down the pan!
And I'd only been at work three hours!! What a day!
Thankfully Tuesday went uneventfully - or "boring", depending on your perspective - and so did Wednesday... until I got home and realised I'd left my phone and wallet at work! And of course I couldn't ring the office or any of my work colleagues cos the numbers were in my phone! So I tried ringing the switchboard but just got a recorded message to ring after 9am which was a fat lot of good! So I tried ringing my mobile in hope that someone would answer it so I could tell them to put it somewhere safe until the morning but no one answered it so that was useless too! So I then tried contacting the wife of one of my colleagues via Facebook in hope she'd read it and get him to give me the office's number or phone in himself but she obviously didn't go online that night so that failed too!
So I had no other option but to chance my fate and hope it'd still be there in the morning. And thankfully it was! Phew!
The rest of Thursday was rather uneventful - or "boring" etc... but on Friday John and I went shopping (once John had finally got his act together - he's really not well, the poor man!) at The Trafford Centre.
We were looking for a Christmas cake with royal icing and plenty of alcohol in it - not as easy as you might think! I'd already looked in Morrison's and Tesco's and turned out empty handed so I'm now resulting to looking in places like Marks & Sparks (no good), John Lewis (one very expensive cake) and Selfridges (also just the one very expensive cake). So next stop will be Sainsbury's and if we don't find one there I think we're just gonna have to go without cos I'm out of ideas! It's only fattening anyway and I don't need fattening up any further that's for sure!
One thing I did manage to find at M&S though was a nice cardi which will keep me nice and snug this winter! :-)
We also had a look for Christmas cakes in BHS but that was hopeless too and John didn't have any luck finding himself a dressing gown there either but I did manage to find two long sleeve tops and a new pair of slippers which John very kindly treated me to! :-)
So that was Friday.

The lovely Judith and I. © Jayne

On Saturday I went to TREC (picking Jayne, Gwen and Gillian up along the way) where I started off joining in the self-defence lesson given by Gavin. It was very useful and certainly an interesting experience being strangled and so on. :-) Then, after that, we went to the Samsi for lunch where I treated myself to a luxury o bento of karage chicken, teryaki salmon and mixed tempura. It was lovely and I shall definitely remember to have it again! I also got a bit better at using chop sticks which was an added bonus! :-)
Then, after lunch, Jayne and I had hoped to join Penny for her beauty workshop but she'd cut it short to join in with the party (it was TREC's 1st birthday) so we had a look in at the party as well but it wasn't to our taste so we went shopping.
First port of call was a shop I'd seen in the paper which I'd liked the concept of - it takes second hand clothing and redesigns them before flogging them back to the general public - but sadly it lived up to it's name, The Junk Shop, a little more than I'd hoped for!
So then we went around to Afflecks Palace for a browse where I bought myself a bracelet and then we wandered into the Arndale Centre but we didn't do much more than drop our jaws at the ridiculous prices of things!
So then it was time for tea and so we joined the others at The Shang Hi as usual but, when we got there, there was no room to be seen at the table so we went and found a table by ourselves which seemed to cause some offense or difficulty or something! And we were told to join the others where they'd all been forced to squeeze up into space where there wasn't really any. Anyway, as it happened, I wasn't feeling very hungry anyway (probably due to the luxury o bento I'd had at lunch time) and ended up just having the duck pancakes, some starters and then a couple of scoops of ice cream for pudding - a rather expensive do for £10.50! Not that I was really complaining - it's all horses for courses as far as I'm concerned.

A picture of the gang at Via, Canal St, Mancs. © Jayne

Then as Penny had wanted to let her hair down (like we needed any excuse!) we went into Canal Street for a few drinks and it'd got to 10pm before they started to turn the music up and I decided enough was enough and called it a night.
So it was back in the car and back home, via Southport and Tarleton to drop off the others, and I got home by about midnight I think and was in bed by 1am.
So, all in all, one of my more eventful weeks. Thank goodness I have tomorrow off to recover! :-)
P.S. Having Remembrance Day and Remembrance Sunday this week my playlist is The Best Of Silence. Click here to listen: http://www.we7.com/#/user/view-playlist!playlistId=1459942&m=fb

On The Up

So the last week or so has been largely positive.
First off I went to a support group in Waterloo (Merseyside) with my good friends Jay and Gillian. Which didn't turn out to be terribly useful to me as it was too Liverpool centric. But the people there were lovely and it was great to meet Vikki-Marie properly after only really knowing her through Facebook. And I also met the much talked about Renatta (Sp?) - a lovely vicar who doesn't force religion down your throat - who is quite shockingly trendy, calling everyone "babes" and stuff. She could be the thin version of the Vicar Of Dibley in many respects! Lol!

Then afterwards four of us went for a lovely meal at the chinese restaurant next door. (See pic left) Sadly, that is when I started to space out again and started causing people concern. I just have so much stuff on my mind that I can't help it! It's an unfortunate habit that I disconnect from what is going around me and drift off in my own thoughts. I don't mean to be anti-social.
One of the things that was featuring largely in my thoughts was the meeting I had on Wednesday with the 'loony inspector' - a Dr Ash, who's reputation is for being rather obstructive. Certainly, for someone who is the trans expert in Lancs, I found him surprisingly uncomfortable in the presence of a trans person (me). But I couldn't help feeling motherly towards him and wanted to comfort the poor chap who was obviously in some distress with his stammer getting really quite pronounced at times!
Anyway, if I were to interpret how his mind worked on Wednesday, I would say he took one look at me and thought "Yep, you're in" ("in" being a referral to a Gender Identity Clinic) and then set about confirming a few facts about me. Sadly, he wasn't going to nail his colours to the mast at that time but he gave me a strong indication that he was gonna refer me to Charing Cross which, if it comes to fruition, will mean trips down to London to get the specialist help I need.
Yes, London!
The state of care for trans people in this country is such that there are very few Gender Identity Clinics in the country; and Lancashire, and even Greater Manchester, do not have one at all! So Lancashire Primary Care Trust have an agreement with Charing Cross all the way down in London to send their trans people there!
There are GICs in Sheffield and Leeds but Lancs PCT would have to justify sending me there which could complicate things. Besides Leeds don't have a very good reputation and Sheffield see very few at all! There is also another one in Nottingham but Lancs PCT have no arrangement with them at all!
However, I have nothing in writing yet so will just have to wait and bide my time. However, given Dr Ash's reputation, I shall be reminding him at the end of the month if nothing's come through before then.
Anyway, the upshot of my meeting on Wednesday was that I left feeling a lot more positive about myself. I have a very good indication that I'm not a loony and that my feelings about myself are real. This has given me a lot of confidence - even without having it in writing!
Um... I suppose a recap of a few other things is due here of how my confidence has been building...
A bit more than a week ago I visited a hair salon for the very first time as Claire. Now some trans folk have told horror stories about visits to hairdressers and so I was quite a bit nervous but, as things turned out, I had nothing to worry about. I was met with nothing but friendliness.
I've also been visiting a nail salon in town to try and sort my nails out. Sadly, the acrylic overlays I had done (which were done to try and rectify a mess another salon had made of them) were not to my liking so I had them removed and now my nails are as weak as they've ever been and constantly break! So they're now as short as they've ever been since I was a serial nail biter! Anyway, all that is largely beside the point because the benefit I've got out from visiting the nail salon is yet more interaction with the real world where, if you believe some trans folk, I should've been eaten alive(!) but in fact I've been met with nothing but friendliness and treated just like any other customer. Which has done wonders for my confidence - I AM NORMAL! You don't get that from visiting specialist trans businesses. Specialists don't deal in normality. Their whole reason for existence is to cater to exclusivity.
Another reason for my self-confidence improving is from living full-time as Claire. Doing so has enabled me to realise even more about myself. Such as I'm still treating certain items of clothing as taboo and I'm still repressing myself. This is just silly!
So a change of mind has occurred where I'm thinking "The last thing I want to do is give any illusions that I'm male" so I've been wearing more classically female clothing rather than sticking with the tomboy image before I transitioned. I really don't want to be wearing a shirt and trousers any more! Unfortunately, I don't have a lot in the way of dresses and so, without a lot in the way of funds, I've been wearing stuff that may not be wholly appropriate (like the 'little black dress' I wore to TREC (Trans Resource and Empowerment Centre) yesterday) but it's a whole lot better than jeans and a shirt!
So my confidence has been improving quietly but surely since I transitioned in August.
I still shock myself when I think how far I've come. You can possibly imagine the trauma I've been through to get where I am today. The times I came home from work in tears because I was so distraught with my situation! Well, I can safely say that it's all been worth it because I'm the happiest I've ever been. It might have been more obvious to others but even I've noticed I'm laughing a whole lot more! And I can't remember the last time someone told me to cheer up and stop looking so miserable - something that was quite a regular occurrence before!
So, anyway, where were we?
Ah, yes! My week so far...
So after my meeting with the 'loony inspector' I was feeling a lot more positive about life.
Then yesterday I went to TREC where I briefly joined in with the Arts & Crafts Workshop and then went over to the Gaydio studios in the afternoon.
I was a bit disappointed with the Arts & Crafts Workshop as I'd been hoping to get a bit of instruction in something I hadn't perhaps done before. But the only instruction I got was to draw something I'd enjoyed doing at TREC (which was Penny's Beauty Workshop and Making Friends) - something which I could easily have done at home if I'd been so inclined! So I didn't stick with that very long and joined Jay and Jennifer for lunch at the Japanese restaurant we went to for Sparkle. The food was lovely again. I had a mixed tempura obento which is a selection of seafood and veg fried in tempura batter and served with noodles, rice and salad. Delish! (See pic below)

Then we returned to TREC for the visit to the Gaydio studios where we were shown how the mixing desk and software-loading-program-thingy work! Which just made me want to be a DJ even more than I did already! :-)
After that about seven of us went to the Shang Hi restaurant as usual where we had the usual delicious all-you-can-eat buffet and Jennifer and Gillian signed their deed polls which brought back memories of when I signed mine and I can only hope they were as happy as I was. They certainly looked it at any rate! :-)
And that about concludes my news for now.
I'm on holiday this next week so can relax and catch up on some much needed sleep! :-)