Phew! Where did all that time go this year as it seems that so much happened, some of it unexpected so as we see the olde year out here's a few reflections on it.
First things first, I established my own Tumblr for odd random stuff , which surprisingly got quite a following for something that doesn't hide it's alg side, has lead to some interesting conversations and in its own way is breaking a few stereotypes down.
I also started the Pre-blog series of past memories from notes connected with being trans and alg typed up very much 'as is' that are about things that lead to my later life and the Blog proper.
Thanks to every at GT, Ik, FA and Tumblr for your support throughout the year.
Before I forget, I have updated the odd "Favourite site" link, like Karla's too.
I enjoyed quite a bit of music this year aided by cheap re-issues of box sets, a number of good new specialty re-issues and thanks to the lower prices older specialty discs go for thanks to bad state of the economy, got a good number of otherwise too expensive titles by artists I liked issued many years ago.
Thanks to iTunes, I was able to get otherwise not available digitally UK Rolling Stones titles including on a number of them booklets in extremely good sound.
I visited a number of places this year, having a whale of a time, not least Llandudno where I drifted very much into my little side as well as giving me much needed rest from the stresses of home life.
Perhaps the biggest thing for me personally came at the end of the year where I presented for the first time to group of people not known in 'RL' whatever that is including those raised as female from birth, as my little girl self and they just accepted it without question. I was rather nervous about it - groan up trans sites often make a big meal out of 'passing' - but I just felt I belonged with them, carrying myself being able to engage freely as me.
That for me was progress.
This leads me back to meeting with Jennifer and Susan locally, spending time with them plus Andi that lead up to the GHS Christmas party where I met so many others and their partners, none of which I'd of expected to have happened this time last year.
So in many ways it's been a momentous year that I feel sets the tone for this upcoming one, spending more time face to face with you, going on adventures and -gasp- having a life!
Here's to 2014.
For me Christmas started with waking up rather early in anticipation following the previous nights chat and actually being sat with Mommy for a brief period in the front room still in uniform watching a church service!
Having woken up I got dressed and fixed some breakfast before the start of present exchanging that I'll return to shortly and the inevitable nya's from my cat who really, really doesn't like having his routines turned upside down by human festivities.
By around 11:30 my younger brother and partner had arrived shortly followed by my older brother and male he lives with so I get my outstanding card giving sorted having decided after lunch would be better to deal with presents.
We went to the local Gastropub, the one The head girl of Lower 6th and First Former met me within spitting distance of for a meal cos Mom didn't feel like catering for everyone, something I quite agree with as she deserves a break from that having pre-booked both table and meal options. I declined a starter, finished off a Turkey platter with vegetables plus cranberry sauce and a delightful Lemon Bell sweet with cream. Service was excellent with the only real negative being the boring boy toy talk at the table.
Getting back to presents, I presented mine upon our return which for the males of species was kinda easy to arrange as much as prefer carefully selecting something for an individual as they're kind of boring and with my brothers had gotten together to buy Mommy a new tv for her bedroom as her old one was, well old, and needed an external digital tv box to enable it receive anything.
I'm delighted to say a couple of ikky boy things of the wrong size and gender aside, most of my gifts were little and even distinctly LG for once.
Mommy excelled herself this year with this Hello Kitty face cloth and hand towel set which will be ideal for Camp.
Also she bought me a new and very girlie pair of pull on fur lined slippers and some cute socks. By the way that bell's kinda old and loud!
She also bought me one of three specialty cds I had -a Gold cd of Crosby Stills and Nash (1977 aka "Boat Album") - the others are by Hall and Oates and the Doobie Bros
Inside the pile of parcels were the 2014 Beano, Dandy and Jacqueline Wilson annuals plus a special 75th anniversary Christmas Beano special with reprints from the past in it including some stories I recall first time around!
Hurrah for Minnie The Minx and the Bash Street Kids!
Did you know there is a place in the Wolverhampton area where you can get a Desperate Dan Pie that is massive?
My copy has a poster included.
Also included was Diamond, a new hardback novel by Jacqueline Wilson continuing the Hetty Feather story. I like her books loads.
There were copious quantities of chocolates too.
I had a new torch that doesn't use old type bulbs (It has nine L.E.D. things) from my Younger brother that is a good deal brighter from my old one useful for Camp and other occasions.
A pair of the wrong socks can easily be turned around into a pair of socks suitable for a school girl soon enough - done this morning actually - so while I'd rather that kinda stuff didn't happen, there's no point obsessing over it as you can deal with and anyway not everyone is fortunate to receive presents at all. Talking of which I also did get some more 'regulation' lingerie.
I went to have my nap just before evening meal as I was starting to feel flatlined - an unfortunate side effect of being pawley and then had a Beef salad and a home made Trifle.
Here endeth my Christmas report, typed fully uniformed and advise the next scheduled edition will be within the last day or two of December.
I don't know about you, but I think I almost ready for Christmas now having written the last card ever for this year and dealt with the present buying which is as well as it's been cold and windy for most of the week.
Yesterday Mommy made my tea and she come up with something really nice in lots of ways.
You somehow not feel like much before the big Christmas day dinner so she makes me Fish Fingers, peas and fries which is very yummy as these some of nicest ones you can buy and I liked them when I was younger too and my tastes aren't much more sophisticated today.
I mean I'd be happier eating from the children's menu as it has stuff I do like rather than stuff in sauces, on beds of this and that and so on and that's before we get to the too big for me portions even! We have Apple pie and ice cream after too so it doesn't just taste nice, it feels right too.
Before I forgets, the next post will be after Christmas so bye for now and Happy Christmas!
Getting set for Christmas now so here's a small piece of value coming to you shortly, to paraphrase an old Jefferson Airplane song!
Like a good many people, my interest in Elton John came about in the early 1970's where I owned the UK lp versions of both his Greatest Hits albums, borrowing other titles periodically from the library.
In the intervening years I slowly built up a collection of what I consider to be albums from his classic period plus a few from the early 1980's on compact disc being a mixture of early 80's American MCA discs and a few European DJM issues of the same era as the "Classic Sound" titles issued in 1996 that to me sounded too loud and bright plus the MCA issue of Greatest Hits II with the song, Levon, a fine track included.
Recently I acquired a few specialty releases that sound amazing that I wish to talk about.
This disc issued in 1994 by the now defunct DCC label followed the US MCA edition track order but added Candle In The Wind which featured on the UK version at the end, has a great selection of Elton's earliest songs in possible their best sounding versions. Bennie And The Jets sounds just like you're in a concert.
Volume II was to been issued by DCC but an eleventh hour licensing issue between Dick James Music and MCA put an end to that after the test discs were made, which was a great shame.
Issued at the beginning of this year by Audio Fidelity, this edition of Rock Of The Westies originally released November 1975 and the Home of Island Girl, Grow Some Funk Of Your Own and Dan Dare, is the best version on cd of this title with a wide dynamic range.
Strangely enough this disc originally in late 1989 by Mobile Sound Labs Inc of Illinois was the first edition with the whole double album on a single cd. In the opinion of many it remains the best sounding version on cd and being the home of Candle In The Wind, Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting, and Bennie and The Jets plus many other memorable songs. My copy is a slightly later US pressed UDII one.
In 1983 this compilation one of three with the title Love Songs was issued with a cd issued very shortly afterward in those halycon cd days by Rocket Records in the UK.
As the title suggests this is a collection of love songs drawn from the Rocket era catalogue so it takes in the albums from 1976's Blue Moves up to 1982's Jump Up and is a very good summary of this era although it misses of Part Time Love originally on the 1978 A Single Man album for we get most of the 45's and choice album cuts.
Although this is an early regular cd, it seems some effort was taken to find good sounding analogue tapes leaving it with a lush presence in the midband, great for making the most of Elton's vocals.
I've transferred these discs to my iTunes library for portable listening.
It was on an overcast Saturday morning that I awoke around 6AM to get dressed, fixing breakfast before commencement of this weekends activities, having prepacked my bags over the preceding week to take with me.
This would of been easier other than Mommy had to get up as she was going out too and blew a light that caused the lighting circuit in the house to fail, putting me in the gloom half way through this!
I was of the general understanding that people bring some food to share and so having eaten, I walked down to my local village store to pick my contribution, fresh North Staffordshire Oatcakes, that had arrived in in the early hours of that morning.
A short while afterward I walked to the bus stop to catch a bus from our estate to a another bus ready to catch the 09:22 London Midland train to GHS from Crewe where I encountered Arcee so we shared a part of the compartment together.
Yes that's really the ticket!
Attending this party were Debbie, Lillian, Sammy and, Lausie and partners, Arcee, Susan, The 6th former, Suzy and Auntie Andi although sadly Rachel and Daisy were not able to attend as they were poorly.
Upon arrival I changed to my usual uniform but with the white socks with the bows and the white Hello Kitty Slipper socks and tidily put away my Hello Kitty bags containing a change of clothes, HK PJ's and toiletries.
I have to say that the new socks with their bows and slipper sox with the remainder of the uniform looked perfect, shrinking me down do very much a school girl in my head plus it went down well. A good by product was I did feel more inclined to take heed of the 'groan ups' warnings should I of been doing something risky as while having fun is great, sometimes you can make serious mistakes in the pursuit of it and someone has to say NO.
Naturally as people had travelled from different parts of England, some took longer to arrive and so by the time most of us had arrived, food was served. I had a homemade Hamburger with onions as by that time I felt famished. It tasted delicious.
We went outside for private group photos as the sun shined and I completely forgot to put my shoes on so by the time we'd gotten on the grass my HK slipper Socks were a bit muddy, the source of good humoured comments by the 'sticky one'!!! Mebbe she has competition? (lol)
We had a self assembled buffet for our evening meal from what people brought.Also I should thank Andi for the most amazing trifles that were positively yummy.
By evening it was time to play games, traditional party games, so we started off with playing pin the nose on the Donkey where blindfold you attempt to pin the spot where the nose is. I didn't win this but it was fun, reminding me of childhood parties.
The was a treasure hunt with clues scattered around GHS where we all tried to find them, which was heaps of fun dashing around hoping to win a prize.
We also played pass the parcel where a parcel is wrapped several times with a prize in each layer for the person who has it in their hand when the music being played , stopped. We sure played this at my school's Christmas Parties and for me at least I felt back in that time, happy.
Our Pyro expert team organized a most wonderful firework display that lasted for good time as rockets exploded colouring the sky in a very pretty way while many of us held sparklers waving them in the air. It was magical.
Finally The First Former held a most enjoyable quiz after which people started to make they way to bed which for me was sleeping on the couch by the GHS coal fire.
It was so magical most of us woke up later on exhausted from it all with some going back to sleep for an hour or so after waking up!
I probably was one of the earliest risers getting dressed, opting to put on the first time my new Green pleated school skirt before tidying myself up before the Bacon and Oatcake breakfast following which those needing to start back early left after goodbyes and hugs.
Those of us remaining went out to a meal having prebooked a table for midday, and so it perhaps being not that surprising I chose Fish and Chips followed by Hot sticky treacle pudding with cream to order. It's the cat in me I guess! Ordering with an accent like mine is usually fun but they understood me all right and the staff were really helpful.
It seemed the perfect way to end an enjoyable weekend together.
Afterward following many hugs, we all started on way back with myself catching the train and walking after a bus ride in the gloom as there's no Sunday bus service to the estate and fixing some tea to drink.
Although it was all new for me, the weekend had been really really enjoyable for being able to *play* with like minded individuals who just accepted me as I am since encountering me at forums and in Tuesdays chat. I'd like to thank everyone who was there for making me so welcome 'in the flesh' and for The Sixth Former for hosting this most enjoyable party as well as Lillian and partner for the Christmas card.
It means an awful lot, peoples.
Another wet end to the week, probably going to have some chores to do this weekend as it's that time of the month so I'm writing this up in advance, ready to publish although this piece isn't the one I had I mind.
Followers -and there's 36 of them - of my Tumblr that's usually about stuff that doesn't really quite fit this blog like photo sets, will know I've been posting a bit around uniforms specifically Sailor Suits from South Korea and Japan and that one day I might just get one as I can see myself in my head wearing one.
One big difference with Tumblr is captions and photo's are often reblogged, following site trends with comments added directly in the post and recently within those I follow there's been a number around uniforms.
Now, I can't mention the 'U' word without touching on that one of kind school, GHS and it's upcoming activities as I most definitely will be in attendance although I might have to be really careful not to be put in 'Corner Time'! Us First Formers can be a wild bunch!!!
Not surprisingly then, for most of this week, I'll be sorting out what to take when it comes to clothes although I prefer to travel light, making sure I have things like my tickets and cellphone safe, packing away and mentally preparing myself.
It was reassuring to hear this week 'Matron' was going to look out for me as it will the first time I've been 'out' with such a lot of girls under one roof including overnight although they're all people I know online and I've been with three before there.
Although this all kind of new to me and anything new easily leads to you feeling nervous, I am so looking forward to it.
Also on Sunday I will be putting up my HK Advent calendar.
As I'll be away that weekend I should point out the next post won't be until at least late Monday next onward as I'll need to rest and then write it.
