Things are moving

 So I have a completion date on the house for Thursday this week (20th Aug).  I won't be driving down to get the keys till the Friday though. 

Van has been booked, and hopefully with Charlotte's assistance we shall be making several trips with my worldly possessions over the weekend.

We will hopefully end up with two of my three cars down there too.

My oldest car is actually running - not very well, and not stopping too great, or changing gear very well, but I did have a short slow pootle around the estate on Saturday. 

I don't think it is fit to drive all the way to Bolsover though, so I may end up getting someone to trailer it there. The garage isn't going to get used, so there is no rush from my wife for me to do that.

We are still on friendly terms which makes things a lot easier. 

It has been a bit stressful getting everything done, but at least I do have help with the move. 

Adventures

Chameleons - It had been a long time since I had been, too long !  Was a fab night, great to see everyone, and really enjoyed it. Spoke to a couple of first timers. Going to try and get back more hopefully, I will be a lot closer !

Humber Bridge Car show - Met up with Jen from the WDSC and her daughter and had a very pleasant few hours perusing the other cars.  Got a pic of ours together, she came in a very cute Austin 7.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parkrun #22 was the following day. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

July LFF / Leeds Pride / Grimsby docks

LFF was mid month to coincide with Pride, we stayed from Friday to Sunday morning, enjoying a picnic with other LFF members on the Saturday, then did the parade on Sunday.  We did go into freedom quarter for a bit after the parade, but we were not staying so couldn't drink. We drove back to hull in the late afternoon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parade was really good this year, had a nice time - was great to finally do it with Charlotte she had only been as a spectator in previous years as usually had her kids to look after.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had taken the Monday off to recover, and we went to Grimsby for an adventure - we had wanted to visit the famous fish smokers, Alfred Enderby's but they only open on weekdays. We have subsequently eaten the fish we bought, and it was lovely.  The guy was a bit surprised we trekked all the way there from the town centre,  we will drive next time 😂

Newark Air Museum  

I managed to spend some time with my boys, took them to the air museum, we had a nice few hours looking around. Youngest didn't like the lunch options though so he was a bit grumpy after that.

 

August LFF / Beverly Pride

We decided to skip the LFF evening session, as we do have a tendency to consume too much then waste the next day - Beverley pride was on the Saturday, so we decided to do a largely alcohol free Pints and Straws, get some food then drive back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We went to the 'Restaurant Bar and Grill' in City Square.  It was a decent Steak, Charlotte enjoyed hers too, can't remember what it was though :) 

We did park run in the morning, my 24th - at Humber Bridge park. It was very dusty.

 Took the train to Beverley after an early lunch, it's only 10 mins, we spend more time in the Uber getting to the station ! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beverley pride was small, very family orientated but nice, and we did enjoy looking around.  We nipped to Dunelm to use the loo, and also look at sofas for my new place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we accidentally walked to the opposite end of town to one of my favorite micro pubs 'The Chequers'. Lady who runs it is lovely and very friendly, we were there an hour or two.  We got the train back, and had a couple of halves in the 'Hop and Vine' before heading back to Charlotte's for a Greek takeaway. 

Eclipse  

I hadn't though to pack my welding goggles so we made do with an improvised pin hole camera using a cereal box. It worked ok and we could see the shape of the crescent. We found the light very odd indeed 

Hesslewood car show 

A rare adventure with Charlotte and her kids. Took Josephine to Hull for the day to a charity car show. It was way bigger than I expected, but unfortunately we did seem to end up in a quiet corner. Saw some lovely cars though.  A bubble car owner let her kids sit in it for the 3rd year, so Charlotte got another photo to prove they are getting bigger. Not sure all three will squeeze in a 2 seat bubble car next time, if they get a chance.

 

 It was a pleasant day, not too warm, plenty to see, and kids seemed happy enough with my presence.  The two boys, who are the younger of the three came with me in the Morris, and seemed to enjoy, although the youngest had to wear earphones for the noise.

Was quite tired by the time i got back to Barnsley, it was a long day, and a fair bit of driving.

 

 

All change

 

Life update 

I am divorcing, it is amicable - but I wasn't expecting it to happen this soon.  We had talked about waiting for Chris to finish his GCSE's, but it became clear this was too long.

I am 34% of the way (according to the Conveyencer) in the purchase of a two bed terraced house between Clowne and Bolsolver. It is a lovely little place, and shouldn't require any work to move in.  I hope to be moved in by early September all being well !

As you would expect it has a large garage, along with some parking in front of it for my menagerie of aging vehicles. 

I also traded in my MG EV for a cute orange Fiat 500 hybrid, as I couldn't see charging working too well with the layout of the new place. I also did think it might be wise to enjoy petrol while it's still viable to use it.

 

Having a place of my own will make it much easier to spend more time with Charlotte,  but we won't be moving in together any time soon, as she will need more room to host her kids. She is hoping to move further south when possible, so we will hopefully end up fairly close when that happens.

I am about an hour and fifteen mins from Hull at the moment, and will be no worse at the new place.  Will be about 40 mins from current home, so not too bad for seeing my kids.

Other things

Managed to get back out and do a few park runs, I am at 21 finishes now !

Still mostly self medicating, never really ended up finding a provider that worked for me.

Work - very sinusoidal with my view on this, so much organizational change, redundancies, role changes, new time logging requirements. I have never felt totally safe, but i seem to be getting good feedback on my current performance.  

Adventures

There have been quite a few, notable ones :

Peak district - short break for Charlotte's rotation day, walked up a big hill. Afterward we really enjoyed New Mills, found some great taprooms.  

 

Womens Drivers Social Club - Workshop Weekender - A bit of camping with Josephine, great to catch up with the other women, a really fun time was had. 

 

LFF -  May was great, we missed June due to overlap with the WDSC 

Manchester Queer Rave - The day after May LFF,  we were going to Manchester to celebrate our friend Jen's birthday. She wanted to go to a queer rave at the Hidden club in Manchester. Myself and Charlotte found a great Pizza place on cannal street, and had a really nice GF Detroit style pizza.  We met up with the others, had some drinks in the New Union, then headed to club later on.

It was an experience, felt very old, and very straight in there - they were all so very queer  😂  . We had a good dance though, and I managed to drink all the cider I liked. 

 

 

Hair - I went for a proper haircut at the salon Charlotte uses - it's very queer friendly, and they are all lovely.  The interior is a bit mental, the owner has been buying fittings from old churches, and had commissioned a large painting of herself in the style of Jesus to hang on the wall !! 

The stylist suggested curls, so I went with it and was amazed by what she achieved.

 

Hull  - We took Charlotte's cis friend for a tour of some of the lovely hull pubs, it ended up with quite a few trans friends there too, so she got the full experience :)  

 

 

 

Rustival 2026

 

Last adventures recorded up to  12th of March ,  with single entry in April about bra fitting.

21st of March - we visited my friend Bella in Blackpool, explored the town in the afternoon, ate in the food hall.  Got a guided tour of her trans-cave , then headed to Waterloo rock bar in the evening.

 

 

 

3rd of April - LFF , Benni's birthday.  We met some lovely youngsters who were attending for their first time, got two marriage proposals, went to Pieminister for tea. We drank too much as was a bit hungover for the Bra fitting we had the next day. Might have been the first time we did Buzzballs, the latest cocktail in a strange shape craze.

 

 

5th of April we had a lovely but cold walk along the bank of the Humber, through the timber yard and onwards to a dockside factory.

We had a lovely braised steak casserole for tea.

 

 

9th of April, drove Josephine to Hull to make sure she was ready for the big Rustival car show we were displaying at later in the month.

Popped to Halfords the next day to get a new fire extinguisher, got talking to a friendly guy in the car park who was very intrigued by the car. 

 

 

11th of April, drove down to Derby to pickup some car parts for the Flying9 I had bought on ebay. He had one himself, and was really nice - gave me some free hood latches too ! Afterwards met up with Ann at Costa for a catchup, which was nice.

 

 

 

17th of April, Rustival adventure begins, had driven over to Hull on Wednesday evening, we were heading down towards Gaydon on Friday afternoon.  Had booked a pub/motel nearby to stay over on the Friday night.

Drive down was not too bad, the clutch was making some weird noises though which was concerning.  We arrived around 5ish  and checked in, there were two other minors in the car park :) which was nice. 

The pub was doing food but there was a lot of excess testosterone around, and we didn't fancy it.  Met a nice chap in the car park who had a Morris traveller who recommended we try the nearby Gilks garage for food. There was a pre-event meetup there,  but it was ticketed and we didn't have tickets, so decided to go for a curry instead, then chance heading to Gilks afterwards.

Curry was lovely, really good service too. We walked to Gilks and the nice chap was there, we had a few drinks and a good chat with him. There wasn't that many people there, spotted a few trans youth.  We headed back to ensure we were not sozzled for the morning, stopping in a a Co-op to buy breakfast supplies.

In the morning we pootled to the petrol station on the way to the museum.  On arriving there we were asked if we were members of the young morris minors group, which I took as a compliment, but had to correct him and say we were with the womens drivers group.

Show was fab as always, lots of great cars.  The green Talbot and a number of Twingo's were my favorite. 

There was a trans club attending for the 1st time, but they were all very young and didn't seem to want to interact - wondered if it was more like a club for their friendship group than something they were looking to grow.

I had brought GF rolls, and the nice lady in the food van was willing to just sell bacon on it's own, so i got to have a butty unlike previous years.  Had a jacket potato in the museum cafe for lunch. We did a bit of talking with the other group members, but the leader was attending this year and it seemed a bit more fragmented than normal.

Headed back about 3pm i think.  On arrival back in hull I realised I had caught the sun :(

We went to the local kebab shop for a quick and easy tea, and had some beers out of the fridge.  I had been joking with Charlotte that we should visit her local pub, and she finally relented and we walked to that.

It was a nice experience, they had a young person of indeterminate gender identity singing as well as anything I had heard on BGT, They had a nice IPA for Charlotte and a box of proper cider for me - not much left in the box though I ended up finishing all they had :) 

It did seem to empty after an hour or so, and soon it was just us two and an old guy. We felt the need to apologize on leaving !

Would go back again for sure.

 

 

 

 

25th April - Pub lunch with the family for Roberts 17th, how time fly's.  He was disappointed as they had a run out of eggs for his mixed grill :(

 

28th April - a rare day in the office !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Measurements

 

Both myself and Charlotte had been recommended a very trans friendly lingerie shop in Hull to try.

One of the ladies has a trans daughter, and they have a trans sticker on the door to show they are supportive.   

The day after April LFF, and still feeling a little hungover, we decided to go for a fitting. The notice on the door said It was free if you bought a bra, or £15 if you just wanted to know your measurements, which seemed very fair.

We went in and I asked if we could get fitted. They had a more private room upstairs which we were shown to.

I went first - It was done in such a way that you were not naked on the top, so she first measured the band size, then estimated the cup size and went to get samples.

Then she waited outside while I tried the 1st one on, and she came in to check.  There was some touching as the breasts needed to be hoisted into position a bit ! 

She wasn't happy that the 1st one was big enough, as the breast tissue was sort of popping out of the cup a bit along the top, so she got me to try a bigger one.

It seemed like a nice fit to me, so I decided to get that one, and also order a similar one in black, as this was a white one. 

The one I had gone in wearing was actually broken - a wire had snapped on one side, and it also seems was way too small for me !!

I walked in wearing a 36B , and walked out with a 36DD !!  I was actually quite surprised, the old one hadn't felt overly tight, but it was 2nd hand when I got it, and was over a year in my ownership so was quite worn out.

She was kind enough to explain that it can take up to a month to break a new one in, and there may be some discomfort at first. 

All in all not a particularly stressful experience, really friendly ladies and was really pleased with how it went.

Sophistikate

 Won't be posting picture of me in it 😂 

 

     

RIP George (the cat)

Adventures 

February started with LFF, it was an odd one as Charlotte had a bad call at work in the morning and wasn't initially in the mood to join me.

But she did thankfully seem to start feeling better in the afternoon and drove into Leeds to join me.

We tried pizza at the newish bar 'Brewery Wharf Tavern' near the Leonardo - It seemed nice enough at the time, but Charlotte felt ill later on - can't be 100% sure but it put us off eating there again.

Did manage to try a new bar 'Crown Street Tap' which was great, very LGBTQ+ friendly, not much for GF drinkersm, but some options at least.  

Saturday I went straight home as was looking after the kids that night. 

Sunday we met back up for swimming at Bramley baths - neither of us had been for ages, it was really nice to go back. Didn't break an PB's in terms of lengths , took it easy.

Weekend of 21st : 

We were meant to go to Newcastle to explore the gay quarter but neither of us was feeling great, so we cancelled. 

Charlotte did do an amazign job cooking nice steaks with stilton sauce on the Saturday, was delicious. 

On Sunday we had a lovely trip out to Burnby Hall gardens near Pocklington on the Sunday. https://www.burnbyhallgardens.com/the-gardens/

There were loads of snowdrops in the gardens, the water lilies it is more famous for were not doing much, we might have to go back in the summer.

The aviary was  off limits due to a bird flu outbreak nearby, they mainly had budgies it seems.

Cafe was pretty good and had GF which was lovely, I had a bacon sarnie.

 

27th Feb: 

I had been at Charlotte's for a few days, and upon returning I was concerned to hear that nobody had seen much of George my cat.  I did find him hiding in his house, but he didn't look so good.  Brought him in, but he didn't seem hungry.  I popped to Asda for some posh food, as that had worked in the past. Decided to see if he would eat that.

He still hadn't touched anything by the morning, so I took him to the vets.  Unfortunately the prognosis wasn't great and it was decided better to put him down than prolong the suffering. 

I was quite upset by this of course. 

I had agreed to meet up with some old school friends later that day for a drink in Leeds, and given we don't see each other much didn't want to cancel - so I decided to drive in and just go on soft drinks. 

It was a good distraction for me and lovely to catch up with them, Leeds was very busy due to a football match, be we did just about manage to get seats everywhere we went eventually. 

 

March LFF : 

We were staying at the Discovery Inn as found a really cheap deal for it.  We had a lovely time at Pints and Straws.  The Crown Street Tap was on the rota for the 1st time - we nearly totally filled the place !  

There was a small group of older cis men stuck in the corner, but we had all the other tables - the manager was very pleased to see so many customers - if only for an hour and a half. 

For evening meal we went with Alice to Miller and Carter for some steak.  I had lamb which was fab, but not so filling, Alice and Charlotte had steak. Possibly a bad idea as there wasn't much carbs in anyones meals.

We headed back to the hotel to change, then onwards to  Bridge End Social for the main LFF event. 

We were in there a while - beat Ella and Sally at table football 9 - Nill 🤣

Unfortunately Charlotte came over a bit funny, and we had an early night - but neither of us slept well. Not sure on cause, almost seemed like she had been spiked ! 

 

7th of March 

I was very tired as had a really bad sleep, but neither of us was really hungover in the morning, so decided to make use of the day, and pop into a donkey sanctuary just off the M62 on the way back to Hull.


It was a fab little place, you only got to see about 50% of the animals if you didn't do the tour - so we had a look around at what you could see, then were recommended to go visit the cafe by a really friendly staff member.

I had a 'small' breakfast which was very filling, and made me feel a lot better.  

The tour was great, we were able to get in the pens with a number of them and pet and stroke them.  The more traumatized rescue ones we had to stay outside their stables.  

Some of them had been badly mistreated and quite a few were on the verge of being put down before being rescued, I think there were 35 in total.   One of them was off an east coast beach, just too old to work anymore, probably had thousands of kids on it over the years.

 https://www.wonkey-donkey.co.uk/

 In the afternoon Charlotte cooked us some fantatic GF pork pie - best pork pie pastry we've ever had - both agree.  The filling was lovely too,  a bit posher than the ones you get in the shops. 

On the sunday we decided to explore Grimsby - neither of us had ever been ! - I wasn't the nicest of days, but was fun to explore. We need to go back on a weekday to visit the fish smokers and look around the docks.

We did have a quick look at the maritime museum but didn't go in as we didn't have a lot of time. 
 

March 12th - Jordan Gray

Wouldn't normally go out on a school night, but the famous trans musician/comedian was in York and Charlotte is a big fan.

There was a bad storm, and the journey there was not fun at all, lots of standing water on the roads, but we did get there safe and sound.  Fortunately there was a gap in the rain so our walk to the Theatre was not bad.

A guy was outside who we briefly chatted to - turns out he was the warmup act.  He was OK but not our cup of tea really.

It was a really small place, really friendly staff.  I suggested the 2nd row as figured less chance of being part of the act and thankfully she mainly only interacted with those on the front.

Her show does have a significant mention of her unmentionables, but was very funny. At one point she shrew a big bag of tampons into the audience - we we later had an opportunity to throw back as part of an unexpected punchline.  

She did also play the keyboard and guitar, and was very animated, jumping around the place. Some very clever lyrics 😊

We had tiny ice creams at the interval.  

The drive back wasn't as bad, partly due to lack of traffic, still very wet though.

 

Car news

Still working on the Morris cylinder, had a bit of a disaster partly caused by using a bodgy home made improvised press, so invested in a proper one:

Been using my lathe a fair bit as well, which is good as spent a fair bit on it.

Hoping the rest of the rebuild will go well, and she will be ready for test drives prior to a longish trip to Gaydon next month for the 1st car show of the year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Kicking off the new year

 

Xmas

It was a bit odd being away from the kids, they had gone down to Kent with their mother. I had been invited, as well as told was fine not come, so I chose the later. 

Charlotte was on her own, so I went there instead. 

Had a cold but fun explore of the coastline near 'Paull' on the humber on the morning of xmas day.  Some lovely weird mini lighthouses, was bitterly cold though. 

For the meal we had beef, her dad had gifted a horseradish out of the garden, and we made a sauce, nearly gassing ourselves in the process. Grating that was so much worse than cutting onions, we had to take it in turns. 

We were very stuffed afterwards, it was very relaxing and had a lovely time.

 

New Years Eve  

Had been looking forward to this for a while, we had a blast last year. It's a retro night at Humber Social, it was mainly 80's last year, but this year they were doing 90's too.

We were a bit disappointed by the inclusion of the 90's before the event, but I had forgotten about so many songs that I could actually dance to !  I went a bit mental to 'No limit' by 2 Unlimited 😂  

Sally had come along, and was staying with us which made it more fun too. Gemma and Emily were meant to be coming, but Emily had a really bad cold and cancelled. One of their friends called Claire was still going, and joined our group, so I hope that Sally didn't feel like a spare wheel ! 

We did the 'Sailmakers arms' before heading to the main venue, it was rammed, but we still had a good time, and eventually got a table.  

It was a cold walk to the Humber Social, and still fairly quiet - which was a good thing as we could get a table next to the dance floor. Claire found us, she had been sent a pic of Charlotte. We welcomed her in to the group and did some chatting. 

It started filling up a bit more after 10pm, and soon there were lots of other people dancing.  We were pretty sensible with the drinks, and I didn't go onto Vodka and redbull like last year.  We got an Uber about 12:30 , and was in bed at a sensible time.

Nobody was very hungover, so we all managed a bit of cooked breakfast.  Sally headed off late morning, and we headed out over to the park for a bit of a walk. Found a load of unexpected tree mushrooms. 

 

Leeds First Friday 

It actually wasn't on the first friday, but that was too close to new years, so had to be moved.

We had a great time, did Pints and Straws, met up with Bella and had tea at PieMinster with her.   Did the Bridge again, Blayds and the End.  Did seem to lose the herd, but was still a fab night. 

We went for a walk around the park the day after the duck pond was frozen solid, very thick ice.

 

 

Other weekends

We did a bit of a 'cider saturday' last weekend, going to a nice little place we had been to before that always has some real cider on, then to a new community pub that has recently opened around the corner. 

The comunity pub had a really friendly bar maid, lots of nice drinks, and also a lonely Charles and Camilla plate hanging up for some reason. We really enjoyed it there ! 

Ended up at the Sailmakers arms again, where we got some PieMinister pies ! They even had multiple GF ones.  We went to the lion and key afterwards, but the drinks were not great so we got an uber back and played on the playstation before a sensible bed time !

We've done a few parkruns this year, Charlotte managed her 100th last weekend ! 

I am now on 14.  Was at Peter Pan on the 3rd, I did one at Nostell  on the 17th, and back to Peter Pan in Hull on the 24th, so 3 done already this year.

Have been working a bit on the car, managed to get the engine out, and done some investigation. Some valve work is on my to-do list, hopefully do some tomorrow ! 

 

Health 

Managed to get around to seeing the doctor to ask for bloods, I was a bit nervous as he was a new doctor - both mine retired late last year, so had not seen the replacements. 

He was lovely though, and agreed to do them, I had them at Barnsley walk in centre this morning !  Hopefully results will come through soon.

This will allow me to properly finish registering with Pride in Health and hopefully get some actual supervision on my dosage, which is good !

 

 

 

 

Mostly not about food

 

General Updates

Werk -  it's not been that great, I moved into another department again. I am not a massive fan of change, so has been a bit disconcerting.

My new boss is only temporary too, so there is some uncertainty in that regard.  On the plus side the boss of my boss is in favor with the C-Level people, so I am perhaps in a safer department.

A few people I know have gone, or been pushed too, which hasn't helped.

 

Transition -  Nothing much more has been achieved really, I've had 6 laser sessions on my unmentionables. Still a few more to do.  I don't believe it's a hard requirement anymore, but certainly a lot easier to remove hair when it's on the outside of your body still !

I still need to go to the doctor and get an appointment for bloods, I've been sort of YOLO'ing it with my hormones for quite a while now - very naughty and ill advised I know.

 

Home Life -  Fairly stable, not much upset - don't think she is massively happy about how much time I spend in Hull, but not so upset to rock the boat.

Kids are OK, big one is doing well at college. 

 

Cars -  The Flying 9 is waiting on parts, which have been a while now, likely going back outside soon so I can look at the Morris. Suspected engine damage to her too 😬

So only the MG EV is usable at the moment, thankfully just passed the 1st MOT with no issues.

Social Activities

Leeds First Friday - 5th of December 

Pints and Straws was really good, lots of people and had great time.  But really should have slowed down afterwards, as got very drunk in the evening and did rather ruin the rest of the weekend as wasn't feeling too well.

Might have to stop going when I don't have supervision !  

 

Chameleons Xmas Fuddle 11th December  

Managed to make a plan that allowed Charlotte to come along with me - basically went to hers the day before, so that we could go down together from there.

It was a bit of a longer drive, so my car did need to be charged at the Church, and we also needed to stop for a short contingency charge at Woodall Services on the way back too.

Was really good to be back there after what seems quite a while. Fab to see Lynn and the gang , Sally and Ann had come along too. We did end up sort of in out own sub group, I didn't do much mingling really. 

I had brought enough gluten free snacks for myself. The cheese I took did get eaten by others too, and the Mrs Crimbles Macaroons were popular too.   

I do really like the fuddle, a highlight of the year, was good for Charlotte to come along too. She got to put some faces to names too.

 

Xmas Shopping 12th December - Malton

We both had the friday off, so decided to go to Malton to do some xmas shopping, and get some nice food of course.

Ended up in a fab little butchers, which did triangular gluten free black pudding, sausages and haggis !!  So we got some of each :)

Did another butcher who had Pheasants !  

Went to a patisserie and got some macrons - which I had never had before.

Found a fab cheese monger, that aside from some lovely cheese that we got (Wensleydale), also sold gluten free bitter, porter, stout and brown ale.  So we got one of each of those two. 

Also spend plenty of time in the gift shops getting presents for others, and we had lunch in a nice place that did a fab Jacket Potato with onion chutney and goats cheese, which was amazing !! 

We had haggis and greens for tea that day, and black pudding for brunch the day after.

Ideally i would have done the park run in the morning but I had come down with a cold, and so just went along to spectate in a big warm coat.

On Saturday evening we had one of the Pheasants, which was really nice !

 

 

On the Sunday we went to the garden centre on the other side of the river for a bit. Had a mooch around there, and a tea in the cafe.  Then we went to the nearby nature reserve to look for otters - none spotted.  

We did manage to do a little bit of urban explorations at an abandoned ruined hotel that was near the reserve too, but didn't venture inside for fear of death.

All in all a very nice long weekend.