Excessive fun

The Work Week

Well it's been a busy week at work, been given a fun assignment to do, really getting my teeth into that. 

This gave me an opportunity to play with ChatGPT - I was using it to assist me with coding problems, I'm a bit rusty with my PHP and a framework I haven't used in a while. 

I found it brilliant - I mean it's not getting you any answers you couldn't google yourself, but it does so quickly and with fairly high accuracy. 

I also tried asking some questions on Excel , then decided to quiz it on opponents to the existence of Trans people. It got rather cagey with me on those questions, and complained that I was asking it thinks which violated the terms of it's use. It seemed less bothered about listing anti LGBT people in general than the T group specifically. 

It's better when I'm busy at work, as I can distract myself from other matters, as such I have nothing to report on those !

Thursday Trans-Wakefield, 'Our House' Café / LGBT centre.

There was a £5 cake and coffee deal, the cake was some sort of cookie dough affair mixed with Nutella, a very generous wedge. I couldn't finish it, nor could 3/4 of those that tried it ! but it was really nice.

The leader brought some cards with common trans terms and gender identities, and a matching set of definitions of those. There were three sets and we grouped up to try and match them up. I was with Nicole, it was fairly trivial to match them up, but the discussion of the answers afterwards did spark conversation.

The road outside the café was still shut from the gas leak, when leaving the police were in the pub opposite sorting out a fight - a typical Wakefield evening :)

We went to the New Union pub afterwards for a drink as the centre shuts at 9pm. I left about 10pm, as I wanted to get home to pack for LFF.

Friday Leeds Daytime 

My usual posy was not coming to Leeds this month, as they are bored of me, or had family
commitments, or couldn't afford the silly bank holiday hotel prices :) 

Fortunately Alice never misses one, I've got to know her fairly well over the last year and she was very welcome to me joining her for the day.

We met up in the Trinity shopping centre in New Look, I was buying a new jacket as my current leather one was a charity shop find and looking a bit tired. She got a couple of nice Quiz dresses from there, then we headed to the Travelodge to meet up with Lexi and Gemma who wasn't in girl mode, but I don't know her boy mode name, so she will be referred to as Gemma :)

We walked the short distance to Rudy's Pizza - never been before. I had a white pizza, Goats Cheese with toasted pistachio, sliced red onion and rosemary - was really nice. 

Then we headed to Foley's for some afternoon drinkies - I went on 0% lager as was trying to be good at that point. 

We had a good time in there, and then myself Alice and Lexi went for a quick look in Roman near the St Johns centre, and then back to our rooms for a quick freshen up before some tapas.

I decided to change into another dress, as I had brought it along, might as well, this was the size 6 dress I had bought by mistake in Next the previous week - fits really well I think.

Cindy was joining us for the tapas, and we met up with her in the Marriot and walked down the calls to that. It was really nice in there, they recommended 3-4 dishes, but Alice suggested 2-3 is usually enough. I went for two, but then ended up eating leftovers from everyone else :)

After this it was back to the hotel again, for my final outfit more suitable for a nightclub !

Leeds First Friday - 15th Year Anniversary

We met in Fibre, but didn't bother to get a drink as there was an unveiling of a commemorative bench
outside for one of the LFF organisers who had sadly died the previous year. Met a few people in there that I usually look out for - and also one of the Trans-Wakefield group who I had not expected to see. She looked gorgeous, had some fantastic green sparkly lips !

We stood outside for a bit while the bench was unveiled, it was a really good turnout, they had three speakers, all but the third one seemed to know how to use a microphone.

Afterward we headed back into Fibre for a bit, but there wasn't any beer on tap, so Alice and crew decided to head over the road to the Viaduct, where oddly we ended up drinking cocktails. It was two for £10. 

I had a 'verry cherry', which had whipped cream, it was verry nice ! We had a few more drinks in there, we watched the cabaret.

My friend Danielle had joined us by this point, and we lost Alice for a bit, so headed to the bridge to watch the karaoke for a while.  

Then manage to find where Alice had gone via Insta messaging, and headed to the Bankers Cat - a straight pub not that far outside to freedom quarter.  We had a few in there, then onwards to 'The End'.

This is where I lost all sense, and had an Espresso martini - I seemed to stop taking photo's shortly after this point, a good measure of me being a bit too gone.

After this it was 'The Smokestack' and people gradually went to bed, as I should have done too ....

Anyway soon there was only me and Cindy left, and we were being booted out of the Smokestack, so I paid us both into the New Penny - the only place still open. I do remember speaking some people in there, but it's a bit fuzzy. 

Then the floodlights came on, it's was apparently 5:30am, and the bar staff wanted to head to bed. So I staggered back to my room.

The Morning After

I managed to get up with just enough time to check out and head to breakfast as the Cha lounge - however I wasn't able to stomach my breakfast, so my friends cherry picked some of it. The coffee was very welcome. Alice headed off afterwards, and I went along with Cindy to watch Gemma get some
drone shots of the river which was fun. I am tempted to get one !

I was still nowhere near sober enough to drive, so ended up dumping my bags in my car, then mooching around Leeds with Cindy for a bit. We had a tea in the Corn Exchange, I went to the wig shop to get a couple more of the strong wig caps, and Cindy got some nail files from Superdrug, 

Cindy and Gemma were staying over the Saturday night, and had agreed to meet at Foleys for 1pm, so I joined them in there for another hour, sipping coke until I felt well enough to drive again.

I got home, then caught up with my sleep, didn't manage to do much, or eat much else that day.

Sunday

I was productive with housework in the morning, then we had a nice family lunch at my mums.

 Nothing problematic came up. I was worried my hair would get comments. But other than my mum offering me some hair dye, as I had said I wanted to look to get rid of the grey, and she's decided to go natural with hers, nothing about my appearance was mentioned.