Xmas events

 

Leeds First Friday

Had been really looking forward to this one, as normal.  Someone I had been talking to on Instagram for a few years was making the effort to come all the way from down south to visit, plus the turnout for the Xmas one is usually very high as well.

I met Benni for lunch at Rudy's near the train station around midday, then Charlotte joined us at White Cloth Hall which I wanted to case out for possible future use. After this we headed to Tapped to start the Pints and Straws bar crawl.

The bar crawl went well, we had lots of people join, I had to pre-book a table in 'Friends of Ham' and pay a no show deposit for this privilege - turns out I had underestimated by a fair number, and a number of other patrons re-organised themselves to allow us to use some other nearby tables to keep us all together. Sally joined us in there.

Head of Steam was very busy, but there were no issues with the other patrons. I checked into the Leonardo between there and the Tetley which was the last venue.

We had a table booked for food at 6:15  at Bowers Tap , for 6 of us.  I had a burger, it wasn't bad food and came out pretty quick. Everyone seemed to enjoy it - including the 1st timer.

After this we headed to our hotels to do a quick outfit change before heading to the Bridge End Social for the main event.  It was pretty busy in there, we stayed for an hour or so. 
Moving on to 'The Shed', and then the 'End Bar' and finally 'The Smokestack'.   The 1st timer wasn't keen on the loud music in the End, so they did have a bit of an early night, but I have spoken to them since and they enjoyed it overall. 

I think it was about 2am before I got to sleep, did seem to wake up a lot with a dodgy tummy, but felt OK in the morning.  There were 6 of us that knew each other staying there, so we met up for breakfast together at about 10am.  I managed a small fry up.

Checkout was a bit earlier at 11am than I am used to , so it was a bit of a rush - our keys had already been disabled by the time we tried to get back into our rooms from breakfast, so we had to get a cleaner to let us in.

Overall it was a lovely night, it didn't exceed some of the previous Christmas ones, but it was still good.  I guess the more I do, the less of a novelty they become :)

Swimming

Unfortunately swimming was cancelled, but it was probably for the best !

Lurgy

I started coming down with flu like symptoms on Sunday, eventually ended up being sick overnight. Monday was a complete write off, I emailed work to say I was sick - something I rarely do.  I spent all day in bed.  I had woken up on Monday with a bit of a black bruise under my left eye too !

Tuesday, felt a bit better, was able to work (from home) , my eye was worse, a much bigger bruise. Wasn't feeling very hungry and didn't eat much.

Wednesday, I went to the walk-in centre about my eye, they took some convincing that I hadn't been punched, or had fallen over.  The nurse thought it might be burst blood vessels due to straining, or coughing, but nothing likely major.  That was after a 2 hour wait :(

I had a Bupa video call in the evening, and she recommended A&E, I decided to wait and see if it got worse. 

Thursday, eye was no worse, so decided to leave it, and it's not been any worse today. 

I am eating a lot more at least now. 

Unfortunately this did all mean I wasn't able to go to Chams on Thursday night - I had been going to bed early all week due to feeling very tired, so a long drive didn't seem possible. Plus I didn't want to infect anyone there !  I am still coughing.

Was also meant to go to BNO in Milton Keynes tonight, there was a birthday meal booked as well, felt really bad cancelling my attendance to that, but that is a bit of a trek ! 

Other Plans

Myself and Ann are visiting Glasgow for the Glasgow Third Friday event next weekend (fingers crossed and all that )  , so we do have one more opportunity for xmas trans fun at least :)

She will be driving as well, so less stressful getting there and back for me, hopefully.