Leeds Pride Weekend

I started this a few days after the weekend as I had been suffering from quite bad post event comedown. I had a lovely video call with a friend on the Wednesday night and chatted to a few other friends on Instagram too which really seemed to help though.  

It's always quite jarring to go from a few days dressed, back to being treated as the male me. Not sure if it was just that it was such a good weekend that it's been worse. I was also quite tired from it all I guess.

I'm going to skip the full on adventure description this time, I will summarise the other days at the end for record keeping purposes. But for context:

• Thursday Night :  Trans-Wakefield, overnight stay in Wakefield (Holiday Inn Express)
• Friday : Leeds First Friday Social, staying at the Marriot until Monday
• Saturday : Leeds shopping / adventures , evening drinks
• Sunday : Leeds pride parade / after party
• Monday: Return home 

The main event  - Sunday Leeds Pride :

I walked in the Wakefield pride last year, I had watched Manchester's big parade too last year, but I had
not walked in a big one before this weekend. I had been off the dancing juice most of the weekend to ensure I felt really good for Sunday, for me the main point of the weekend was to enjoy the parade.

My friend Arabella had assisted me in the morning with medical tape to create a very convincing illusion of cleavage, so I ended up wearing a secondary dress choice due to it having a lower cut than my original choice.

My shoe choice seemed sensible, but I had failed to break them in, so it didn't go well, but they looked really nice. 

I was considering going with my real hair, but I chickened out and put my silver wig on. I just wanted to look my absolute best, and it's my favourite look.

Most of my friends were in the Marriot, and I arranged to meet up with Alice and Rebeka outside at
1:30pm , we needed to assemble at 1:45pm , and would be walking shortly after 2pm.  Alice had gone with a wedding dress, and had a fab trans umbrella, she always looks amazing. 

Our group was told to meet on Great George Street by the 'Be at One' bar. We seemed to spend quite a while gathering, and shuffling around a bit, we had ended up a bit further back than we should have been.  

I Chatted to a few friends, and I spotted the Trans-Wakefield group a bit further behind so I went and said a brief hello to them.

I think it was around 2:20 when we started to move off, we went down the side of the art gallery and turned left onto the headrow. The crowds were huge, packed all along both sides, I felt very humbled to be there.  I was waving my flag around, trying not to bash anyone.  I mainly kept towards the centre, so didn't do much hive-fiving, didn't feel quite confident to start doing that.

I did feel very happy to be involved, and it was fantastic to see how much support there was. Great to
be experiencing it with my friends too. I did take some photo's and video, but was trying to stay in the moment as much as I could. 

It was quite a long route, I think it was past 3pm before we got to the freedom quarter.  My feet were pretty sore, I took a lot of skin off them, they still have deep gouges a week later !

After we arrived back at the freedom quarter, we visited a few of the stands, but soon decided it would be better if we went and found a straight pub to sit in, as everywhere would be rammed.  So we went to the Bankers Cat. 

A few of the girls who hadn't got a place on the march met us there, so we ended up taking over quite a few seats.  We have a few in there, and then headed over the road to 'Tapped' because they also do fab beer, but also pizza !

As it got later we seemed to fragment into different mini groups, and I headed off with Arabella and Benni back to the freedom quarter.

Benni left after an hour or so to catch her train back, and we ended up trying a cocktail place before calling it a night.  We were not really out that late, but it was a tiring day and neither of us really wanted to get very drunk.

A brief  mention of the rest of the weekend :

Thursday:

My parents in law were visiting early Friday, which meant I could not easily escape to Leeds, so I ended up getting a cheap room in Wakefield at the Holiday Inn Express/ 

I went to the trans-Wakefield group at the 'Our House' café as normal, then met up with Ann in the New Union - she had also decided to come up early. 

It was a nice evening, had a good chat with a few people, and nice to catch up with Ann again.

Friday: 

It was largely spent with Ann and Benni. It was Flamingo's for lunch , some time in Tapped in the afternoon. 

I was wigless, and in a black and white wrap dress. I had only taken my silver wig this time. 

We ate tapas at Revolution De Cuba in the early evening.  Then headed back to the hotel to change. I had a teal dress, and matching shoes on. I did end up changing the shoes as they were not that comfy !

We spent some time in Fibre, which had the penthouse reserved for us all. Then met up with Alice and the gang in the Bridge, the Packhorse and finally Northern Guitar. 

I was taking it very steady to ensure I didn't feel ill over the weekend - so didn't really drink much.

Saturday:

Mainly with Arabella and Benni.  I took Arabella for a visit to the armouries in the morning, then met up with Benni towards lunch time.

We did some shopping, then the LGBTQ stalls at the museum. We had cake at an LGBTQ event at the Age UK building.  

For our evening meal we ate at Pieminster. The pies were gorgeous - it was really slow service though.

In the evening we headed to the Viaduct Showbar, we paid to get in - they had converted the road outside to an event space, with a stage and bars and covered areas. It was really fun, we did lots of dancing. 

Arabella had helped my tape my chest up, so I had a cleavage, which I was very pleased with indeed :)

We ended the night with a visit to some cocktail places outside the freedom quarter.

Monday:

My feet were ruined, and so I was not best pleased when my car fob didn't work, which meant a walk to Poundland for a new battery.  

Thankfully I could still get in with a key to dump my bags in it - but it did set the alarm off doing it that way.

I was in man mode, as I had originally planned to pop to my parents to see them on the way home, but it would have been near enough lunch time when I arrived, so decided to do it another day.

Aside from that it was a good journey back home.  I managed to get out and cut the front lawn, but didn't' get much done for the rest of the day.