Women's motoring

 

General Updates

Have got some better passport photo's , paperwork to send off on Monday !

I have also booked a haircut with a posh stylist in Wakefield for Friday morning. I am going to give a bangs/fringe look a go !

I had a call with my new boss on Thursday, my move to IT is actually happening, it all sounded positive. There is a team meeting (video call) on Monday, so I will need to remember what I am working on for that.

Women's Drivers Social club meetup (Winter Warmer)

This was in Bicester. which is about 150 miles south of my location in the grim north :)  .  I had been preparing Josephine over Christmas, but as always was still working on her the night before to get her ready.

I had taken her for a test drive, and all was well, aside from her desire not to inform other road users that she wanted to turn left.  Which is unusual, as it was usually turning right that had the issue.  So I bodged up a spare generic indicator stalk in addition to the one already fitted.  This was required as the original stalk does the horn, and this generic one doesn't.

The meeting was on Saturday, but it's a long drive, so I decided to go down the day before and stay at Banbury. I found a cheapish hotel the 'Whately Hall Hotel', which looked to have a nice car park - which is clearly more important than my own comfort.  It turned out to be quite a nice place, the room was good, although a little noisy during the early evening as it seems the main road gets a lot of traffic.

Friday 

I arrived around 2pm, having stopped for a sandwich on the way down at some services.  After checking in, I had a bit of a wander around Banbury, it was quite dead really, but not as depressing as some places.  I found a tap bar in a shopping ce
ntre and had one stout in there.  Possibly losing a penguin earring in the process.  Then headed to a pub nearer the hotel, where I had a couple of pints of bitter, and ham eggs and chips.  It was a nice place, seemed actually interested in her job, and was good at remembering what had been previously ordered.

I had noticed the missing earring in there, so did re-trace my steps, but couldn't find it.  So went back to the hotel. I was going to chill there for the evening, and get an early night, as the plan was to do the Womens Drivers event, then drive to Birmingham for a Trans night out in the evening.

Saturday

I had been upsold breakfast when I checked in the previous day, so I got up at 7ish to be ready for 8am when they started serving,  The were only a few of us in there that early, a table with some tourists and then myself on my own.

The food was good, aside from the sausage which didn't have much texture to it - but for £10 it was OK.  

I had to be in Bicester for 10:30am, so there wasn't much of a rush after I got back to my room.  Josephine started fine, but on attempting to use the windscreen washers the pump died, didn't think much of it until I I was on the move and realised the dashcam had switched off - so i must have blown a fuse.  I was able to swap the dashcam to a power bank without stopping though.

I arrived on time, there were quite a few other ladies and cars already there, so I got a space nearer the car park entrance. We were meeting a garage that specialises in keeping classics on the road - not a place that does full restorations.  Classic Collective

I do feel a bit of imposter syndrome when around the other ladies, but they are very
welcoming, and other than a few short periods where I was looking a bit lonely I had a fab time. 

There were about 20 of us there, so quite a crowd really, 518 members on the FB group, but there seem to be not that many that go to real world meetups.

There was a workshop tour, a bit of a sales pitch on some fuel stabiliser, free hot drinks, and just some time for us all to chat. I got some video of the workshop of course :

At around 1pm we all headed to a pub for some lunch. It was a 15 minute drive away, so we did a convoy, and arrived together.

Not by design I ended up on a table with a trans woman who I had seen but not really spoken to much before, and also her partner, and some other ladies.

Had a really good talk with them, and had some nice food. The service was a bit chaotic, so we all ended up getting our orders way after others - I was lucky and got mine first. 

It was around 4pm when I decided I should make a move - a few others had left so I wasn't the first by any means. I said my goodbyes and headed out for the next leg of the adventure.

Birmingham 

I think it took me about and hour and a half to get to Birmingham, it was quite cold and I had to stop
for a wee, and also fuel on the way.  I put an extra dress on at the services to try and stay warmer for the remainder of the journey.  It got dark while I was driving as well which made it less fun too.  

I think I was at the hotel by 5:45pm  , It took a while for me to find a parking space in the multistorey I had chosen for her.  The Travelodge was only a 5 minute walk away and I got checked in quickly.

One of my friends from Leeds / Hull had heard I was going and wanted to join, so had booked in at the same hotel.  After a quick refresh of my makeup I arranged to meet her in reception so we could go get some food.

We had decided upon Wagamama's as it was close, and we were going to change before heading to the pub for the social event around 8pm.  

I can't say that I had been that impressed with them previously, but I did manage to find something I really liked at this one. It was a rice bowl with chicken - "Shu's Shiok Chicken'  - was very nice, and only 478 kcals.  With the breakfast and pub meal, I didn't want anything too calorific.

We headed back to the hotel afterwards and spent another 30 mins or so getting ready for the evening. I went with a gothic-ish look, which suited the biker boots and leggings I had kept on because it was just too damn cold !

Transcend 

This event was previously called 'Birmingham Belles' but had been re-named to make it more inclusive for trans-masc and non-binary people. The lady that runs it is a regular at LFF and comes along to our Pints and Straws event regularly too - had been meaning to go for ages.

We met in the Equator bar , and spent a good hour or s
o in there. I liked it, it had a nice atmosphere and did at least have Guinness.  We ended up talking to a couple who were going to LFF in February, so will be looking out for them  at that.  

My friend wanted to dance, so we decided to go investigate other venues,  we had a look at 'Missing' but it seemed like there was a queue, so ended up at 'Sidewalk', where we felt very old. We had a drink in there though, then moved to 'The Fox' where we ended up back with the rest of the gang.

It was a fun place, there was a pool table and some banter going on around there, I did play my friend but lost :(  

I can't remember the exact order from there onwards, we did 'The Village' , possibly 'Sidewalk' again, and 'Missing', before finishing back at the Fox.  They kicked us out of there - I think 1am , 2am something like that, and we wobbled back to the hotel :)

All in all a very good night, some really nice friendly venues - I was struck by the number of non-T rainbow people in them - LFF it doesn't feel like there are many other members of the community out with us, it just seems a lot more straight in Leeds.  This was more like Manchester in that regard.

The long drive home 

I was a bit hungover, but nothing a paracetamol couldn't mostly fix.  I wanted to get off early, so that I was in less traffic getting out of the city centre.  It wasn't a bad drive, but still quite cold. I stopped off at Woodall for a loo stop, but other than that I just kept going.  

I was a bit tired on the Monday, but was well worth it, was a very good weekend !