Michelin starred gothic seals

 

 30th Of October - Seaside Adventures 

We had planned an adventure weekend, horse riding in Beverley, then to an Airbnb near Scarborough to visit another new Park Run location - then onwards to Whitby to spend an afternoon experiencing the Goth Weekend.

Unfortunately one of Charlotte's spawn had come down with a tummy bug in the proceeding week, and he had passed it on to her 😟

We did still manage a lot of our plan, we went to horse riding on Friday afternoon, and was enjoyable for us both. She wasn't up to driving us to Scarborough though so I did that. 

On arriving at the Airbnb at Irton - which was lovely, but quite small, we had a bit of a rest then wandered into the village in search of food.  We tried a pub first, but the atmosphere wasn't the best, and the food didn't seem too enticing. So we headed to the 'Proudfoot' mini supermarket for breakfast supplies, then to Seamer Fisheries for a chippy tea.

The fish and chips were very good, and we both enjoyed - the table in the kitchen was tiny so it was a challenge though !

The only thing missing from our room, which was in it's own little annex, was a TV. But we made do with netflix on Charlotte's phone and watched 'Chappie' which i had never seen before.

We slept pretty well, but Charlotte wasn't feeling too great in the morning. But we managed to get up and get ready for the park run.  It was at the North Yorkshire Water Park, only 15 mins away from Irton. It was pretty cold, and started to rain a bit, but we were pretty well prepared.

It was gravel underfoot so we were not trying to break any PB's.  Both made it around in fairly pleasing times, Charlotte managed a 25:40 even feeling bad !  I was under 39mins too.  

She wasn't feeling too great when we got back to the room though.  So after packing back up, we decided to change our plans and go to Filey instead of Whitby, as big crowds are not the sort of thing you need when you don't feel great.

So I drove us to the long stay at the back of the Tesco, and we went for a bit of an amble.  Popped into the Memorial Garden to visit the budgies that I had fond memories from my youth - only to find the council had got rid of them 😭. My parents took me a lot when I was very young. Had a look in 'Aladin's Cave' which I also remember from my youth, it was still there at least, and full of lots of random junk. 

The run had made me quite hungry, and it seemed like a good idea to try to get her to eat something small as well, so I found us a little cafe with lots of table free. 

I had a small breakfast, and Charlotte had some poached eggs on toast, it was very reasonably priced too.

We went for an amble towards the beach, eventually going down to the Coble landing slipway.  Played some time crisis 4 in the arcade there, then headed outside and watched the sea breaking against the wall - the tide was nearly at it's highest and there was no beach to go on.  

We went the other way along the front for a bit, then up  Crescent hill back towards the centre.  Popped in a few charity shops, but she was running out of steam by this point, and just wanted to head home.  I did persuade her to pop into a pharmacy to see if they could suggest anything for her tummy, but they didn't have any great ideas.

I drove us back to Hull, and tried my best to look after her for the rest of the weekend. We had a nice time even so, and glad we didn't attempt Whitby, we can go again another year.

6th / 7th Of November - LFF

Went over to Hull on the Thursday evening, had a lovely emergency sausage and gnochi concoction for tea.  

On the Friday morning we went for a nice walk in the Humber Bridge Country park, then back for some lunch. 

Photo to right is some wellies left in the carpark by someone 😄

I was heading off to LFF, and Charlotte was going to fetch her kids over for the weekend.  I would be hosting Pints and Straws on my own (as the only official host) this time, as Ann and Benni were otherwise engaged. 

Was a bit unsure how it would go, but it turned out to be a really good one.  I wasn't drinking as had to drive home afterwards - hotels were silly money that weekend. 

Alex who helps out with the cocktail event in the evening was at the first bar, and so was Alice who was a previous host, so i didn't feel alone, which was nice.

A lady who I had met on a few previous occasions came along, ended up with her most of the afternoon too.  Met a few newbies, but it was difficult to schmooze when on my own. The turnout was really good, much more than I expected ! 

8th of November 

I meant to go for a park run on the Saturday, but I had a dodgy tummy so I just went out locally by myself instead, got some nice pics of shrooms, last of the season possibly.

 

 

 

 

13th of November  

Back in Hull, i suggested we get a greek takeaway - I had seen a mixed grill to share that looked really nice.  It was still too big for the two of us, a total meat overload - but very nice indeed ! 

On the Saturday we venture south of the river to Baysgarth Park to try that parkrun, as really getting into the idea of visiting as many different places as possible.

It was a really friendly one, the weather was not very nice though, rain again and quite cold. 

There was a bit of a hill too, which slowed me down, so no fast time.  Fortunately as the car was parked so close we could warm up quickly instead of having to walk back from Charlotte's local one.

 After returning home, we cleaned up and got changed. The plan was to go to the York Designer Outlet, as the weather was pants and some retail therapy was deemed a good idea.

Unfortunately a lot of other people had the same idea, and had a bit of a stress getting there, and into a car parking space !!

Inside was rammed and the food options were not ideal, but we were both starving and hangry, so made do with a noodle place.

It wasn't the best, but did stop up from eating the other shoppers ! 

Had a good mooch about, we both got new handbags, and I got a dress that was on sale. Charlotte got a nice furry top thingy too. 

Had  drink outside in a tent next to an ice rink, then headed home - thankfully a lot nicer drive than the way there.

Had some pasta for tea, then we got changed and headed into Hull for some drinkies ! 

We were going to hit the real ale pubs of the old town, some of which we had been in before, but we wanted to try some new ones too.  

I believe we did :

• Fretwells
• Lion and Key  
• WM Hawke 
• Sailmakers Arms

Lion and Key was a new one, that was surprisingly nice, really enjoyed a bitter in there. 

Sailmakers arms was my favourite, also a new one to me, but loved the decor, it even had a fishtank in the wall. There were a few ciders on, and they did Pieminster pies !!!!!!

It was a bit dead though, which was surprising, if it was in Leeds it would have been rammed I am sure. 

I had been giving some pills a go that supposedly helped with gluten intolerance's, but they failed to cope with the beer i had drunk, so the next day was a not fun 😞 

Did manage to go for a walk around some local parks before I set off, but didn't do much else.

27th of November 

We both had the Friday off, so decided to go to the seal colony at RAF Donna Nook. It was a lovely morning in terms of sun, but quite a chilly wind. So we both had winter adventure coats on.  

The drive there was not too bad, but the bright sun was very low, and made it hard to see. We got there OK, stopping at some loos in North Somercotes on the way. The smaller nearer and also free car park was open, and we managed to get a space which was a blessing.

Wandered along the footpath to the viewing area, passing by a burger van with lots of tempting smells - but unlikely and gf food.  

There was a lot more humans than expected, but also sooooooo many seals and pups. We spent a good hour going from one end to the other looking at them all. Quite a few pups were right up close to the fence, so you could get very close to them. 

Never been so close before, there were lots of noises - not so cute, sounded more like teenagers really. A few of the males had been fighting, and there were a few oozing neck wounds on display.  

Lots of starlings were on the ground eating the afterbirth too ! 

Hard to get a sense of how many there were, but I must have seen several hundred or so.

We had made packed lunches to take with us, and so when we were done went back to the car and had those.

We had intended to go for an explore along some of the coastal footpaths, which we tried to do, but once we were out of shelter the cold wind was just cutting straight through to us, and we abandoned that idea.

On the way back we diverted to a windmill that Charlotte had seen a sign for, and had remembered was notable as it had 6 sails. 

On arrival we discovered they had been removed for maintenance, but there were some nice little shops dotted around the base, and looked in a few of those.  

We discovered some fantastic geometric design cups in a pottery, which had been made by a very friendly guy there, so we bought a couple of those, and headed back to Hull.  

Charlotte had decided to treat us to a posh meal at a michelin featured restaurant in Beverley in the evening, and I had persuaded her to make it more of an adventure by getting the train there. This would enable us to have some wine with the posh food, which would make it more of a night out.

It also meant that I could visit a micropub we had seen on a previous shopping expedition there !! 😝

Our Uber to the train station was very good, the traffic was awful but he found a way through a load of industrial estates and back roads to get us there in plenty of time. 

The train ride was uneventful, and only took about 15 mins, was really cheap too ! 

On arrival we headed straight for 'Chequers Micropub'.  It was pretty rammed inside, but a guy was just leaving and so we got the only free table.  It was table service, and seemly only the landlady was attending to everyone, but she did a fab job and we didn't have to wait long.

I had some proper (flat) cider, and Charlotte got an IPA i think.  There was an older guy, and a much younger guy sat on a table next to us who were really friendly.  Had a nice chat with them, they were locals -  a father and son as it turned out.  The younger one was a metal lover, and his father I think worked on oil rigs !  

We really enjoyed it in there, but after another half it was soon time to head to the 'Westwood' restaurant. The nice people and the landlady said farewell as we departed.

It was about a 15 minute walk, but we were not in a massive rush as our table was booked for when they opened, so no point in being early. 

We had already mostly decided that were were going to order a sharing steak, so we really just needed to decide on the starters, wine, and the sides to go with it. Had a Bierzo for the wine. 

For starters I had scallops and Charlotte had yellowfin tuna tartare, they both looked amazing and tasted so too !

The steak was also very well presented and looked delicious, so good that I didn't even stop to take a photo.  We had mushrooms , broccoli and Charlotte potatoes with it.

I was flagging towards the end, but Charlotte managed to finish it off 😊  

We were too full for desert, but had a small Calvados each to keep us warm on the long walk to the train station. 

The next train was going to be a little while, so we did find a pub to shelter in nearby - it had been recommended by the nice people sat next to us in the micropub.  They had a gluten free beer on, so I went with that - it was very nice. We didn't explore it fully, as we just ended up in the front bar, so need to pop in again sometime.

Unfortunately the train had been delayed a little, so we had a bit more of a wait on the cold platform than anticipated, but aside from that the journey back was fine, and a lot quieter then on the way.

The morning plan was to do a parkrun, so no more drinking allowed, and we got an Uber back to Charlotte's.

All in all a really fab evening, lovely food, drink and met some nice people, couldn't really improve on it at all !

 

28th Of November 

Parkrun was a chore, I was sooooooo full of meat still, it was a horrible cold rainy day too. But we got around ! No PB's from either of us, and I lost a glove.

We had some duck egg  sandwiches for brunch  (had bought them the previous day on way back from seals). 

Then in the afternoon we headed into Hull to look at the markets - in the hope they would have something lovely for us to have for dinner. But they were mostly street food stalls, not stalls selling food.  

We did pop into Primark for a mooch around and both bought books from waterstones.

We also got a fighting game for the PS4 to play later in the day.  We watched Attack the Block in the evening, which was good fun ! 

It was Moussaka for tea, which was lovely, and we had some bottled cider I had got a while ago. 

 

29th Of November 

Twas the last day of my visit, and it was nice and sunny again ! So we decided to head over the river to visit the 'Ropewalk' gallery, a really nice place housed in an extremely long building that was the rope works.   

They do lots of jewellery from small artisan craftspeople, as well as art and sculpture and all sorts.  We did manage not to buy anything though.

After this we headed to the riverside to the visitor center, which had more crafts for sale, and we had a cup of tea in the cafe too.  Then outside to walk around a bit of nature reserve before heading back over the bridge.

Had some lunch and relaxed for a bit in the afternoon before heading back west before tea.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Not dead, honest

 

Well it's been a while !  - one of my friends even sent me a message to check i had not abandoned my blog.

So I have a lot of October to talk about, best dig into the photo's and see what i did !  

 

3rd of October - Leeds First Friday.  

We Stayed at the Hyatt.  Pints and straws was good, there was a fire alarm as we got ready for the main event though, and Charlotte was half dressed !  We were probably the last ones down - apparently someone cooking a chicken in a microwave in one of the apartments.

The evening was good, we teamed up with lovely Benni and Sally.  

After spending a bit of time at the Bridge End Social we ventured onwards to the Bridge - mainly due to likelihood of  80's music. Then Fibre - as Benni wanted free Pizza, and Blayds for the cheap gin, and fun drag DJ/music.  

I think we did the End Bar, and Behind Closed Doors after those, but only vague memories. We had too many double gins ! 

Breakfast in the morning was made memorable by a lady from Essex who was shouting about her boyfriends sausage being lukewarm and spouting about food poisoning - which we enjoyed 😂 

She didn't seem in the mood to joke, so I didn't ask to feel her boyfriends sausage.

Despite eating breakfast I was still a bit hungover in the morning but we still managed to go look around the markets. I was meant to be meeting with some ex-colleagues for a coffee at 1pm. I managed to make it to that, and spent a few hours chatting with them which was nice !   

We relocated to Hull afterwards.  Unfortunately it seems like we must have got hit with a stone on the way to Leeds as we returned to the car park to find a large crack in the windscreen. 

 

5th of October - Deacon Blue, Connexin Live Hull

Deacon Blue - one of Charlotte's favorite bands was playing in Hull and I had got us tickets for this a while ago.  

There was some issue with finding the seats, the signage was a bit confusing ! and then Charlotte started to suffer with back pain and had to go get pain killers from the st johns ambulance !  But this was all before the main act came on, and we were fine by the time they did.

They played some of their best hits, such as  Dignity and Real Gone Kid, and they sounded very much like the radio versions from yesteryear which was really good !  

I didn't know a lot of the songs, but I did really enjoy it - not as much as Charlotte, she was really getting into it 😊 

Getting home was a bit of a pain due to the queue out of the car park, but we did eventually get out. 

 

9th of October - Work trip to London

I was reassigned from a project i was quite getting into, before the fruits of my endeavors really got to be seen  - which I was quite upset about. It was meant to be because I was required to work on a more important project.

There was a face to face for this new project in London, so I had to go to that - I am not keen on trains or London, or changes to my routine. So it was a bit stressful. I managed OK though.  An LNER guy seemed to clock me and say something to a colleague while walking past on the platform at Wakefield on my outward journey.  Didn't cause me masses of upset, only mentioning for the sake of record.

Got back fine, and drove straight from Wakefield to Hull to see Charlotte - it was a Thursday so it's my only opportunity when she had the kids that weekend. So I had a late tea, and not much of an evening, but was still fab to be with her for a bit.

On Friday we walked to the park in the morning to see the goose with the injured wing, had lunch then I drove home. 

  

16th of October 

Went to Hull, we had a lovely Chilli for tea.   I worked from there during the day, in the evening Charlotte made us a fakeaway lamb kebab which was amazing ! 

On Saturday we did the park run in the morning, there were pace runners this time, which was excellent as I was able to mostly keep up with the 38 minute one and get a PB - 37 mins 52 seconds.  I went a bit quick on the first lap and was flagging by the last one, so it did take a lot out of me though.

Went to Beverly for lunch and a smooch around, I had a lovely jacket potato with orange cheese in a nice cafe.  Afterwards we looked around the shops and the market then headed over to the minster. 

In the evening we took a very fast Uber into Hull for a few drinkies - which we needed after that drive ! 

The Hop and Vine was the first place, which i really liked - did lots of ciders which I am a big fan of, and is naturally GF.

Did a few more places, but we did end up back at a fairly reasonable time, we were quite sensible for a change.

On the Sunday we went to some fab woods to do a bit of mushroom spotting - and were not disappointed, most I've seen in one place ever. 

 

 

20th of October - Work trip to London

Another trip to the big smoke, less stressful this time as I knew what to expect.  It was on a Monday too so didn't interfere with my plans too much.  Not much of note happened really.

 

 

 

 

23rd of October

Back in Hull, lovely lasagna was ready for me when I arrived !  Charlotte had to work on the Friday, so i pottered about a bit - we did go for a lunchtime walk though. 

Buttered lemon fish and greens for tea, and I think we watched one of the 'Escape from' films with Kurt Russell.

I was able to stay Friday night as the kids were not coming up until Saturday midday, so I got to do the Peterpan parkrun in the morning - but not with Charlotte as she went to pick up her kids.

I did another PB, but only by one second 😊 -  I was much happier with this one though, as my pace for each kilometer was more consistent.  I also said hello to the injured goose while i was there.

After getting home and having lunch I took my wife and kids to visit my parents, as we had not seen them for a while.  I accidentally charged at a Tesla charging station on the way, i didn't realize that the  'EV on the move' stations were owned by them. 

After leaving my parents I suggested we go get a pub meal, since we also hadn't spent that much time together recently too.  I had a nice steak, and my eldest went mad and dared to try a medium steak instead of well done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster's

 

September Catch-up 

 

LFF  Weekend 5th September

Not many of my friends were doing this one, I would have been the only Pints and Straw's host present, so I requested a break.  The two year anniversary is tomorrow at the time of writing this, that one will likely be a good one.

Myself and Charlotte still went into Leeds early, but instead we went to a Lego sculpture exhibition I had pre-booked.  

It was fab !! , really big and detailed sculptures.  

 

We spent a good hour in there, at the end was an area where you could build your own creation to stick to a wall !   Obviously we decided that a trans flag should be produced, however they were lacking in pink bricks, so we didn't manage a big one.

If you look carefully at the pic it's just above Charlotte's hand.

Afterwards I took on a bit of a tour of the northern area bars - we don't normally get anywhere near there on an LFF as it's the opposite end of the center.  

Soon it was time for food, I had spied a lovely looking gluten free tapas place in an arcade we walked past, we decided to give it a go. https://www.casa-leeds.com/

It was fantastic food, we both had a dish that had a bit of everything in, rather than ordering individual items.  We were both really impressed with it, and nothing was left. 

The venue appears to open the upstairs as a latin nightclub in the evenings as well, but we were too early for that.

Afterwards we made our way to the Leonardo to freshed up before LFF.

As not many people were there, I had a plan to try and get around some venues that we wouldn't normally do, partly for variety but also to see if was missing any fun anywhere. We did meet up with Alice and Rebecca at the Bridge End Social for a bit first though. 

• Bridge End Social
• Bridge - Had 80's selection going 
• Blayd's Bar - Small, busy but friendly
• Viaduct - Had some terrible cocktails
• Pride Bar (above Queens Court)  -  dead as usual, but nice music !   
• The End Bar 

Not a bad night, but by midnight was done, so I suggested we get a Kebab and head to bed 😁

Istanbul Kebab near the Kirkgate market has become a firm favorite, it's in the wrong direction to the hotel, but it's worth a bit of a walk.  Usually some funny drunk people in too.

 

I didn't sleep that well, and the next day wasn't feeling very energized. 

 

Charlotte drove us back to Hull, and we ended up going for a nice little walk near the river to blow away the cobwebs.

 

In the evening I rented 'The Black Hole (1979)' a favorite of mine, and we watched that. Don't think Charlotte enjoyed as much as me 😂 

 

On the Sunday we went to a trans social meeting in Hull, and felt rather old - it seems to be mainly youngsters that go  😀.

 

Had some lunch, then went on a walk , headed back home to Barnsley in the late afternoon. 

 

A fab weekend !

 

 

Weekend of 11th September  

 

Popped over to see Charlotte on the Thursday night, had a lovely spaghetti she had cooked for us.

 

We watched ' The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)' , which to my shame I had never seen ! It was good !  

 

I headed home on Friday. 

 

Saturday I did a park run in the morning - tried the Barnsley one, seemed very friendly, going to make that my home one I think. 

 

I took the family out for a disappointing meal at a chain pub for lunch.  Steak could have stopped bullets, but the family seemed to appreciate being out.

 

In the afternoon I worked on the Flying 9.

 

On Sunday I went to see my parents, then onward to swimming - not been in ages ! Think I manged 40 lengths though. 

 

 

Weekend of 18th September  

I had requested a Paneer cheese based dish from one of Charlotte's cook books, as we are both a fan of trying new things.  Unfortunately both the cheese and the recipe were a bit bland. But it filled a hole :)

 

Lynn had very kindly posted me a pair of Snag tucking pants to try.

I let Charlotte try too -  we were not that impressed really - just seemed like big pants. Not much improvement to the boy shorts we favor.

 

I had to work on the Friday during the day,  in the evening we had a lovely beef Stroganoff, then watched  the John Carpenter film 'Dark Star' - which apparently inspired Red Dwarf. It was mildly amusing, not as funny as Red Dwarf though 😂

 

Saturday

  

The plan was a park run at PeterPan park in the morning, I managed a PB of 40:37 !! 

 

 

Event	Run Date		Overall Position	Time
Peter Pan parkrun	20/09/2025		254	40:37
Barnsley parkrun	13/09/2025		209	41:05
Nostell parkrun	16/08/2025		245	44:51
Peter Pan parkrun	09/08/2025		276	43:50

  

That was very pleasing, I was hopeful I might bet below 40 minutes at some point if I can keep up the improvements.

 

For lunch and the afternoon, we headed to Lincoln, where we decided upon the Botanist to eat. 

The food was pretty good, I had a Chicken Schnitzel. We both enjoyed our food - but the  Botanist Mule that we had to drink was awful and sort of ruined it a bit.  It was labelled as a nutritional health drink, but was really really sharp, way too much lime juice.

 

We went for a wander, White Stuff, Flying Tiger,  Waterstones, an LGBTQ+ bookshop,  and then on wards up Steep hill.  The aim was to go to place that sold posh coffee beans which is about half way up.

 

It seemed to have a lovely selection, and time was spent sniffing the jars before a selection was made.  It turned out to be quite disappointing when tasted though - possibly been in the shops jar way too long, so it went in the bin 😢

 

After this we continued, and bought some apples from a farmer on the east coast who had an orchard. They were very nice, but he miscounted and we were one apple short when we got home ! 

 

We popped into a local coffee place for a drink before we headed home it was another LGBTQ friendly place - Charlotte spotted a Robert Galbraith book on one of the shelves of books you can borrow, and did talk to friendly staff member about removing it !  

 

I am not keen on possible confrontation so went outside while she did that !  It went fine apparently, and the lady suggested it might get burned 😂

 

We headed home shortly afterwards, but popped into a farm shop on the way home.

 

 

Saturday Evening 

 

We were out on the town in Hull , got an Uber in, the plan was to start at 'The Star' but when we arrived the music was way too loud for us , and we left immediately.

 

Went to Cherry's instead,  there was some Karaoke on, but we sat quite far away so wasn't too bad.  Moved on to Zinnia's where the drag DJ gave us some free shots.  She ran out of the Sourz that she was meant to be using, so we ended up with some much more expensive Sambuca's instead !! 

 

Headed to Monroes after this, where we discovered a pool table upstairs, we were going to do a best of 3, but I think Charlotte fouled making it impossible for her to win, so we only did the 2 games.  

 

During the evening I had lamented that there was not much youth out and about these days - this is important for later ! 

 

Spiders ! 

 

I was in the mood for more dancing juice, and I had been wanting to try the Spiders goth/rock nightclub for a while, so I used my evil powers of persuasion to get us in another Uber to the nightclub.

 

It was a cash only place, but there was a nice man who would act as a human ATM for a small fee.  I was drunk enough to accept this as a sensible idea - it was only a few quid on top.

 

The place was rammed with all the youth I had previously lamented about !  they were all clad mostly in black - as we were coincidentally.  The drinks selection was a bit strange, seeming to be Hitchhikers Guide themed.  

 

I got us some Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster's , which were actually quite nice.  We spied one of Charlotte's friends from the Hull trans coffee mornings, and ended up with them for a while.   They had put some Megadeth on, so I was very happy !!  unfortunately they didn't play much.

 

I recall ordering some 'Green Monsters' next, which I think had Absinthe in - memory failure slowly occurs after this. 

 

I managed to order us an Uber back to hers, but it took us a while to find it.  We did get home OK, but then there was a bit of a kerfuffle as we couldn't find her keys anywhere. Not sure how long we were outside, but probably a while !

 

Did eventually get back in, Charlotte went upstairs and collapsed, I decided that making cheese on toast was the best idea, and did that - making a lot of mess in the process.  

 

It was a very fun night, but Absinthe based drinks are a very bad idea, and we have both mutually agreed that we should probably not go to Spiders again 😂

 

Sunday

The morning was spent regretting yesterdays consumption,  but we had a nice walk after lunch. We spied a lovely 03 plate Nissan Cube, do love the older variant.

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 25th / 26th September

 

Visited Hull, Charlotte cooked us steak with potato wedges and spring greens, was lovely.

The next day we went for a bit of a walk along the riverside, then I headed home.

 

 

 

 

  

 

Exodus

WTSHTF - plans !  

Serious discussions have been had regarding an exodus from the land of our births, should a certain frog faced individual get into power.

The recent trend of painting crosses on things, and the hanging of flags has not improved our outlook on the future. 

Although not many households around here have partaken, and at least I now know easily where the local gammons live. 

I have previously looked at the rainbow map of  Europe, to try and find places that might be suitable to go to.

Rainbow Map 

Green is good, Red is bad  !

They rank based on seven categories: equality and non-discrimination; family; hate crime and hate speech; legal gender recognition; intersex bodily integrity; civil society space; and asylum.

Surprisingly Italy doesn't seem so good, even compared to the UK, I was not expecting this ! 

Spain had been the number one contender, partly as due to it being a very accepting country, but also one of us could be employed there fairly easily.

But at the weekend, in a rare moment of clarity, I did recall that Wales was meant to be more trans-friendly than the rest of the UK. 

I did more digging, and it seems they even have an action plan :

"Our plan to make Wales the most LGBTQ+ friendly nation in Europe." 

https://www.gov.wales/lgbtq-action-plan-wales-contents 

They even seem to suggest they may devolve specific laws to make them able to be more friendly than the UK as a whole !  :

"Trigger a request to devolve the Gender Recognition Act and support our Trans community."  

This plans was first published back in 2023, and although they have published progress updates since, it doesn't seem to me that they are in a big rush with anything.

But it would certainly be a lot easier to relocate there than Spain.

Unfortunately it seems Reform is also doing quite well there at the moment though :

 

The election there is due by the 7th of May 2026, so not too far off. So perhaps they will suffer the same fate as the rest of the UK, and this plan will be ripped up with gusto 😢

I guess will have to wait and see - even if they don't get it, it would be worrying if they were big enough to be the main opposition party. I would very much like them to go back to being the joke they always were.

Not sure if I previously shared this, but the one to the right is a picture that my friend Bella took when we visited Lytham St Anne's back in June through the window of their Reform branch.

You can see how important they feel about the subject, they've not even left any room to talk about immigrants !

Anyway, we shall continue as we are for the moment. Lots more research required !

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

  

Relationship Status

 

Relationship Status 

Well I thought I should perhaps talk about something more serious than my adventures for once. 

I have a lovely girlfriend called Charlotte (also trans) who has featured in a lot of my posts since early in the year.  

My wife of many years has not known about this until recently, she had read the blog in the past, but I don't think she has for a long time now.  So I had not been able to talk about this until she knew. 

She was understandably upset, mainly that I had not told her, and that she had to ask. I couldn't lie when she did, I was tired of having the secret, I don't like lying.  I was being pretty obvious really, as if I wanted it to come out, but didn't dare. 

It was similar to how sloppy i was getting with hiding my clothes just before I came out to her, being caught is the lazy way of doing it though.

I won't go into the details, as I don't want to overshare - but things had not been going that well with our marriage for a while even before I came out - but doing so probably put the nail in the coffin in terms of a possible re-enlivenment of it.

We were really just drifting along as friends, we do still get on and will hopefully continue to do so.   

Things as largely as they were before she knew, nothing much has changed other than she knows really.

We have not really had a discussion about long term plans, other than I didn't want to completely leave any time soon for the sake of the boys. We will need to sit down at some point and have a proper discussion. We really should talk more. 

My kids don't know, they will eventually of course, but Charlotte doesn't come here very often, and when she does it usually to leave her car while we go for adventures somewhere.  

Charlotte does read the blog - ( Hi Charlotte 👋 !! ) which is nice, she enjoys reading my reports of our adventures 😊

 I shall finish this here for now, I don't want to waffle on too much.  

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

  

 

 

More August Adventures

 

So August was pretty busy 😂  - there is another weekend I haven't included in this, it was just getting far too long !!  That will be for the next one.

 

11th - 15th of August - Family Holiday, Withernsea

I had booked a caravan on the east coast for a holiday away with the wife and kids. We usually do a week away at least once a year.

It was nice to spend some quality time with the kids, we managed some day trips out to a few places 

• Burton Agnes Hall - Had a pride flag flying above it !
• Bugtopia Hornsea Zoo - Nice turtles
• The Deep Aquarium  - Not been for ages, really enjoyed !

We did spend some time in Withernsea as well, it's not a huge place but OK for a short break.  Weather was OK , not too hot thankfully - it was a heatwave in many parts of the UK that week.  

Didn't manage to go to Spurn, partly as nobody else was bothered - which was a shame, but I had done earlier in the year at least. 

Everyone seemed to have a fun time, the park and caravan were a bit more tired than we were used to, but it was still a nice break.  

 

 

16th of August - Nostell park run 

Wanting to continue with my exercise regime I decided to go to one of my local park runs. I am sort of in the middle of three of them, but this venue meant more to me - it was the first place i went out en-femme all those moons ago !

I never would have imagined I would be back here with hundreds of people dressed, and running ! 

It didn't feel as friendly as my 1st, but I didn't have someone with me who knew people there, so I guess was to be expected.  I didn't end up as fast as the previous either, this one is a bit more hilly and I was running slower as a result. 

I hope to attend again this weekend, weather permitting.  

 

21st August Peterborough Beer Festival 

The Womens Drivers Club had a 3 day event near Great Yarmouth, which overlapped slightly with the Peterborough beer festival,  I do like that beer festival, and it is attended by a number of my friends.  So thought it was a good idea to have a day at that, to break up the journey to Norfolk.

I was going with Charlotte in the Morris, she came to mine first then we drove down to Peterborough on the Thursday morning. The drive was pretty uneventful and we arrived by 11:30.  I had pre-booked parking for her, but spaces are at a premium so an early arrival was prudent.  I managed to bag a space next to a lamppost, so I could chain her up - Josephine not Charlotte 😀

 We were both hungry, which did end up causing us to not spend a lot of time looking for somewhere nice to eat.  The place we ended up at wasn't the best, but we did at least manage to find a gluten free pizza for me. Sally spotted us while walking past to meet the others somewhere and popped in to say hi, which was nice.

After this we had a quick look inside the Cathedral, and then popped into a micropub for the first drink of the day.  We couldn't check-in till 3pm, so was no point rushing back.

We got into our room, and had a cup of tea before heading to the beer festival a short walk over the road.

The others were already in there, and we managed to locate them.  The day progressed as usual, lots of gluten free drinks for me, mainly proper still ciders.  We grabbed some food -  i think i had a curry and rice.  I got some nice turtle earrings from a stall in the entertainment tent. More drinking, I went a bit mad and started trying gin, mead and some others.  Charlotte got a kebab a bit later on.

I think we left about 10pm, but I persuaded Charlotte we should visit a pub inside a barge near the hotel for a nightcap.  Our friends ended up following us there, which was awkward as we had said were off to bed 😁 

We were back in the hotel for 11 ish, and I did try and drink a lot of water.  

 

22nd - 25th of August Women's Drivers Social Club  - Camping near Great Yarmouth

It should be no surprise to anyone that I wasn't feeling my best in the morning - but didn't feel tipsy at least. So we packed back up and headed east ! 

It was a warm drive, but the traffic was not bad, I had hoped to stop off at an air museum on the way for lunch, but it turned out they only did cold food. So Charlotte found us a nice little place to stop in and grab lunch called Swaffham.  I just about managed to eat the middle of a jacket potato - tummy still delicate, but it did help.  

We went in a friendly florist/greengrocers to grab some bananas for Charlottes breakfast the next day, and some emergency apples, then set back off.   We made good time, and even managed to detour to a holiday let that Charlotte had been in earlier in the month to retrieve a cushion she had left !  - we also bought some lovely eggs from there too.

I believe we arrived at the campsite about 4pm. The group pitching was already in progress when we arrived and we got allocated a spot next to Katie and her white VW Sirocco. 

After setting the tent up it was nearly tea time, and Charlotte was getting a bit hangry so I put the camping stove on and made us some pasta pesto and sausage which was very quick to do. I always bring emergency Mattessons smoked sausage as it's vacumn packed and doesn't need to be refrigerated till open.  

We got our chairs out and sat around with the rest of the girls later on, but didn't stay up late as we were both fairly tired.

23rd   - We were meant to be going to a transport museum but while googling how to get their the previous night I had discovered it was closed, and I had suggested we all go to the City of Norwich Air Museum instead, which everyone seemed to think was a good idea.

We all gathered after breakfast and drove to the museum in convoy which was fun.  The museum was really good, lots of exhibits and plenty of aircraft outside to look at - you could pay to go in them, but you had to book slots etc so didn't bother.

Had lunch there, and then we stopped off at a farm shop / shopping outlet on the way back.  Was a nice place, all sorts there from jewellery to clothes, fairly mature tree's and food.   There was a cafe as well.  We spotted a horse in a field so went to go look at that too.

After we got back to the campsite, I cooked another meal - might have been rice this time, i forget. Then we took a walk into Hembsy to try and find the girls who had gone earlier. We saw some of them coming back, but continued on.  There were plenty of arcades, the usual tat shops and chippy / ice cream shops.   

I do like two player driving games, so I had a go with Charlotte on a Daytona one -  we were not too badly matched !  Made our way back along the dunes to the campsite after a while, and then sat out with the girls again.  Was a very pleasant evening.

24th 

The group had organized for us to show our vehicles at an American themed dinner on the Great Yarmouth sea front, it was going to be really busy as there was a very large truck display and convoy coming through in the early evening.  We needed to get in position before the roads were closed off for the day, and would be there until after the convoy went through town in the early evening.

It was only a short drive to the location, and we were in the right place fairly quickly, but needed to do a bit of maneuvering to get us all in a nice display formation.

Charlotte had unfortunately got an issue with her face, a bug bite or ingrown hair or something. This had made one side of her cheek swell up. So our first port of call after parking was a pharmacy to get advice. They were helpful but not able to suggest anything other than pain relief and antihistamines. We did replenish stocks , and thankfully the swelling did subside slowly over the day.

We ended up back at the dinner where some of the girls were having brunch, and joined them for a drink. They seemed to specialise in doing snails on the coffees in chocolate powder, so Charlotte got one - looked more like a rabbit to me 🤣

After this we went for a wander, looked at a few other cars from a different group and walked along the seafront.  We found a cafe in the leisure centre that did more healthy food so ate there and used the loos. 

Went to the southern most pier, played pool, did some bowling and played some of the arcade machines.  

We ended up doing some retro old money arcade games somewhere else, and found a partially functional Sega rally 2 , but was too bad to have a fair game.

We stumbled across a few of the other girls wandering around too. Later on after a tea at the Hippodrome, we eventually found a working Sega rally version one !!!!

The truck convey was at 6, so we decided to have some fish and chips before that came through, it was very busy everywhere so we got as takeaway and ate back at the car.

Convoy was really good, must have been over 100 trucks, everyone of them polished very well, and the drivers were all in shirts and ties. Lady truckers got cheers from the assembled Womens Drivers Club - I didn't get any photo's though, I was taking video and haven't got around to uploading it yet.

After the convoy, we did the North most pier - the highlight for me was the shooting game which I did really well at !   

We were in lower level room with 2p machines , trying to get a soft toy, and water stared pouring on the machines from above. We did manage to get the soft toy before ours started to get wet ! 

Drove back to the campsite about 7ish, stopping for fuel on the way, coincidentally pulled up to one of the other girls who had the same idea 😊 - Sat out with the rest of the group for a bit when they all returned, it was quite a long day as had been on our feet for a lot of it. 

25th 

This was the last day of the adventure, the plan was to go to a big car museum in the morning, then everyone could head home later on.

It was only a short drive to the Caister Castle Car Collection , we formed up in the car park for a group shot.

 The car collection was very large, it had a bit of everything really, from early steam cars all the way to 80's and 90's stuff.  The was obviously a Morris Minor, and I did find a Standard but it was a lot newer than mine.   Charlotte liked some of the Mazda's. 

We spent a good while looking around, I got lots of photo's of course.

 

It was nearing lunch time, so we headed to the cafe on site and met back up with everyone as they all had the same idea.  We had brought some emergency tuna meals to have, which was good as there wasn't much there we liked.

After eating, we decided to say our goodbyes, as it would be a long trip back home, then Charlotte would need to drive back to Hull from mine when I got us back to Barnsley.

The drive back was pretty uneventful, it was a warm day so had the windows down, traffic wasn't too bad and we made good time.  We stopped once for fuel and a loo break.

Was pretty tired by time we got back to mine. 

All in all a very nice weekend - I do really look forward to these events, and it didn't disappoint at all !  - fab to share it with Charlotte too, much more fun with company.