A long list of thank yous

Hello all

I am currently sat waiting for the train back from London after starting the process of becoming Kate properly and I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of those who have a special impact on helping me get to this day.

Please note that this list is in no particular order and if you are not mentioned, it does not mean that I still don't appreciate your help.

Charlie Herlingshaw

Charlie Herlingshaw and Ellen Lancaster : Arguably my two closest friends. I've known you both for seven years now and both of you have known pretty much from day one about my desire to become female. You both sat there and listened to me moaning about various aspects of this whole process and helped me through various issues with some of the other members of this list. I have had so many "firsts" thanks to you two, and I can't thank you both enough.

Megan Curtin : Megan is a strange one because although I consider her a close friend, we haven't really spoken since November, which is ten months ago now, which is a scary thought. Megan has always been supportive of my decision but although our conversations are virtually always about something else, I couldn't omit her from this blog due to her being that important to me.

M : Despite your numerous flaws, you were an awesome friend, you made me laugh, cry and experience virtually every other conceivable emotion. You bought out the best aspects of my personality and you helped me become more confident in various parts of my life and despite my paranoid thoughts, you stuck with me until the end. Thank you, Marinda, and wherever you are, whatever you're doing, just know that I will always love you.


David Kirkbright : Me and Dave have known each other for about ten years and we used to argue a LOT (always about stupid things), but apparently he knew about me wanting to become female for a LONG time without mentioning it. He has helped me still find it relatively easy to remain in the group of fans I go to Lincoln games with and funnily enough, since I effectively outed myself to everyone, we haven't had a single argument. It feels strange thanking Dave on a blog entry given that I still see him on a regular basis.

David Kirkbright (left) and his lookalike, Gene Wilder

Amy Corcoran : I work with Amy and if there's one person who must be commended for their patience with me, it's Amy. For 18 months Amy sat directly opposite me so was right there when I was having long rants about various things, but she also helped me a lot when it came to advice and tips with regards to becoming a woman. We have also had our arguments on occasions, sometimes very heated, but despite that, and despite me treating her like shit for most of the time we've known each other (unintentionally I might add), she stayed true and was always there with help and advice.

Layla Haynes : My boss at Vodafone. Layla has been a massive help in me becoming a nicer person to be around when she effectively taught me that there's no point in getting angry over stuff that I can't control. I first told Layla about Kate in March/Aprilish and she helped me prepare for "coming out" to everyone at work, and I can't thank her enough for that.

Hayley Burton : Another colleague at Vodafone and someone who I have never really been close to, or indeed known a lot about, but when I "came out" to everyone she was there with tips, useful contacts, and various other things that turned out to be a massive help as I've tried settling into life as a woman.....even though I am still a guy.

Jade, Jodie and the girls at Celestial Touch : I don't know any their last names and they sort of link together. Jodie (hair), Jade (make up) and the girls at Celestial Touch (beauticians) have helped me look less ridiculous by sorting out those various aspects of my appearance, and because of them I now look completely different to what I did a few months ago. I look back on myself when I had a full goatee and dressed like I was in a heavy metal band, and it looks really strange now. With their help I now look less manly (although still manly for obvious reasons).

"Lynn" Jones - http://www.yatgb.blogspot.co.uk/ : "Lynn" runs a groups in Nottingham of people from the trans community, it's not quite a support group but more like a social gathering to people of the same mindset. Although I won't claim to know Lynn well, we have had several interesting conversations and when I do go to the group, she is always the person who I look forward to talking to the most.

Debbie Pulford : I've known Debbie since I was about 11 and in that time we've never been close, but we have always got on quite well. She has known for several years about the Kate aspect of my personality and after I "came out" to everyone in July, she was one of the first to offer to go on a shopping trip with me. That was quite an unusual trip as we got lost on the way to Meadowhall and despite my intention buying what was effectively an entirely new wardrobe....I bought four things and she bought more than I did. It was quite a funny day.

Jenna Adams : Jenna is my longest serving friend as we have known each other since we were about four years old, give or take. Again, Jenna has never really been one of my closest friends but we have always got on quite well and although I don't see her often, when I did she her for the first time in several years a few months ago, she was brilliant with everything and our meeting, which was originally just for a coffee, turned into a shopping trip.

Sarah Baradell - My delightful half-sister. Sarah has known about this part of me for around 7 years and has been awesome with it ever since. She came with me to my first meeting of the group mentioned in the "Lynn" section and although I could tell when she first saw me as Kate that she was thinking "what the actual fuck do you look like?"....but she was otherwise awesome. Funnily enough several people there thought that she was my girlfriend....even though we look reasonably similar.

And that's it really. Again, sorry if I missed anyone, it was completely unintentional.

Our trip to Tamworth

A disappointing birthday and why I dislike London

Hello all

I turned 28 today but I wasn't that concerned about getting older, my main concern of the day was that it was the day when I had an appointment booked in to start the process of changing sex. I had waited for this day for 28 years, and the nerves were killing me.

My day started with the alarm going off at 6am, by 7:30 I was out of my house and heading to Fernwood to have make up professionally done....I'm crap at make-up.....and after about 30 minutes, my face looks much shinier than usual and to be fair, I did look very feminine with what the artist had done, it looked a bit odd but I suppose that's what happens when you're not used to looking like that.

A few hours later and I'm in Kings Cross, I've not even reached the ticket barrier and London is already pissing me off. I don't like London at all, if the term "rat-race" could be applied to anywhere in the world, it would be London. Everyone is trying to screw each other over to gain a slight advantage. Before I had even reached the ticket barrier four people had been pushed down by one bloke who was in a hurry, he didn't even turn around to apologise to any of them. This continued throughout the day.

Not to forget the complete chaos that is the entrance to the London underground, people walking in several different directions at the same time and colliding into each other, giving each other the look of death as they expect the other to apologise, and in the end no-one does.

I made my way to the appointment, arriving at the place at around 1:30 (even though my appointment wasn't until 3, I just wanted to get there early to help calm my nerves). After about 20 minutes, the receptionist comes back from what I assume was his lunch and looked on his computer.....he told me that my appointment had been 11:30. I showed him the details that he had sent me in an email and he realised he had fucked up but didn't really do anything about it, saying that as the doctor was fully booked up, I would have to come back another day. So despite the fact they fucked up, I now had to go back at a different time, in other words taking more time off of work, spending more money to get down and across London, and various other things, I was not happy, but more importantly I just fell flat, I was deflated after weeks of mentally preparing myself for this day.

Fortunately I was due to meet my friend Catherine anyway for a drink, so she helped get me back in a goodish mood, although she noticed that I was a bit downtrodden. She has since gone to do her dissertation (something which she was not very keen on) and I am sat in a cafe with my train not due to leave for another 5 and a half hours.....if it wasn't for the residents of London I would go and have a look around, it's just a pity that most of them would rather step on me than let me experience their city in a positive light.

Oh well, I'm not booked in for the appointment on September 24th at 4pm, and they've given me an appointment card this time and I watched him put the appointment in. I know it's only a delay of 12 days and after waiting 28 years, it could be far worse, but it just left me feeling really flat about the entire thing.

Until next time.

A girl I only met once.....

Good evening all

I think I'm quite fortunate in the fact that at the age of 27, I have not really been around death. Other than my nan in 2003, I have never known anyone that has died (other than a lad called Darren who I spoke about in a previous blog).....that was until last night when I was told that an old friend had died.

The party where I met Becky, she's the girl in the middleish
doing a very unusual pose.

Back in 2006 I was quite a party animal, most of which were hosted by arguably my closest friend, Charlie. One night that year I met a girl called Becky and we eventually became good friends on Myspace (remember that?) and Facebook, before drifting apart.

A few years have gone by since the last conversation me and Becky shared and when Charlie randomly bought her up in a conversation that was about something else entirely, it was a bit strange. She told me that Becky had been in an accident where she fell out of a tree that she was climbing when with some friends and as sad as I was to hear that news, at least she died doing something she loved, which is something that not a lot of people get to do.

The way her friends are celebrating her life is, at 10pm on Friday, everyone will release a balloon or lantern and film/photograph it to manage a proper memorial somewhere. I am working at 10 but will be releasing mine as soon as I finish. I won't claim to have known her well anymore, but she always struck me as a lovely girl.

RIP Becky.

It's back, oh yeah!!!!

Hello all

A few times during this blog I have mentioned that I used to be a member of an internet forum known as Rant Rave. My former friend Jodi (oh yes, her again) introduced it to me one night and between 2004 and 2006 it turned me from a nice, calm person into someone who was not shy to share their opinions, both on the internet and in person, infact it changed who I was on so many levels that it seems weird looking back on it now.

When the forum shut down it felt like I had lost something, as time went on the various replacements sprung up featuring the same old members, Angelica, Gabs, Jen, DeBauch, et al, but it didn't quite feel the same. Rant Rave was special, it wasn't just an internet forum, it was the online equivalent to home.

Then, this evening, I got a message from one of the former members telling me that RantRave is back, albeit it in a slightly different guise. I was only 20 when I first got into RantRave so I am a lot more mature than I was back then, and now probably best fit into the category of "passive aggressive", but I am looking forward to getting back into the swing of this.

I met one of my closest friends, Megan, on RantRave, as well as making some other good friends, so if it changes my life as much as it did the time before, then I welcome it back into my life with open arms.

Whilst I am talking about RantRave and how happy I am that it is returning, I would just like to take a moment to again talk about Teresa, a former member of the original RantRave who tragically died earlier this year. I won't claim to have known her well but we always seemed to get on quite well when we were talking, so I can only hope that if there is an afterlife, you are enjoying it IdolGirl :)