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.