Ladies who latte

Hi,

In the words of a recent songsmith, Käärijä, “this exhausting week and the many long days are behind” [mashup video – heavy music ahead, yo 🤘]. While I’m not quite up for a round of piña coladas, I am ready for some downtime. Ah, perhaps one day the money situation will be such that a further reduction in hours would be possible. Well, ideally the balance of reduced hours and enough moolar to make ends meet. This month seemed to be a bit expensive, and I had seek funds from the Bank of Ever Lovely Mrs J. I wouldn’t have minded so much if I’d spent a mint on fancy stuff – it was bills and repairs. Still, we’re sorted for Internet connectivity and whatnot, so must not grumble 😊

Self care therapy

Twas time to visit the beauty specalist this week – yeah, make your own jokes about her having the impossible task 😉 It had been about eight weeks since my last Dewookification and I think that was perhaps slightly too long a gap between sessions. We’ve agreed to try seven weeks, so let’s see how that plans out.

As ever, we had a good chat about various things – family, health, food, and the suggested risks about certain sunscreens – and I felt a lot better than when I went in. While having your leg hair ripped out of your body may not exactly be a pleasure, it gets easier with time (I barely feel it these days), so it feels like a spell of pampering.

And, no, that’s not where September’s wages went! 😉

Chams

I felt we were in for a busy night – this is a good thing! 💖 – given three new folk got in touch midweek, to check in on a few things. It’s totally understandable and if answering a few questions via email helps someone be more at ease, that’s time well spent, IMO. I mean, it feels the kind thing to do, and on a realistic level, if we didn’t welcome new people to the group, A) what type of support group would we be? and B) we would fizzle away as people moved from the group. So, yeah, you do your best to help folk feel settled.

[ On that note, a shoutout of thanks to Anne and Isobel for helping newcomers feel welcome ⭐]

Val did a quick tot up of the numbers and that’s another session of needing to get extra chairs into the room. We seem to be getting just under twenty folk which means there’s plenty of folk for people to chat with and I think it gives some vibrancy to the room too. I mean, while I don’t mind just the six of us chatting, it can look a bit sparse! 🙃

The new A3 signs seemed to be useful and well received, so that’s a good thing. I popped one just up from the first set of stairs, to help people new to the group know where we are. It did look a bit… lost… out there on the landing, but hopefully the sign had it’s Big Girl Pants on 😉 Still, perhaps better to be a bit wee than ‘howge’ and get in the way. Like we need a trip hazard on the stairs! That reminds me, I’ve got the group’s insurance to renew next week.

As to Muggins here, I was ready for a night out with friends and that feeling of should I? / shouldn’t I? wasn’t present at all. I’ll take that as a win.

As well as welcoming some new visitors, I caught up with Joanna who’d popped in by bike (brave considering the weather reports! 🌧️). I did apologise for the lack of comments/engaging with her blog. It’s that odd situation where you don’t want to ignore or snub someone, but at the same time, am I writing something for the sake of that? Luckily, Jo was very cool about it. If she went home and stuck pins in a Voodoo doll of me, I guess the arcane forces must be weak, ‘cos I didn’t pick up on anything 😁

After last week’s issue with ripping my tights, I put in extra spares to avoid future gaffs. I wasn’t 100% sure on the colour (they felt a bit dark for ‘summer glow’), but they looked better than the -ahem- ‘milk bottle’ pale ones I had in my bag. Due to careful application and due care on selecting the right size – tall and wide like a fancy HGV eh? 😉Caution! This genderfluid person is reversing… caution 🙃).

I tried a new make-up technique to try and reduce my under eye shadows – hint: less is more with a brush and you dab it on, apparently! – which I was fairly pleased with. There was certainly less creasing which given my age, that’s a risk.

In terms of outfit, I had gone with two dresses and two pairs of shoes – because, yeah, just in case. I went with the lemon print and my Ruby Shoos. The dress felt nice on and the cut was such it helped hide a rather angry looking bump on my chest ☹️ I guess I’ll be giving epilation a break and play it safe for a time.

Hurry up science and invent a folicle switch off body lotion! 😁When you’ve done that, get on to a folicle reactivation shampoo 😉

I’m not sure who had left a rather fetching red umbrella near the tea things, so ever the fool, that went into the photos. I don’t remember pulling quite the ‘ooh, Matron!’ face, but so it goes! 🙂 Oh, and thank you to Val for the photography and sending on the snaps. Like a ditz, I’d left my camera at home. Yeah, I still use an old camera rather than my smartphone.

BTW, and asking for a friend, at what point does something move from old fashioned & not with it, to retro & hip? 😉

Catch up over coffee

For those of you who read Sue’s News & Views, you may be aware that Sue’s visiting the UK from Italy and popping by to see old friends. BTW, if you’re not reading Sue’s blog, you are missing out on some interesting posts on living abroad, art, culture, and other good stuff…. and no, Sue didn’t pay me to say those things 😉

I think we’d both hoped to meet up at Chameleons, but with the travel arrangements and public transport, it was always going to be a bit of a risk. So while we didn’t get to see each other on the Thursday night, our catch up over coffee did.

So it was that three ‘gents’ – Sue’s friend Emma joined us – were chatting over brunch and coffee about various trans related things, in a small market town café. Luckily, the café staff didn’t say anything about said middle aged gents with very well manicured hands and beautifully tidy eyebrows 😉

As much as it might have been good to have met up as ‘ladies who lunch’, fairly sure small towns are not always safe for people like us, sadly. Perhaps that explains why a lot of us are in the cities or socialise away from them. That aside, with housework + schoolruns + dog walks to do, I would have been pushing it to get ready and to ‘deprincess’, so it all worked out for the best.

That did not ‘take the shine off’ the morning and like all good friendships, it felt like no time had passed since we’d last met up. The truth is, I think that was two years before the lockdowns – maybe earlier! – and Sue was still living in London at that point. We had a long chat about music, how the UK had changed, plans for the holiday, and it was a lot of fun. With a bit of luck, Sue will be posting her travels later in the week.

Stay fabulous!
L x