London

Hello and welcome to today’s post and is another special post and it's to do with planning a trip to London. I’ve been to London a good few times and stayed over most of them, but I’ve never really done longer than twenty-four hours. I’ve been to Wembley to watch two NFL games with the New England Patriots which are my favourite team and with Wigan Athletic twice in the FA Cup Semi Final and the Community Shield and once to watch my favourite band Versailles at Islington which I have the bands name tattooed on my arm.

This time it’s not just a trip and staying for 24 hours in London, it’s for 3 nights and four days, but it doesn’t just stop there. The reason for my trip is to watch my favourite band for a second time… Versailles are back!

Last time went with two girls that I worked with and they're awesome, and it was a trip that I will never forget, because I was with people I liked and the band that I loved but we got to meet them and it has to be one of the best moments of my life, but it wasn’t just that which made it the best moment but having to share that moment with them and also to celebrate it together. This time I will be going to the gig alone which is sad but at the same time I’m used to it, but then again you don’t really talk or interact with anyone at gig really once it starts. When the music starts I get into a trance sometimes so deeply the world just doesn’t exist.

My last Versailles gig was in 2011, and the year after they released and album didn’t come to the UK or even Europe I think and decided to split and to do different things until last year 2015 they announced that they were coming back! Since coming back they didn’t really release much information, a new album but it was just a collaboration of songs they did plus a few new ones but not something you can call new album but hell they’re coming back and it feels awesome.

So it’s a gig and spending three nights and 4 days there, so what’s so big about it?

Well its massive for me because the last time I was in London l I never really knew about my gender or myself, I never really felt anything because I was this unemotional asshole that was forcing any feelings I had at all away, this time I have options to go as female or go as male… or screw with the reception at the hotel and do a mixture.

Anyway 29^th December came where I had something I was missing in my bank account and that was money so I could book my hotel and train tickets. When I look for a hotel I generally don’t care what it looks like as I’m pretty much just put my extremely baggy jeans on, band tee-shirts, hoodies and most importantly chains kind guy. So booking a hotel this time had to be different.  My requirements are pretty simple though. A massive reception desk so I don’t have to interact with the hotel staff, A self-check-in and a well lit room and a bloody good mirror. Seriously how hard can it be?

Why do I need all these?

I’ve decided that I need to build myself up for next year as I’m yet to do most things independently. I’ve caught a bus on my own and waited on a park bench but that is it. So the choices I’ve decided on are to set myself up and be female if I want to.

Why the big reception area?

This is because ‘if’ I decided to check-in as female/venture out as female etc I don’t want to interact with people I’ve never met. For me it’s about baby steps and putting the foundations in place which many people don’t understand, once the foundations are set then you can do more and build up. With a bigger reception area I don’t have to walk near the desk and for the staff to say “Hi” or “goodnight” etc. I know that might sound moody of me but I don’t want to talk back to them really with my untrained voice.

A Self-Check-In?

This is quicker and apparently it will give me a key so that means it is quicker (unless the thing breaks) or most importantly if it does work it means I don’t have to talk to anyone.

This isn't the ones at my hotel but will be similar.

A well lit room?

I plan to pack both sets of clothes which means over 10 days’ worth of clothes as I might need to come back and change if I want to meet up with someone and go out for the evening I will want to go smart/smart causal. I will need to pack male shoes/trainers. Which I only have one of each or as female god knows how many boots and shoes (depending on the weather) I will need dresses, skirts, tops, makeup (I have loads of it), bras, underwear etc. For my male side jeans tops and if I find a gym I can pay for one or two sessions/maybe a jog some track suit pants. That is to name a few.  Anyway A well lit room is just for doing makeup and the mirror? Well I don’t need to talk about that.

Which hotel did I pick?

The stay in London isn't just all about Versailles as they're just the one night and after how I felt not going as female to the Bullet For My Valentine gig was massive. One thing I forgot to mention was Distance. I plan to go to the event as female so I will be wearing heels probably my boots for this and I tend to go to que up early also which means standing up for about 4-6 hours so I will need comfy shoes where I won’t want to take them off while I’m in the venue.

So I decided to go with Travelodge: London Kings Cross Royal Scot. It wasn’t too far and had everything I wanted and I decided to go all out and go for a double room, which mean I would get;

A king size bed,

A bath and shower, Some with wet rooms (I should get a bath which I prefer so I can shave my body in)

This should be hopefully mine.

A TV (might take my xbox haha)

A good size desk which means I could do my makeup and also write a post-up on here.

Blogging space

A plus side to this location was just the one, it had great attraction links to most things;

London Zoo and the London Eye 1.8 miles away,

The British Museum 0.9 miles away,

British Library 0.5 miles away,

Central London 1.6 miles away,

The Emirates Stadium isn’t far away either,

But most importantly 1.2 miles away from the O2 Academy Islington, and the shopping centre.

I plan to go round London, I plan to go to Harrods, The London Eye, Tower Bridge, The Tower Of London, Buckingham Palace and so many more, I hope to meet with friends that I’ve met on social media also.

What about the night time?

I can’t say whether I will be presenting as male or female but I would like to hit a couple of clubs afterwards. I know the Saturday night at O2 Islington they have Club De Fromage. That is when the the venue becomes a normal night club which plays most of your club music from Lady Gaga to Bon Jovi, but I do like metal music mainly.

The Underworld, seems a promising Venue where they do Rock, Metal and Alternative music so this seem pretty great and best of all, not is it on my side of the River Thames it’s also pretty close to my hotel also. Which I might see myself there for the Saturday I arrive but will have to wait till 11pm when I get in as they have a band on which after checking them out isn’t my thing. 

Electric Ballroom is another place I could go and is also not far from my hotel and is close to The Underworld night club so we will see, I don’t intend on staying in whether it means presenting as male or female. 

Soho, is a place in London that seems to be a great place for the nightlife, but it also seems to have LGBT nightclubs also which include Heaven which supposed to have one of the biggest dance floors in London. It’s still early days yet to find a nightclub but anything can happen but hopefully I will find someone off my Facebook friends to do something and go clubbing with. No matter what I do I will make sure I have a great time and meet up with people and have a good laugh, so with this I can do is think ahead.

There is one thing I do have an issue with and that is my hair, if I go out with my wig that I’m currently using then I will bump into an issue with overheating. Under my wig it can get very hot indeed and with no time left to order a new one it is to turn to my lace front that I’ve never worn out properly. When I’ve tried it it feels great, not to heavy, and where I won’t get to hot in it also so I’m thinking of taking a gamble, this means taking it to a hair dressers and getting them to do it which might cost just as much as getting a new wig as I will not wear synthetic wigs anymore, not because they don’t look real or anything but because I don’t feel as authentic as I do with real hair. The hair gives me the most confidence and I think this lace front I need to try more and get it used, again we will see what happens.

That is it for this post, thanks for reading and I can’t wait to go to London and also share the story with you all.

Thanks
Sarah

xx

Hey all!

First of all, I would like to wish everyone a happy New Year!

Welcome to special edition post and it’s not something I’ve done for a while. This post is all about 2017 and my last day off in 2016, and how it’s the start of probably the biggest challenge of my life which is where I will be starting my transition from male to female to where I will be going full time.

I will get to that later but before I do there is something else I have to talk about. Wednesday 28^th December was my last day off for this year. Normally I would stay in and game/shop for makeup and clothes but  this time I decided not to. Recently I’ve decided to start going to the gym early rather than when everyone else does when the new year comes round and may struggle to get in any classes or equipment. 

Wednesday 28th December, it was a nice day and I didn’t want to stay in so I decided to go for a walk to Scotsman’s Flash pretty much after I got in from the gym. In Wigan you have what are called the ‘Wigan Flashes’ Which is where they have loads of water and where there are bird and people fish in the shortest way to put it, but the views are great and it all looks amazing. I thought that I really want to get some pictures in before my rest window shuts. 

Wigan Flashes

From my house to the Top of Scotsman’s Flash its 3.1 miles and it took about 40 mins to get there before the sun would properly set so the race was on.

At 14:30 I was on the stretch where I would get onto the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, where I would get hit but a surprise and that was that the floor was still frosty and it wasn’t that could either.

With the conditions not what I wanted it did slow me down a little but I still soldered on, even the canal was pretty much frozen for most of my walk to the Wigan Flashes.

Even the ducks enjoy walking on water… technically but it was great to see them all together.

This was still just less than 1 mile away from where I wanted to go but I was touching the start of Scotsman’s Flash so I need to be quick if I wanted to catch the wildlife as well as the sunset.

The Wigan Flashes

With less than an hour to spend there I saw a great view of Scotsman’s Flash, it was the first time that I’ve ever seen it on a clear day, people was still about and the wildlife was around and I loved it.

This was the view I was treated with I’ve not edited these at all and these are just brilliant. This view was a great way to spend my last day off for the year resting. It was peaceful and just paradise for me, sometimes you don’t need to go shopping, buy makeup and go to the cinema where you would be spending money. Sometimes you just need a little walk.

I love these picture and was fantastically timed

The two ripples is the birds going underwater to catch fish to eat.

 I love these pictures also because of how beautiful these birds really are.

After I took this photograph I decided to call it a day at Scotsman's Flash and set off back home, I really enjoyed coming just as I normally do but this was the first time I've been here during the winter and I have to say even without the presents of the chicks and the blossoming of the flowers it was till beautiful. 

On my way home I thought I wouldn't really see anything even walking past Horrock's Flash but that wasn't the case, I tried to get some pictures of some ducks when out popped a swan that thought I had food. Unlucky for the swan I didn't but it still stayed around me and let me take a good few pictures. 

I wasn't long before its mate arrived also and again seemed not to be phased by me being there. 

Those was the last pictures I took on my journey out and I have to say what an amazing couple of hours out of the house it was. The weather wasn’t bad also and the sky was great I would have liked a better sunset but it could have been raining where I would of stopped in. It makes me so happy that where I live because Wigan has many places like this where I can come and get away from the world and chill. Being transgender isn’t easy, we get discriminated against, people that have a fetish for transgender people even cause trouble and people that don’t read profiles.

Just getting away and not having any stress is great.

Okay now for what this post is about and as of today 1.1.2017 it is now the start of my transition where I will be transitioning from male to female and I have set myself a goal of 12 months to achieve where I will live every day of my live as female. From being on hormones, to losing 2 stone in weight and being on the Gender Identity Clinic waiting list. These are to name a few and I know that I now have a massive year to where I will be extremely busy. I will be going to the gym regular at ‘JD Gyms’ which I’m looking for a personal trainer in a few months to help me with my diet and to push me. I won't be doing this alone I have some awesome people that has said that they will help me and guide me the best they can which I can't wait to see how everything turns out. 

It’s weird how far I’ve come on my journey since 1^st April 2014 where I came out as Bi-Gender to now where I’m starting to plan my life to life as female. I never knew I would have the support I have now or be this person that everyone seems to adore and love (that’s how I feel anyway) 3 years ago people didn’t want to know me or hang out with me, I was pretty much alone with barely any friends and yes it wasn’t a great time for me at all.

I look back and think this is how I should have been and never ignored how I felt as now I feel that I’ve missed out on so much like having more friends and even finding love, which is something most of us want at some point in our lives. The hardest part for me is that I’m not into men so that makes it more difficult to find a female that will accept me for me. So hopefully within the next couple of years I will be celebrating New Year in love.

I would like to wish everyone a happy New Year and thanks for reading and giving me the support. I’ve been blogging pretty much from the beginning and I will be sharing every step of the way with you guys.

Love you all!

Sarah

xxx

When I left the last post of August 2015-2016 which I’m doing it was life changing for me as I travelled to my own town as female shopping with my best friend Vicky, I also went to Manchester shopping and had my first make over. Where soon I realised that I’m not Bi-Gender but transgender and my new path is to transition to female and when the time is right to live full time as female.

Okay now is a good time to go grab a snack and drinks as we’re starting this part of August 2015-2016 Part in March.

March wasn’t a busy month for me compared to January and February, but it was when I started to get back into gaming but was where I was presenting as female whist gaming mainly. Again it was a chilled month.

Yep I'm a gamer

On the 13^th March I tried my first ever bodycon dress. It isn’t something I will go out wearing as of yet but I will be doing at some point... maybe. One main reason is because I don’t really have a good figure but the biggest reason is the hardest part of male to female is having a nob. I try my best to tuck but with this type of dress for me is unforgiving and shows everything. So I had to tuck to the extreme where it was the most uncomfortable experience of my life, I’ve never worn this dress since then.

If there’s one thing that I love was when my Dad goes to his girlfriends for a few days, it gave me the chance to be me and not worry and now I’m at the stage where I want to test makeup and new techniques out and I came with this look where I don't have to worry about him seeing me as male then as female.

I wore a leather skater dress for this and decided to do something a little different with my hair. The lighting I got for me makes this picture so much better.

That was pretty much it for March April was better for me. I decided to buy a new dress for an outing with work, this time it would be longer daylight hours and more people could see me but returning to the same restaurant I went to for my Xmas outing at Fat Olive. I decided to look to Amazon for this and found a black dress with a golden belt and I think it looked awesome.

When the Grand National was on people was watching it... For me I was practising yet a new look with makeup and when it comes to pictures I've never look at myself and thought I look nice, I just think I feel better as it’s who I am, but this one I felt I looked good, I felt this is me much.

24 April I went to works night out again presenting as female and it was a great night, I had no trouble, and it got to a point at the bar where they knew what drink I wanted which was a double vodka and coke, then again it’s not every day you get a 6 foot manly women coming to eat.

Unfortunately, it was plain sailing from there and I got busy with work and the weather for me was too sticky so I only presented as female a couple of times till sparkle, which I’m going to leave it till to the next post. During this time although I didn’t present as female I met more people on facebook and I soon started to get inspired by them. One is Chloe.

Chloe 3 years ago

                                                                        Chloe now

I saw Chloe first on her YouTube page where she speaks about being on HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) Her videos are whitty and very informative where soon I came across her Facebook profile where she agreed to befriend me. When she befriended me I looked at her pictures where I was like wow! From where she came from to where she is now is truly inspirational. It made me think to myself what I want and feel is achievable. HRT affects everybody differently as its going through another puberty so who knows what will happen to me when I get to that stage in my journey, all I can say is bring it on. 

From three months to sixteen months on HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy)

Every time I've messaged Chloe she has got back to me and has helped me a few times and has told me of her experiences which she has gone through, I was luckily enough to meet her at Sparkle and have a small chat to her which was awesome. I would like to thank Chloe for sharing her experiences with me, letting me mention her and use her pictures on here but most of all thanks for being an inspiration to many like myself.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwnvWIDR6BZFT5q0rYqQrPQ

I’m going to leave it there for this part as sparkle will make this post extremely long. A big thanks for reading and the next one will be up soon.

Upcoming Posts;

Makeup (anniversary)
Autumn and Winter footwear (Poll to be done)

August 2015-2016; Part 5

Project Posts;
Makeup Challenge (No Date)
Sarah Meets (No Date)

Hey all

Today is a special post as it marks this blogs second anniversary when I created it. It was an experiment for myself  at that time as well as other things. I was Bi-Gender 6 months into my journey, which by this time I had done loads. I came out to work colleagues at McDonald's which from the start people was very supportive and by May I was out to my Brother and my Dad which again was massive, within two months I presented as female to one of my closes friends and even went for a drive on the same day.  Within less than six months I soon was out and about in Blackpool for the illuminations and spent a few hours in Coral Island and went for a walk, So I also thought I would share my experiences to help other Bi-Gender people and see how I progressed on my journey.

(I've put random pictures not in order of my journey) 

Since then we have laugh, cried and now going through a new journey of me transitioning to female and the best part of this journey is that we have witnessed this not just from start but before the beginning and this new year we will see more and more things that I will be going through as I change hopefully physically.

It doesn’t end there I’m planning on making massive changes on here also, bringing more and better content. This time next year my goal is to have something set in stone to when I will start living my life the way it should as female. It could be sooner but I highly doubt it but one thing I’ve learnt in these two years is never say never.

I think looking back to how I looked I will say how proud I am of my journey but most of all I think what the fuck was I wearing or why did I do my makeup this way, but hey to be old and wise you need to be first young and stupid!

I remember the first picture I did was for a laugh as someone I worked with looked like she was plastered in fake tan but gone wrong, I think if her hair was green she would have almost resembled an Umpa Lumpa, which I suppose was a good thing as I’ve never been a person to take things seriously so it brought me to do my first ever picture as female. I think that must have been a young and dump thing at the time as before then and to now I think she is extremely attractive, just too young for me... Unfortunately, with me age is important so two years younger than me is too young.

I bought some foundation it was in a set from lightest to darkest and I thought for a laugh let’s do the darkest, the funniest thing was it got rid of any signs of stubble, compared to now… but made me look ridiculous, I didn’t blend at all, which was pointed out by a few people but hell it was a laugh but my first step.

The other thing was to run this blog alongside of my gaming blog but within a couple of months I knew I had to sort my image out as I was nowhere near ready really to set foot in the world as female, I suppose when I went Blackpool I wasn’t but it was only for a drive which turned to needing the loo then to spending time out. Anyway, I started to mainly concentrate on clothing as I felt at that time my makeup was okay, as I was getting loads of compliments and no bad criticism, but as I kept looking and looking I started to fall in love with fashion and soon within a year makeup. I wasn’t playing games, as they started to pretty much bore me as I became a social gamer so gaming alone wasn’t for me fun and I didn’t really have people to play with often. I was spending around 10-15 hours looking at makeup and fashion blogs and youtube to name a few. Now I spend a lot less maybe between 4-6 hours… maybe a bit more when the new season stuff come out, looking at fashion and makeup as now I have a much better idea of how I want to look.

When I first started I had no idea and I suppose like most people I was naive to hell, I had not many clothes it was just band shirts etc. Then came the dresses that had no shape to them…At all!

But in two years I’ve come along way and now I have a look... Ish where I’m more comfortable with makeup and have moved on from the cheap stuff that wasn’t working well on me to now trying the more premium brands such as MAC, Dior, Urban Decay etc, they’ve not all worked to be honest but it’s the stage that I’m at where I’m trying to test what will work as we all know with makeup that it doesn’t work for everybody.

My style of the way I present with clothes has change, I still don’t have enough and I mean this literally not just the saying “A girl can never have enough clothes.” I’m still trying to get that perfect dress or that perfect combination of jumpers and pants which I don’t really like wearing as I wear them as male and don’t like them. I need different collaboration of footwear not just over the knee boots and suede.

Anyways that it for this post I would like to thank everyone for reading and your support it seems like only yesterday I started this blog and so much has change and I feel for the better, I can’t wait to post about my new journey that I’ve embarked on and share the outcome and we can share the laughter, bad times and everything else.

Thanks again

Sarah

Xx

Next planned posts;

August 2015-2016 Part Four

Footwear

Makeup: Part 4 (This will happen when August 2015-2016/footwear has finished)