A (first) night on the town

So by the end of November I had done the 'Tea with Teela' bit - although having tea and a few cakes hardly amounts to getting out, but it's a start.

Kay suggested an outing to the Village where we could have a meal and include the Northern Concorde christmas 'do' in the guided tour. Having bought a couple of new outfits the week before with my good lady, I was itching to try them out and in the real world. The only thing I was short of was a decent wig - the only one I have doesn't withstand scrutiny close-up; but what do you expect for £6 from the local fancy dress shop?

So I arranged for a consultation at a well known, t-girl friendly emporium where the very nice lady there, demonstrated a few wigs on me and persuaded me to go for a brunette 'bob' style. Now I was determined to be blonde.... but the nice lady was very good in directing me to a colour and style that was more natural and matching my complexion. So in short, despite what you might think you want, it's worth paying a little extra and getting sound advice from the nice lady!

Ok, so I've got everything sorted for the evening out? - well I better jump to that part of the story hadn't I?

Kay kindly offered to pick me up enroute to Manchester, the arrangements being that she would collect me between 4:30 and 5pm. By the time we managed to negotiate the rush hour traffic, it was getting on for about 6:30pm when we arrived at the car-park near Sackville Gardens (for those who know it - the one near 'tranny towers'!).

By now my nervo-meter was probably at about level 6 (level 10 requires some sort of sedative and/or breathing exercises!), as we walked past Sackville Gardens and on towards Canal St ... the famous 'Village'. The first place we called into was AXM, to put the final touches to make-up, hair etc. Then Kay directed us along Canal St. towards Taurus bar and restaurant. She duly pointed out the various establishments, indicating those which were more t-girl friendly than others, but I wasn't really paying a lot of attention, my nervo-meter was at about level 8 now which seems to interfere with anything you might wish to commit to memory.

As we crossed over a street we passed a lone t-girl walking back the way we came; she was blonde and was wearing a shortish dress, it looked quite good on her. She must have been freezing! - I was glad I had my fur-lined leather jacket; but I did think that at least we weren't the only ones around this evening.

At last we arrived at Taurus and was duly greeted by our host with a cheery 'hello girls' and a welcoming smile. Our host guided us past some of the other groups in the resturant and to our table. 'What can I get you girls to drink?' he asked with that lovely smile again - I felt that being refered to as '...you girls' although intially strange, rather comforting. The bar was populated with a number of students and a couple of xmas office parties that had reached the end of their evening. Being the only two t-girls in the bar I was a little sensitive to any glance in our direction, but Kay put me at ease; after all if you go to a bar or restaurant in the Village, what else might you to expect?

Eventually two more girls came into the bar; Kay saw them walk in, but the way we were sitting, I didn't dare turn around to look at them in case I drew attention to myself. The only opportunity I had was as we were leaving and saying our goodbyes to our host; the girls were stood at the bar, both very slim, blonde and very convincing! Hmmm ... perhaps being brunette is more unique after all?

From here we went to Northern Concorde; I've never seen a place filled with so many t-girls at the one time .... come to think of it, I haven't been too many places where I might find my kind anyway! Lots of girls, so many different outfits, so many names to remember..... Jane, Nicki, Rachel, Marie... and list could go on if I could remember them all. I was nervous yet comfortable ... what a strange combination of feelings ? - nervo-meter down to level 5. There was music, dancing, and if you were brave enough, Karaoke ... but would you have thought in room full of guys brave enough to go out dressed as girls, Karaoke would be a cinch? .... I guess it's easier to dress than sing!

After NC we stopped by at Naps; another bar/club, where girls get in for free - this is where a number of the girls from NC had moved onto so there were quite a few familiar faces. The bar is on the ground floor with a dance floor upstairs. Kay said that the dance level is usually quite noisy, but on reflection, the dance floor was a lot quieter than the bar area so we stayed up there when we went up to see what it was like. It took me back to my clubbing days when I had the rare opportunity to go to a disco; all black lighting and good music.

After Naps, it was pumpkin time; to go home and rather depressingly remove some of the makeup on the way - after all, only my wife knows back at home but there's still the need to evade the rest of the family - in case they're still up.

Kay was an absolute star right the way through the evening. Throughout she loaned me some of her confidence which helped no end, and delivered me safely home just before 1am, as she promised. Thank you Kay!