Mrs Kate makes her debut outing

It's always a bit awkward referring to ones other half whilst out - 'Mrs Kate' makes it easy for some of the other girls to quickly introduce themselves; of course it's also hard for Mrs Kate (or 'D' as I refer to her on here) to not call me by my birthname!

For Mrs Kate, it was a last minute decision to come out to the Northern Angels monthly get together, quite literally deciding about an hour before I planned to leave. I wanted her to come along and see what Canal St was all about before Sparkle; the May outing was as likely to be the last before the big event, to introduce her to a few T-Girls without the head-on impression that Sparkle is likely to engender.

But I needn't have worried, Mrs Kate took it all in her stride, the other girls made her feel very welcome and she said it was lovely to be out with girls that were warm and friendly. Mrs Kate has for sometime visited the Angels website and is an avid follower of some of the girls blogs; so she was quite prepared and enjoyed the evening.

The meal was held at Villagio's and attended by a number of new faces - Paula, Penny, Simon, Diana ... (er ... run that by me again 'Simon' ?) and others that have visited before; June and Lisa. 'Simon' was very entertaining - although Lisa did try to explain why 'Simon' (I guess we've gotten used to expecting girls names when we're en femme!). Afterwards we paid our usual respects to Mary and the girls at Manchester Concorde where it was 60's night; with some very 60's outfits - miniskirts were obviously mandatory for the era - although both Mrs Kate and I are a little young to remember that time - (we were both still at primary school by the end of the 60's!).

Of course for the uninitiated being taken to Naps on your first outing to Canal St is a rite of passage. We only called in to see what it was all about - so at least Mrs Kate could say she's been there, done that; then it was off home before we both turned into a pumpkin (personally I had been up and about since 5:30am!).

Mrs Kate thoroughly enjoyed the evening and has been buzzing about it ever since. She's booked a hotel for Sparkle so we don't have to travel between days and between us we've bought some new outfits - she was especially excited when she found some lovely shoes in M&S, she sent the picture to me via her mobile phone exclaiming that she had found her Sparkle shoes! .... whilst on the subject of shoes, for outing to the Village I wore my new sandals which by the end of the evening were in complete disagreement with my feet .... yeaow.... !