Blame it on 'Bob'

I found my carpark ticket!, the one I lost in March. It seems that Bob, in a moment of absent mindedness hid it in his wallet; .... well actually.... I think he did it on purpose to embarrass me.

Mrs Kate and I escorted Mandy on her first escape to the Village this week. She was awfully brave, her first outing ever (apart from Teelas) and in daylight... and in mentioning the weather, very warm and not very makeup friendly... but Mandy braved all this and had a thoroughly good time!

Sparkle!

A number of girls have asked of me the question, 'What did you think of Sparkle?', usually from a perspective of whether I shared their view or not. The views I think might range from 'absolutely fabulous' to 'damn embarrassing'; but being my/our first, we can't really comment on how this one compares with past events.

In a nut-shell, I generally enjoyed it for a number of reasons that really had nothing to do with the events that took place; I was able to be myself for the longest time ever - quite literally chucking 'Bobs' clothes into a corner of the bedroom on Friday afternoon, only to pick them up again Sunday as we prepared to return home; and of course be with Mrs Kate.

There were a number of events that Kate and Mrs Kate only found about afterwards, despite having one of those handbag sized leaflets. Whilst there were a number of activities, I felt it was hard to identify with them; probably as result of how it was all organised - a lot was going on but not much co-ordination between them all.

Big disappointment was 'The Magic Theatre' what ever that might have been; it was to take place in AXM Late which translated as being the old Hollywood Showbar that Northern Concorde used to meet at (I only ever visited that once when it was the Christmas get-together). Mrs Kate and I gave up all hope of the elusive entertainment shortly after midnight; returning to our apartment for much needed rest.

But on the upside, we met many familiar and new faces; some interesting sights - some of which made me feel better for my efforts at trying to be myself!

Here's my 3 tips for attending future events :-

• Map out what you want to see before you go - there's more going on than might be apparent.


• Keep an emergency Mars bar in your handbag - waiting for girls to turnup so we can sit down and order a meal is likely to be about an hour after the agreed time.


• Expect it to be noisy, crowded and this goes on into wee-hours - so choose your hotel/apartment carefully (oh! and no thanks to the dipstick who set the fire alarm off by burning their toast in the morning).

I think the most fun we had was Sunday afternoon whilst it was raining very heavily; we decided to stay in the apartment and I tried on a few of the outfits that I had brought along but daren't wear in public (mostly the ubiquitous 'little black dress' and a couple of mini-skirts). A couple of pictures might still be on here.

Epilogue - would we go again?; not sure, possibly, well maybe, .... where else can you have the comfort of being out in public with your life-partner, have a little fun etc. without the shackles of established society?

Bye bye brolly

Well, you see, it was like this.... Mrs Kate had her second outing a couple of weeks before Sparkle. June Collins was visiting again and we agreed to meet up in Eden and have a meal. Kay joined us and afterwards, seeing as it was a Wednesday, we popped along to the Rembrandt to see the girls at Manchester Concorde.

It was on leaving the Rembrandt that it happended, most of the evening the rain had been a bit on and off, and as we left, the weather was without exception - for Manchester. But just as we rounded the corner by the Rembrandt to cross over Canal St, a strong gust of wind blew our brolly inside out and then snapped it off the handle.

That was the last we saw of brolly, making for Portland St and skittering about avoiding any passersby in case they should capture it - for one I wasn't going to go after it, not in my heels!