On Friday I paid a visit to Candygirls and met up with Laura. Nikki was also there and Laura (that’s another Laura). The Friday night parties there are pretty popular these days with usually over a hundred people dropping by. Here’s Laura, myself and Nikki.
It’s a great place to socialise.
Whenever I visit Candygirls it’s become inevitable to get chained up a little, and Friday was no exception.
A great place for just hanging around.
And this didn’t hurt much:
My wife, Sally, was away for the weekend, and so was Tina’s wife so we Tina and I planned a girlie weekend.
Arrived at home at about 6:15 pm on Friday to begin preparations before getting prepared. Washing dishes, feeding cats, printing out a driving route.
Phone plays its tune. Katie, my daughter, asks what I’m doing over the weekend. I mention Candygirls. She asks about Sunday and the possibility of visiting her on Fathers day. She’s busy, busy, busy revising for exams at the moment and Hammersmith isn’t far away. We plan a visit.
Phone plays again. Tina is setting off and will be here in half an hour.
Now the real preparations.
Almost 8:00 pm. Makeup is finished and I’m ready. Foundation. Silver and bronze shadow, black liner and mascara, red lips, pink rouge. Long polka dot dress.
Food. A trip to yell.com for a phone number. The man at The Blossoms of Windsor answers.
Sweet and sour chicken, chilli shredded beef, egg fried rice and prawn crackers.
Five minutes later we drive to The Blossoms to collect the food.
Soon after 9:00 pm I change … a shorter black dress. I pick up a bottle of wine and we’re on the road to Candygirls.
About 30 minutes later we’re there. Reception is deserted. Everyone’s watching football (England .v. Sweden).
We pay and head upstairs. Depositing the wine at the bar we have a small glass each. Quoting the number 33 later will provide us with refills.
The bar area is sparsely populated at first, but fills up once the football match is over.
Of course, we’re unable to avoid the lure of the dungeon. It took an amazingly long time to work out how the buckles on those wristbands worked. I checked the area for the absence of whips and paddles and hung around long enough for Tina to take the picture and unbind me.
Time flies.
2:00 am and it’s time for home.
Saturday is a trip to Pink Punters. Tina has volunteered to drive there and back … the Campanile hotel rooms are double the normal cost for some reason and Tina needs to head for the South coast early on Sunday.
Tina arrives at about 6:00 pm. We get made up and changed and head out for a meal at Cafe Rouge in Windsor. Parking at the local library is free for local residents in the evening. As I collect a ticket from the pay and display machine the man behind me expresses his amazement that the machine is actually working. As ever, the staff at Cafe Rouge are charming. We order Saumon à la Niçoise and Boeuf Bourguignon, a glass of Merlot and a bottle of Hoegaarden. And I only just now discovered, that to visit the Hoegaarden web site you must be of legal drinking age … so i guess you had better not click the link if you’re not.
Then Coupe Rouge and Crème Brûlée.
A little before 9:00 pm it’s back home to change into another of those little black dresses and we head for Pink Punters.
A308, A332, M4, M25, M1, A5, a little over 50 miles and we’re there.
A lot has changed since last time we were there. The entrance has moved and there are walls and doors were there used to be no walls and doors.
It’s a quiet kind of evening … well, except for the music
Upstairs there are new facilities, including a unisex toilet area. The sign makes me smile.
We smile at a tgirl dressed in not a lot more than tape with the words ‘crime scene do not enter’.
Talk a while with a tgirl from Wellingborough.
Dance bit.
A girl almost trips over a step close to where we’re sitting and has a little conversation with us both. Admiring dresses and expressing frustration about steps.
A party of people head down the stairs towards the dance floor. A girl smiles and waves. I smile and wave back. It’s her birthday she says, pointing ahead at someone who is part way down the stairs. I smile. Come for a dance she says and blows a kiss.
And it’s 2:00 am.
At the exit a girl tells me that I have great legs and makes me smile.
A kinda quiet, but very pleasant evening.
Surrey Swans next Sunday and Sparkle is only a few weeks away.
Last Friday night Tina and I ventured out to Candy Girls.
Tina arrived at my place at round about 9:00 pm. We were both pretty much ready … so a few pictures and then we were off.
Me … smiling …
and then not …
Tina smiling.
The were just two little complications at the beginning.
First I needed to get some cash … so we stopped off at the cash dispenser at the local Tesco store. It was a little after closing time so it was pretty quiet and no one paid any attention.
And then … drat … I had put a bottle of wine in the fridge to take along and managed to forget all about it. So we stopped at the local wine shop and I paid them a visit. Candy Girls don’t sell alcohol but are happy enough for people to bring some along. Tina was driving … but I wasn’t … so the wine sounded like a nice idea to me at least
It being Tina’s car we listened to Radio 2 rather than Indigo Girls or While and Matthews … though roles were to be reversed the next day.
It’s a reasonably short and straightforward 30 minute drive to get to Candy Girls.
There’s plenty of parking and we were made to feel really welcome as soon as we walked through the door.
Although we hadn’t expected to meet up with anyone in particular, we’d hardly been there any time at all when we spotted a few friends … Nikki included! Cat and Julie were also there … friends that first met at a Trans Femme party a few years ago and also at candy Girls once before.
We spent a fair bit of the evening chatting and toured the premises taking a few pictures of the women.
Me myself:
Nikki said I looked great in this one … no face:
There were, of course, consequences for such wanton remarks:
Nikki photographing Tina:
And several stooges:
I was framed … honest … Julie took this one:
And we just dropped by the … err … well … the dungeon for a few minutes. Nothing naughty. We just hung around for a while. 
Tina took these:
I know … I need an armpit repair:
Roberta the club photographer checked with us if it was ok to take a picture. When I get to see the picture I’ll post a copy here for posterity.
A little while later we were visited by another photographer … same camera … and it will be put on the same web site I believe. The new photographer was about the poses … so it’ll be interesting to see which of the two pictures is most perfect … or least imperfect perhaps.
It was past 2:00 am when we left … closer to 3:00.
The short drive back … a glass of wine for me … coffee for Tina (ah no wonder she didn’t sleep so well). A little Chris While and Julie Matthews.
This is the song bit.
Then some sleep.
On Friday Chris While and Julie Matthews are playing at The Ram Club in Thames Ditton … not so far away from Windsor … and I hope to get along. I already have a ticket for the gig they are doing in Maidenhead on the Sunday … so twice in 3 days. Maybe I should become a groupie?
The weekend after it looks like Candy Girls on the Friday and Pink Punters on the Saturday.
All is quiet on the King James Bible Believers front. I am soooo tempted to pass on on a link to this wonderful web site:
in order to help free up some of the web masters time. But I said I wouldn’t pester any more.
And here are a few pictures taken at a recent Leonard Cohen concert in Helsinki … taken by one of my most favourite people:
I’m reliably informed that Mr Cohen has quite a … well … effect upon some people. Wouldn’t you agree E?
A lovely thought.
Last week was the first time in what seems ever so long that I had a trip out as Andrea. It was to a monthly TV Dinner at Kathie and Billie’s.
The food was excellent … as was the company.
Nikki had news of a recent trip to Pink Punters … an evening of champagne, good company and dancing. I was envious.
It was great to catch up with Tina, Julia, Tania and Katie as well as Billie and Kathie and everyone else.
I’ve heard really nice things about Femesque and am need of a change in hair and also makeup hints and tips are always welcome. So I hope to pay a visit sometime soon.
This coming Sunday, being the last in the month, is a Surrey Swans day. So that’ll be nice. And there’s a chance of a visit to Candy Girls with Tina in October.
I’m frequently challenged at my own attitudes to things and to people.
As a t-girl myself I have developed … or maybe acquired … a set of preconceptions.
Yet the transgendered “scene” challenges these fairly frequently.
Most t-girls that I’ve met are keen to express femininity in the way they dress and makeup.
Of course there is a particular kind of view of femininity here. And it’s not the only one. I’ll call this particular view of femininity “t-girl femininity”.
There are people in the transgendered community though that have a different view of things. People with beards … less makeup … stubbly chins … an unconventional dress sense.
There are t-girls who will only venture out into public because they feel they will not be spotted. And others that can’t venture out for fear of being spotted.
And there are ways in which a transsexual perspective on things can be quite different from a transvestite perspective.
When I go out I accept the fact that some people will spot me as a transvestite. But, something I learned from Fiona Floyd quite a while ago … that’s what I am. And so it need be no big deal. And yet … it depends on who notices and how they react.
It is, I think, about accepting differences. People being able to accept transvestites like me as just being different. Just as I must accept other people in the transgendered community as being different. And all kinds of other people as being different.
Different isn’t bad. It’s not always easy. But in itself it isn’t bad.
