Fiona's Boots

And now for something completely different ...

2012-01-20T21:37:00.001Z

Had to have some pics on here at last, and these are some of the items I got from Ikea the other day while we were having a mad girls shopping trip. Okay, maybe not the most obvious things to buy but they should hopefully come in useful for upcoming photoshoots :-)

6 weeks on

2012-01-20T18:54:00.002Z

Doesn't time fly. It'll be 6 weeks on Tuesday since my surgery and certainly I've made alot of progress since then but there is still a fair way to go and I'm not completely back to normal in a physical sense, lots more healing and getting back in condition.

Thankfully there is little to report, I seem to be healing fine, I haven't needed any pain killers for some weeks now and my dilation routine is trundling on, still at three times a day. All, fairly uneventful which is really how I wanted it. I'm still rather tired though and I've not got back to my previous routine of getting up early and having very full, active and energetic days.

I guess this is to be expected, not because there's anything in particular that is preventing me getting around now it's just that I've spent alot of time being fairly inactive and it takes a while to get back up to speed. I'm generally sleeping okay now and I just need to get early nights and regular exercise - even just a walk at lunchtime - to get fitter. It's a few weeks off yet but I'm looking forward to being able to swim for the first time in several years and I'm hoping that'll really help.

I'm back at work next week, though starting slow and, thankfully, working at home so that I can accommodate my dilation routine into the day. Since it's taking me around 1hr for dilation I'm obviously not going to be managing a full day of work either but at least I'll be doing something useful and I'm more than fit enough to sit on my bum in front of a computer so might as well :)

How do I feel? Well, I feel normal. There's no great change in mood or revelation, it's just nice to be as I should be now and, while there'll still be a few things to get use to and experience, essentially now I just feel like I'm not really thinking about the surgery and the changes it's made, I'm back to getting on with my life and concentrating on everything else; which is exactly how it should be :)

(Not) happy with Audi

2012-01-15T12:43:00.004Z

UPDATE (17th January 2012): I just got off the phone to York Audi (they phoned me) and they are going to sort out the dashboard issue for me, they will take care of it! This is absolutely fantastic news and I have to say I am amazingly grateful to them for this. As I said to the guy on the phone, my faith has been restored, I can carry on waving the Audi flag!

I really was a bit emotional as well, it was such a weight off my mind and means that, when I can get back to driving in the next few weeks it will be the car that I love and I really am so looking forward to it!

So, what was all the hassle documented below: well, I'm going to choose to believe that it's simply a misunderstanding and that, given the car is quite old now it's just not clear how to handle these kinds of issues. Thankfully this one guy did listen to me and did some research and found that something could be done. And I'm very grateful for his patience and the time he spent on this.

I am, once again a very happy Audi owner and customer of York Audi - long may this state of affairs continue :)
----

I bought myself a second hand Audi TT last year, there were many reasons for this but probably safest to sum them up as "mid-life crisis". Anyway, older cars (this one is over 10yrs old) are obviously expensive to maintain and last year alone it had it's cambelt changed, alloys re-furbished, mass airflow sensor replaced, full service including haldex filter change, anti-roll bar replaced, etc, etc, etc. Expensive but none of those were a real surprise, simple wear and tear and regular servicing costs.

It cost a little more also because I took it to the local Audi dealership (York Audi) instead of going to a non-affiliated garage where I know the rates would be lower hence cheaper servicing/repair. But, I don't mind paying a premium for the peace-of-mind (knowing the parts are official Audi ones as are the instruments/tools used to carry out the work) and the very good service I recieved. So no complaints. Yet.

My car started to develop an intermittent fault where the dashboard wouldn't work - all the dials stayed at zero no matter what! Scared the hell out of me the first time it did it but I soon found that a "reboot" (switch ignition off/on again) cleared the fault. Smoothing capacitor I thought, power glitches, nothing serious as it never did this while driving only started in a funny state. I planned to leave it to the next service to fix.

Then, on the fateful day, it got much worse. The car locked me out. There was no sign of the alarm lights flashing on the door but the locks were definitely on and nothing I pressed on the key made any difference. I even tried the key in the lock, still wouldn't open. Finally it let me in, but the engine wouldn't start, dashboard and everything else completely dead. Opened the door, sprang into life.

Obviously at this point I thought something was seriously wrong so I took the car into the Audi garage to get it repaired. This was on Thursday 8th December, the week before my surgery. I was very pleased that the garage took the car at such short notice and had no problem with them not having really found anything by the end of that day, understandable.

I did a little bit of my own research on Thursday and turned up the following links:

http://www.edmunds.com/audi/tt/2001/consumer-discussions.html

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/automotive/audi.htm

http://repairpal.com/audi/tt

http://www.edmunds.com/audi/tt/2004/consumer-discussions.html

http://www.fixya.com/search/p1649116-audi_2011_tt/instrument_cluster

http://www.obd-codes.com/trouble_codes/audi/

http://www.wombatnation.com/category/the-unusual-and-the-weird

It seems that there is a known fault with the Audi TT instrument clusters, in fact there was a class action lawsuit concerning this over in the US!

Spoke to the garage on Friday to get some sort of update on what was going on, guess what, the instrument cluster needs replacing, cost £900! I pointed out the research I'd done and that this is a fault for which Audi US and UK had been replacing the clusters for free! Apparently they knew nothing about this but did seem to remember alot of replacements a while ago.

Anyway, they said they would continue to look at the fault (in case it was anything else) and would also check with Audi whether the instrument cluster had been replaced by a previous owner (I was told that there new computer system didn't have any historical records so all the previous details about this car were lost - like the fact that a few months earlier the cambelt had been replaced by them!). I said that was fine but that they should bear in mind that I wouldn't be happy paying £900, I believe it should be free for a known fault, and that I was having surgery the following week so would not be contactable nor in a state to approve any expensive work.

A week or so went by and then at 17:38 on 19th December, which was while I was still in hospital, recovering from surgery, I had a call from Audi York! I took the call (I was just waiting for tea at the time) and was told that they could to the dashboard replacement for £800 instead! This wasn't the guy I'd talked to before, so I explained the points I'd made before about the existing fault (I also said that there was no way I could afford £800). I was put through to the same guy as before who told me that the original fault that Audi replaced the dashboards for had symptoms where the fuel guage would read zero for example, my car had a different problem. I politely suggested that the fault could still be related to the same cause, i.e. a sub-standard component, and that, for example the dashboard on my old Rover 45 diesel had never failed once; I expected better from Audi.

Anyway, after much to-ing and fro-ing he said that there might be other causes of the faults and would re-open the job-card and get someone to have a look. I asked again if the dashboard/car could be checked to see if it had been replaced by Audi just to make sure.

I didn't hear anything that week, nor over Christmas week but I imagine the workshops shutdown over this period so I wasn't unduly concerned or in any way annoyed.

So, two weeks into the New Year and I'd heard nothing. No calls to tell me my car was fixed, nor even any to ask me to pay ridiculous amounts of money to have it fixed. Nothing. So I phoned them - already expecting bad things. MY car was ready to collect and only £56 to pay. How good is that?! Wait. What did they do to the car? Well, nothing. It still needs the dashboard replacing! Cost £900!

So, we went round the whole discussion again: Audi should replace this, the car is clearly not safe to drive so isn't ready to pick-up! This time I was told that it was a long time ago that the replacement dashboards were done for free (in fact I'd found that a memo was sent in April 2009 telling agents that the criteria had been toughened-up, see one of the links below), I pointed out that, when I first took my car to the Audi garage they replaced the coil packs at no cost because of an existing fault in this component (okay, cheaper item but probably harder to do the work for them, dash is easy apparently). They suggested that later repairs had been done with Audi making a contribution to this cost, I said that would be a much better option providing it was a pretty big contribution as £900 (or even £800) is ridiculous. They said they'd talk to someone higher up.

So now, I'm waiting to hear what the next price is going to be or maybe they'll have completely forgotten what is going on and go back to "£900 to replace the dashboard" and I'll have to explain the issues all over again!

Several things annoy me about this:

Mainly that it's Audi's fault. They used a component that failed prematurely and was essentially sub-standard. Dashboards really should not fail like this, nor wear out. Nor should they cost so much to replace!
There are companies that will rebuild/repair a dashboard from a TT at a fraction of the price Audi charge; the garage never offered me that option!
Seriously, not contacting me for 2 weeks and then claiming the car was fixed! That is just bad customer service!
Contacting me *in hospital* when I'd explicitly said I would not be available for two weeks! At the very least that is thoughtless, at worst it felt like they were taking advantage of my situation to get me to agree to a repair which had supposedly been discounted

Overall the customer service has been appalling and it feels very much like the garage, and by extension, Audi, just want to get me to pay a ridiculous price for a repair and all other considerations are irrelevant; particularly that they fault is something they caused and they know about. I didn't buy an Audi expecting this kind of treatment, I thought it was a good quality and well-supported brand. It's not. I'm very, very, very disappointed.

As a final note, here's the links I found last week including some for the services that can repair dashboards for Audi's and other cars:

http://www.audittcca.com/discussions/auditt/00006038

Apparently modulemasters.com rebuild the cluster for $160 - $350!

http://www.audittcca.com/discussions/auditt/00006038/conversation_view?b_start:int=5&-C=

Apparently you can get the cluster repaired in the UK from £40:

http://www.clusterrepairsuk.co.uk/repair-list-dyna/55/AudiTT8NinstrumentclusterSpeedo/

Another place in the UK that does this work:

http://www.ecutesting.com/audi_tt_dash_dashboard_instrum.html

http://www.tt-forum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=133040&start=0

http://www.ozaudi.com/forums/showthread.php/23197-TT-MK-I-Instrument-cluster-failure-GOODWILL-REPLACEMENT

http://www.tt-forum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=137291

http://www.tt-forum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=137291&start=810

Remove the cluster:

http://www.ehow.com/how_7819227_repair-audi-tt-instrument-cluster.html

Maybe low battery voltage or bad earthing:

http://www.audiforums.com/forum/audi-tt-7/instrument-cluster-problems-175245/

List of complaints

http://www.arfc.org/complaints/2001/audi/tt_roadster/digital_instrument_panel/problem.aspx

Consistent device links with udev

2012-01-06T22:11:00.003Z

I have a Linux server that contains several disks used for holding photos, movies, videos and any other general junk myself and my partner dump on there. I've had some hassles with several of the drives and I also have one that is mounted in a caddy so it can be removed and hidden away (important data!).

What I found when things failed or needed to be moved was that having the drives mounted through fstab at boot time could lead to the machine just not starting. So I used automount to get round this problem. So far so good, but if one or more drives are removed the device names they use (/dev/sda /dev/sdb etc) change so my automount maps get screwed up.

After much searching I found some articles and bits and pieces that explained how to get around this issue using udev rules. I just had to re-fix this after an update to CentOS stopped these rules matching properly. Here is the file I use now:

KERNEL=="sd*[1-9]", BUS=="scsi", PROGRAM=="/sbin/scsi_id -g -u /dev/%P", RESULT=="1ATA_ST31000524AS_9VPCT2B9", SYMLINK+="array0%n"
KERNEL=="sd*[1-9]", BUS=="scsi", PROGRAM=="/sbin/scsi_id -g -u /dev/%P", RESULT=="1ATA_ST31000524AS_9VPCS7ZT", SYMLINK+="array1%n"
KERNEL=="sd*[1-9]", BUS=="scsi", PROGRAM=="/sbin/scsi_id -g -u /dev/%P", RESULT=="1ATA_SAMSUNG_HD103SJ_S246J90B653757", SYMLINK+="array2%n"
KERNEL=="sd*[1-9]", BUS=="scsi", PROGRAM=="/sbin/scsi_id -g -u /dev/%P", RESULT=="1ATA_SAMSUNG_HD103SJ_S246J90B653776", SYMLINK+="array3%n"
KERNEL=="sd*[1-9]", BUS=="scsi", PROGRAM=="/sbin/scsi_id -g -u /dev/%P", RESULT=="1ATA_WDC_WD20EARS-00MVWB0_WD-WCAZA0998064", SYMLINK+="drives0%n"
KERNEL=="sd*[1-9]", BUS=="scsi", PROGRAM=="/sbin/scsi_id -g -u /dev/%P", RESULT=="1ATA_ST2000DL003-9VT166_6YD0EPBS", SYMLINK+="drives1%n"

The file is save as /etc/udev/rules.d/25-names.rules and looks for specific devices and creates links like /dev/array01 and /dev/drives11 depending on the ID it finds.

The bit I had to change was using %P for the parent device (/dev/sda1 has /dev/sda as a parent) and "sd*[1-9]" for the pattern to match only the partitions rather than the whole drive. Previously I used %k and a pattern that matched both the drive and partitions which did work before but not after the recent update.

Post-op/Pre-op

2011-12-29T10:53:00.010Z

There is alot made of these terms and they carry an awful lot of emotional and psychological baggage which is likely not entirely evident to someone who isn't going through this process. Thankfully I am now in the "post-op" camp and feel slightly more able to discuss, at least some, details at a highish level which is a great improvement over the time immediately before where the very idea of discussing things with all but my closest friends was abhorent.

I think I'd like to go through a list of "things that scared me" and hopefully this might give an idea of how someone approaching the same surgery might feel:

Stopping Hormones

All hormone treatment has top be stopped 6 weeks before surgery. As I understand it this is mainly for safetys sake as estrogen increases the risk of blood clots and I guess any medication in your system can potentially interfere with anesthetic or other drugs you may be given during or immediately after surgery.

You'd think that stopping taking pills or sticking patches on your body would in some way be a relief (I can't say I miss Spiro pills - they are huge) but the implication is that your hormone levels return to a point they were at before. This was a horrifying prospect for me as I it was so important to me to have the 'right' hormones in my system, it made me feel like "me" and I hated the thought of giving them up.

I'm not sure of the chemistry/biology involved but just stopping medication didn't actually have an immediate affect (apart from me not liking the thought of it), it did take a few days, possibly a week for me to start to feel any different. I know some people have said the increase in testosterone makes them feel irritable or angry, given my pre-HRT level was barely into the normal range I wasn't too worried about that and certainly it didn't seem to happen. I did feel quite frantic, and kind of paranoid. Also I really withdrew alot and found it harder to talk to people, kind of like a loss in confidence.

Also my sleeping pattern got completely wrecked; normally I'm fairly consistent with sleep and can easily feel when I'm too tired and go to bed early and get up early for work. I kept waking up and not being able to settle again, or if I slept through I didn't feel rested and was way more tired then I've ever felt. That and possibly other things really affected my concentration and my attention span. I remember one odd implication of that when I was trying to pick a film to watch and couldn't decide on anything, just nothing felt right and when I finally picked something I stopped watching it after a few mins and just couldn't settle on doing anything. All very weird and disconcerting.

Sexuality

I'm not sure how true this is but I read/was told that testosterone affects libido in both men and women so one of the things that actually did scare me is that suddenly I'd have an uncontrollable sex drive which I would find extremely distressing. I'm sure many people won't understand this or even find it quite funny, but it's not, it's something that makes you question who you are and made me feel very uncomfortable and upset.

Control

I've never had an operation with general anesthetic before, and the thought of being forced asleep did really upset me for quite a while. When attending the GIC and talking to my the specialist there he commented that I was a bit of a control freak (he is right) and I definitely saw being anesthetised as a huge lack of control. I was really worried about being allergic to the anesthetic to or having a reaction or not waking up, etc, etc.

As it turned out it didn't even hurt when they put the needle in and I just drifted off quite quickly and came round afterwards reasonably fast too. Several people, my Mum in particular, commented that they work out the amount of anesthesia so accurately these days and the whole process is so precise that there isn't much in the way of feeling groggy or half-asleep anymore.

Death

I've never had major surgery before so have no idea what to expect; so I started imagining the worst possible scenarios! I definitely worried that I wouldn't wake up afterwards or have something serious happen like a blood clot that affected my brain! My imagination did run riot for a while and there were times that I was very scared but strangely I didn't worry about this worst case as much as I thought I would. I think I was more concerned about surviving but having complications.

Complications

Knowing about certain potential complications just made me worry about them. Some aren't particularly serious in the grand scheme of things but they are things I just didn't want to go through. I had a few nightmare scenarios in my head and it's always easier to worry these will happen rather think about it rationally.

It's very easy from this side of the surgery to see that I was worrying about nothing and that's maybe how other people see it. But I really was very scared, worried, pre-occupied and apprehensive about the whole thing. The affect of stopping hormones was very definitely real and not pleasant at all (and my ability to write about all of this in a quite open and honest way is testament to the fact I'm back on hormones and this has started to level my thinking out, even if it's just psychological rather that phisiological at the moment).

As I was told before I left hospital, this is major surgery, it does take time to heal and recover and it is a big deal for many reasons. Anyone going through this is going through a major change in their life (for the better) and it isn't easy at all. And all of this is something very hard to explain to anyone else who isn't close to you, very few people have a frame of reference in which they can understand what you are going through.

The problem that I found was that the last thing I wanted to do was explain any of this to anyone. Talking about it before surgery meant to me that I would be labelled as "pre-op" and I absolutely hated the idea of anyone knowing that. This is again maybe something hard to understand if you've not gone through it but it just became a real concern of mine that my surgical status be kept absolutely private.

Now, I am much more relaxed about so many things, I commented to my partner just today that a whole load of my inhibitions have just disappear and, aside from the fact that I really need to get a load of exercise and tone up, I don't have any hang-ups about my body anymore. I might not be the most attractive person in the world, but I'm really me now and that is all that matters.

Packing and Panicing

2011-12-12T18:23:00.003Z

Well, I'm now down at the hospital and my surgery is tommorrow at 8:00am! Not feeling too bad at the moment but I'm distracting myself lots from reality by watching movies and processing images! When I stop and think about what it coming up though I do get nervous.

Sunday consisted of what the title says in equal measure. I packed loads of stuff and tried to remember everything I needed to as well as trying to tidy the house ready for my return in a weeks time. It was all rather hectic and frantic.

I wanted to try and write something to my son as a "just in case note" (I'm sorry, I'm really scared by all this, never had an operation before and everything is going around in my head about it) but couldn't think what to write. There is so much I want to say to him, like I'm sorry I've put him through the past few years and how I wish it could have been different. I want to tell him he is such an amazing person to have dealt with it all so well and I am incredibly proud of him and love him so much.

I just want to get through tomorrow and the next few weeks/months of recovery so I can see my son again and we can get back to doing all the fun things we did together (need to plan another trip to Legoland).

I think I'm going to go back to watching films (and listening to the ridiculously loud and dangerous sounding wind outside - it's blowing a gale) as writing things about my son is really emotional at the moment.

I should also say a huge huge huge thank you to all of my fab friends that have been so supportive and just plain fantastic. I am very very luckly to know so many wonderful people and I really couldn't have go through what I have over the years without your help.

Right, time to watch another film, going to watch Paul I think as that is suitable silly and distracting :)

Counting and Caterpillars

2011-12-07T17:33:00.000Z

This is slightly out of date now, but when I came up with the title for this blog post it was very relevant. And yes, it's been way too long since I updated this blog, particularly as I've had so much I could have written in it, both good and bad. Maybe I will get a chance to keep up the updates over the coming days, I certainly hope so.

To explain the title: I'm currently counting down the weeks, well now days, until I have surgery. I am not going to go into what I'm having done since I don't feel I want to disclose and discuss that. What is significant is that I've never had an operation before, well, not one where I have had a general anesthetic. Of all the times I have been in hospital before I have been pretty-much on edge and freaked out by the whole experience; I do not deal with medical stuff well at all.

I am pretty much completely petrified by the prospect of my operation, which is now, as I write this, less than a week away. I'm constantly going over it in my head and essentially worrying/fretting/thinking about it all the time to the point where it's making me dizzy sometimes. I suspect that this will only get worse the closer the actual date approaches. I'm normally fairly switched-on, quick-witted (well I like to think so), and vivacious, but I'm just so preoccupied that I'm none of those things at the moment. I can't concentrate on anything nor do I feel like doing that.

None of this is helped by the fact that, in preparation, I had to stop all medication which meant that I went slightly nuts for the first week or two until a temporary injection kicked in and restored the balance somewhat. Generally though I've not felt that good off my normal meds and while I'm sure it can be worse for others in a similar situation, I will be very glad to get back on track after my operation.

So, not a fun time, though certainly could have been worse and I'm equally definite that, if all goes well next week, this pain, and the discomfort ahead will be worth it in the end. I have to admit to some degree of excitment at getting things sorted out and the, hopefully, positive impact it will have on my life. I just have to get through the next few weeks and months and get myself back to normal, or, better than that in fact.

Oh, yes, the caterpillar thing: I spent a week or so not sleeping very well and constantly waking up feeling like I was wrapped in a pupa of bed sheet! Sadly I think there is no metaphor here; I'm not likely to emerge as a beautiful butterfly, but I'll be happy enough to be a more relaxed and together caterpillar :)

Moving ...

2011-09-14T06:51:00.002+01:00

Goodness it's been ages since I've updated this blog and I really haven't got time at the moment for a big long essay on what has been happening in my life, suffice to say that the past few months have been incredibly manic and busy but so much fun, mainly thanks to the many fantastic people in my life - thanks all!

This post is, unfortunately, rather a boring one to inform anyone that is insane enough to read this blog that it's moving (back) to the following address:

http://fionasboots.blogspot.com

The reason for the change is that it's so easy for people to use http://www.fionasboots.co.uk when they mean to refer to my photography website, which actually makes alot of sense given that I'm in the UK! So, rather than try and correct everyone it's just easier to redirect the .co.uk to the .com address :)

Right, I best get on with other stuff that needs sorting out, I promise I'll do a proper update here again soon :)

Photos everywhere!

2011-05-30T10:51:00.005+01:00

I'm really pleased, in fact over the moon, that some of my photos seem to be making it to other sites and even real publications!

The first of these was Drapers magazine - the two pictures in the top left of the page are from the Fashion City York catwalk event and from the collection of images that I took there.
I also get to say that one of my images is in Vogue next month but that's just because it's being used in an advertisement for the fabulous Notice My Name; Jo who owns/runs the company (and makes the tea) was kind enough to send me a proof for this:
I also just did a shoot for the new products she's adding to her website so hopefully those images will be appear there soon (when I've got them processed).

Websites that I know about that are using my pictures include the following

Fashion City York - the social page has pictures from the catwalk show, most of these were from the images I took. These are also mirrored on the FCY Facebook page.
Discover Vintage are using a selection of my pictures from the York Festival of Vintage that was held at York Racecource on 30th April 2011. Some of the pictures are also used on the Festival of Vintage details page too.

If anyone knows of any other websites where my images are being used I would love to hear about them!

Just a word on copyright: if I get paid for images then things are fairly straight-forward; I still retain copyright (unless I get paid lots and lots :D) but essentially you can do what you like with the images.

Since this really is just my hobby I do almost all of my photography for free and for fun but this is where really the rules need to be followed. All the images are covered by a Creative Commons license (the exact details can be found on my website) which essentially says you can still do anything you like with the images but you MUST give credit and link back to my website. This seems a fair exchange for free images :)

Apparently it IS all about gender

2011-05-27T17:51:00.004+01:00

I've been on Plenty of Fish for about a month now and not really had much success, though I'm not going to whinge nor get upset about that in particular (I still like a friends assessment that a site like this is a good way to "kiss alot of frogs").

My profile didn't, until recently, mention the fact that I am trans, I honestly and totally believed that this was patently obvious from the pictures I'd uploaded. There are two very clear shots of my face with no editing or clever lighting, and I thought these should be enough for me to be read.

Apparently I was wrong (which is in many respects a good thing) and I've had two slightly upsetting reactions from people when they have realised, though really I shouldn't have been surprised as the old adage about "if something is too good to be true, it probably isn't" definitely applied in both cases.

In the first incident the woman concerned simply stopped chatting, no explanation, no "sorry, I'm not interested", just disconnected!

So, I added a paragraph to my profile explaining that I'm a trans-woman but that I don't make a big deal out of it.

When someone then started chatting/flirting with me after that point it didn't occur to me that they might not have read my profile so I just assumed they really did like me (well, okay I still had some doubts, I have never in my entire life had anyone just declare that they thought I was hot or attractive in any way). But, no, just another case of me not being read.

I can understand someone not liking how I look, or my hobbies, personality, in fact any number of things. Certainly for on-line dating you're pretty much just going on looks and I really don't think I'm stunning enough in any way to attract lots of people to read my profile. Again, I don't have a problem with this, I make exactly the same judgements on people I look it.

I think what is upsetting is when all of that seems fine; someone has looked at real pictures of me and decided they do like what they see. Then they chat a little and like what they hear (or read I guess). Everything can be fine right up until the point where you say "I'm trans" and then it's all different. That hurts. Nothing else matters from that point on, it's all completely over-shadowed and there's that awkward silence where I just know the other person is trying to get away as fast as possible.

What a horrible and insensitive way to treat someone.

Thankfully not everyone is like that so I have had some quite nice chats with people and I'm very grateful for that. I'm also immensely thankful for the wonderful and supportive friends I have - you're all fab!

Even more photography and other stuff

2011-05-15T18:14:00.001+01:00

Okay, I'm still a little swamped with shoots that I need to process and have been busy all weekend so have not got anything done at all!

I'm hoping this week is going to be more organised however as I intend to make a concerted effort to get into work much earlier, having got things ready the night before. This should mean I can get more things done in the morning (when it's cooler in the office for a start) and then leave slightly earlier so I can feel less rushed with all the stuff I have to do at home. Well, that's the theory anyway :-)

Should also help in the coming weeks as there are several events on in the evening and getting back earlier means I can get, myself sorted for them - the cycling thing means lots of changing and showers which is immensly time-consuming!

Anyway, hopefully I can get into a nice routine and get some proper, regular sleep as well, rather than the mad, lat nights I seems to have been having - all sounds rather boring and routine but it make sense, trust me :-)

Lots of Pictures!

2011-05-10T20:34:00.003+01:00

I've come to the conclusion that the photography is really an all-consuming and quite serious hobby and it's something I've enjoying more and more. I should probably also say that the more I learn the more I realise I have more to find out and try. Which is fab because I have so much fun with it all!

Anyway, I've had lots of opportunities for photography over the past month or so, I'm still processing two sets of pictures but for now I've uploaded the ones from the corset shoot in the Museum Gardens in York and also the several hundred pictures from the York Festival of Vintage event.

It's Not all about Gender

2011-05-10T17:31:00.003+01:00

It probably looks like I just spend my life moaning and whinging about how unfair everything is and that I'm hard done by, and that my entire life revolves around my gender and everything related to that.

Really, it's not like that at all. I don't think about it, I really don't want to talk about it, there are far more important things to be doing with my time than obsessing about who I am. That is now a done deal, it's been figured out, and, short of ongoing treatment and everything related to that, it's a minor consideration now compared to so many more interesting aspects to my life.

Lots of Knocks

2011-05-10T16:58:00.004+01:00

While I have done some really enjoyable things over the past month (photography at the Fashion City York catwalk show, my birthday party, Legoland with my son, more photoshoots, the Festival of Vintage) I seem to have had a few knocks as well which really have left me feeling a bit down.

I was prompted to write this post now after my son didn't want to speak to me on the phone. I hardly get to talk to him as it is and when I can call is so limited given everything he does and the times when he's 'busy'. I think what gets to me is that him not talking is so 'acceptable'. Not wanting to talk to me is 'understandable' and that is something I have to accept. Of course it's my fault after all.

It's much easier to justify certain behaviour when you can allocate blame: if I'm in the wrong that makes me bad and others actions are 'good' by default. This kind of reasoning is typified by the premise that I have 'done' something - I have made a concious decision to be 'bad' and therefore all consequences are to be expected and accepted.

None of this take into account my feelings and how upset I am. Nor does it really do anything to deal with the, quite complicated, reality of what has happened. There are only so many times I can apologise for the way I am, this really isn't my 'fault', it's something I ultimately had no control over.

My partner and I split last week as well, amicably and by mutual agreement but that kind of thing still upsets and hurts. Last week just seems to have been a horrible week with me feeling down about the split and lots of other things that are bothering me.

I guess everyone has ups and downs and there are lots of things I am very grateful for I could just do without my confidence and emotions being knocked about so much at the moment.

Fashion City York!

2011-04-05T20:43:00.003+01:00

Well, it was an amazing weekend which I would love to write more about at the moment but I desperately need some sleep! So for now I'll point everyone in the direction of the Fashion City York website, and my page of photos from my site.

Fireworks!

2011-03-09T08:39:00.002Z

February 26th was the finale of the 2011 York Viking Festival and the first time I've actually got to see this event (I missed it the previous year), I'll certainly be attending the 2012 one as well and would highly recommend that to anyone.

It just so happened that this was the day I was to see my son also so it was a perfect opportunity for a day (and evening) out in York. It also meant that he ended up visiting me house again, albeit briefly so I could get the sandwiches ready before going into town on the bus. It's only the second time he's been there (usually easier to just see him near where he lives) and it was lovely to just be able to sit and chat to him at home for a little while ... well until the game on the Wii loaded and then he got engrossed in that. Still enjoyed watching him play on the Lego Star Wars game as that was something we use to do before I moved.

We had a really good day and, thanks to a fantastic friend, also an absolutely wonderful evening at the finale event since we were able to get into the VIP area and had a great view of the "warm-up" (quite an apt description of Flame Oz) act (shown above), the final battle, boat-burning and amazing fireworks display.

[ Note: The event is really well organised and I suspect that almost everyone had a really good view of what was going on, there seemed to be plenty of space for everyone to see the main arena anyway ]

It was a long day and my son was very tired by the end of the evening and fell asleep on the way back to his house, I only managed to stay awake on the trip back home back singing along to the CD (Glee and other music as I recall) at the top of my voice! So, very late back home and tired myself but happy that we'd had such an amazing day.

For anyone interested, the rest of my Viking Festival pictures are on my website.

"Are you a he or a she?"

2011-03-09T08:13:00.004Z

This was the question posed to me by a child, probably around about 10yrs old, who happened to be scooting past my house. There are quite a few kids on those collapsible metal scooters whizzing around the estate where I live, they generally don't do any harm and seem quite absorbed in what they are doing.

But I think sometimes they do look at what's going on around them and I had a feeling that a few of them were looking at me when I arrived back after cycling home. Only this one kid seemed brave or curious enough to ask anything, while stood there on his own.

I wasn't annoyed or upset by the question, quite honestly I looked a mess after cycling over 5miles at some speed, I also had my hair completely tied back so it's quite possible that there are many women that wouldn't look entirely feminine in such a state.

"I'm a she", I answered simply and he looked for a few seconds longer then scooted off as I turned away to go into the house.

I saw him glancing at me a few more times as he went past the house but no other comments or show of interest from the friends he was with, so I'm assuming this really was just the curiosity of one kid and nothing to do with a group wanting to poke fun or anything. In that respect, I'm quite impressed to be asked such a sensible and non-offensive question.

VMPlayer: kernel.sched_compat_yield not set

2011-02-20T14:06:00.002Z

Since my desktop machine at home has now had a bit of an upgrade I'm now running several VMWare instances (Windows 7 - more on this in another post - and Ubuntu 32bit - avoids pesky problems with Flash and some other tools not being available/stable in 64bit versions).

I've kept getting the above error in a dialog every time I start VMWare Player so I had a read of the upstart documentation (the replacement for SysV init) and also found the script that is meant to be reading the values from /etc/sysctl.d

# procps - set sysctls from /etc/sysctl.conf
#
# This task sets kernel sysctl variables from /etc/sysctl.conf and
# /etc/sysctl.d

description "set sysctls from /etc/sysctl.conf"

start on virtual-filesystems

task
script
cat /etc/sysctl.d/*.conf /etc/sysctl.conf | sysctl -e -p -
end script

The issue turned out to be because the file added by VMWare Player doesn't have a .conf suffix so never gets picked up by the above script, fixed this with a link to that file with the appropriate name, 30-vmware-player.conf which should pick things up properly from now on.

Fiona's Boots

2011-02-03T21:28:00.005Z

I don't think I've ever explained the name of this blog, or for that matter the ID "fionasboots" that I use almost everywhere for e-mails, twitter, FaceBook and my other website.

I think I've only ever been asked once by a friend if the reason for having such an identifier is in some way related to a footwear fetish that I might have! I guess that's an obvious conclusion, but no, I do not have such a fetish; in fact I have none that I am aware of - I like lots of things but don't have the energy for fanatical devotion to them.

I do LIKE boots and shoes and awful lot and that is the rather boring and uninspiring reason for picking "fionasboots". In 2006 when I first used that identifier I certainly had invested in some rather nice maroon suede boots (which I actually still have today, though don't wear a great deal any more) and that was the ultimate reason for the choice of online moniker (I even had a nice picture of me wearing said footwear).

I did briefly go through a phase of wanting to get the ever-so-slightly fetish-worthy thigh length boots but never did because ultimately there aren't many that are that good quality unless you have a lot of money and a genuine desire for such things.

I have just recently bought a few more pairs of boots, from Duo (love their boots and the fact they fit perfectly), to add to my 'collection' - all for the cause of fashion and me trying to look good (not sure I succeed but I have fun trying nonetheless).

So, there you go, unfortunately a rather boring explanation :)

[ Update: Just remembered one of the reasons I've always liked boots, again it's rather practical and boring: given my height (and cough, splutter, weight, cough, cough) little strappy shoes aren't really for me unfortunately, I need footwear that is going to not flap around on my feet or dig into me. So boots are a rather practical solution for me :) ]

Stop and Think

2011-02-03T21:05:00.002Z

With one thing and another recently I've had quite alot going on and much to think about. While alot of the thinking has either been preoccupation with something that has been bothering me, or distraction to avoid such reality, I've also had a few moments of relative clarity.

Looking back I never could have imagined that my life would be as it is now. So much has changed in the past two and a bit years and it is hard to really see the huge changes completely objectively, for a start there are many things that I regret and that upset me; the distance from my son being the most obvious one.

I generally try to keep everything under control and avoid dwelling too much on the past, I guess the distractions, good and bad, of recent times have helped in that respect and I generally like to keep busy. Things do get past my defences though. A few weeks ago I received by decree absolute, something that I knew was on it's way and that really is only the final piece of paperwork to confirm the end of my marriage. I thought I was prepared for it, but I wasn't, it was still incredibly upsetting.

My son has a busy social life; I always joke that it is much better than mine which may actually be completely accurate (and not entirely a bad thing for him). But this means that he's often got more interesting things to do then spend time with me, or is not available to talk. This really, really is fine and perfectly normal, I so want him to be getting on with things and enjoying himself, I don't want to stand in the way of that. I still can't help being a little upset by it sometimes. I guess this is a purely selfish reaction on my part but nevertheless it's something else I try not to think about.

There are many other aspects of my life and the journey I have taken to get here that I am reflecting on at the moment. One of the reasons for thinking a little deeper than my usual superficial silliness is that I have an appointment in a few weeks for a second opinion from a specialist. I'm likely to be going over all of the same questions that I have been asked before and explaining how I feel and who I am, so naturally this has made me cover the same mental ground as well. The second opinion will hopefully be what helps me move onto the next step in this process, for example, I'll be able to apply for my GRC (Gender Recognition Certificate).

So, lots to think about, not all bad, some of it is even interesting and also surprising but there are also those bits that really will always remain as regrets, albeit, tempered with recognition of how lucky I am and a degree of pragmatism that things can get better :)

Squeak Squeak!

2011-01-26T11:53:00.003Z

First of all I should say I'm fine, all clear and nothing to worry about. Now, to explain what I have actually been worrying about over the past month: I found a lump in my breast.

I am terrible with anything medical-related, I am a total hypochondriac and am also pretty much nervous/scared of hospitals and lots of things associated with them, e.g. I *hate* needles. So when I found a lump I obviously thought the worst and got quite worried (understatement) about it, enough to get me to book an appointment with my GP.

My the GP was fab (I should say all GPs I have ever had/seen have been fab, I'm sure it's part of the job description) and after my burbled explanation had a bit of a prod around and declared that it was likely that I had a "breast mouse"! I believe that the more formal, medical description is fibroid adanoma (excuse spelling or medical inaccuracy here).

[ I would provide a link to some information about this but I'm not going to searching Google as I'll only likely find something else that might freak me out - if anyone has any good links (Jen, you had one :) ) please post them in the comments for others to find/use ]

Anyway, I was assured that this is perfectly benign and nothing to worry about but, as a precaution my GP referred me to the breast screening clinic to get it checked out. I was obviously quite pleased to know it was nothing bad and promptly forgot about it until I got the letter asking me to book an appointment - the NHS now have this choose and book service; not the worlds most swish website but it works really well and is a fantastic system (Note to NHS IT department: honestly the website is fine, please don't try and modernise it and put swishy AJAX and things in it'll just complicate matters :) )

I finally sat down to book the appointment on Sunday and got it for 10:10 this morning - and there were plenty of other alternatives as well. I guess this may not be the same for busier hospitals but it's still fantastic being able to choose days and times.

Very nervous and distracted this morning, in fact have been since I booked the appointment - obviously thinking about things too much (ignorance really is bliss sometimes, for some of us anyway). Got there in time and parked (that's a miracle for most hospitals! Wish they wouldn't charge for parking or at least make it easier to pay - "No Change Given" pay and display is a bit cumbersome).

I got seen by the consultant within, what seemed like only 10mins of getting there. Explained everything about the lump, the hormones I take, other pills (spironolactone in my case), and how far I am with transition. He then had a bit of a prod around (as did the medical student with him: really does anyone ever say "no" when asked if a student can be present, I always say yes immediately and dismiss the question) and confirmed that it felt like a "mouse" or possibly a cyst. Said I'd have to have an ultrasound to check and then they may have to stick a big needle in my breast (he phrased this alot better/kinder than I just did!).

Waited again for a very short period of time before getting the ultrasound, the doctor doing that said almost immediately that it was instead a cyst, nothing to worry about, probably didn't need the needle and was all fine. Phew!

Had to wait again for her to write a report on this and then for me to see the consultant again. Really not long waiting at all, or didn't feel it anyway :)

Consultant said that they *could* use the needle, then quickly said there was no need to, remembering my earlier comments about that procedure! He suggested that given my age (he did actually get it wrong and knocked 5yrs off me - that really cheered me up) cysts were normal and that also, because my hormones were all over the place at the end of last year (I was trying out gel then panicing and going back to patches) that this would also explain their development. Apparently menopausal women can develop cysts due to their hormones fluctuating. So, no need to go back, unless I want the cyst removed (I don't, have plenty of other lumps/bumps and blemishes and in no rush to have anything removed that isn't going to hurt me) so all clear.

Every single doctor/nurse there was fantastic; they were so lovely and reassuring and chatty and the whole visit took only an hour and a half in total, and as I said, it felt quicker and they really went through the packed waiting room very quickly (only two people there when I left).

Really, the NHS is fantastic! I know people complain about it and I'm sure there are cases where things are less than perfect but I am more than happy with the service I've got on the, thankfully, relatively rare, occasions I've needed to see anyone.

Anyway, I learnt a few things today: 1) even though you are desperate to get out of the hospital it might have been a good idea to nip into the toilets and put your bra back on (bouncy boobs not ideal on half-sprint back to car lol) 2) don't muck around with your hormones! Will be sticking to prescribed patches and regime from now on, nice and stable is best.

Me and the mouse are going to get some lunch now, "squeak" :)

Photoshoot for me!

2011-01-09T22:50:00.002Z

I think I've finally got some recent pictures of me that I might actually like (or don't cringe too much when I look at them anyway)! Must say thanks to Rachel first of all for taking them and doing such a fantastic job (given that we work together on shoots before I knew she would get the best pics possible).

I was actually trying out some different lighting and background setups for portrait work; we can't afford to get the frames and special paper/material that would be used in a studio, nor can we really transport that kind of kit to the places we wanted to shoot. So I came up with a slightly cheaper alternative using bed sheets (it's surprising how big a king-sized sheet actually is: 275cm square!).

I did try and take some pictures just using the remote trigger for the camera but it was much better to ask Rachel to do things properly. Also this meant I got to have some pictures of me: I've actually wanted some more up-to-date shots as my profile images are looking rather dull.

Anyway, we spent a rather fun afternoon shooting me in different outfits - also meant I got to learn a bit more about poses and camera angles as this is something I need to get a bit more experience with. I've uploaded the pictures I liked the best to my website, these are processed (very little) by me. Rachel has done some more interesting processing of the images and I'll try and get these uploaded at some point as well.

Overall, a very productive Saturday :)

Goodness it's cold!

2011-01-09T16:58:00.002Z

Just went out for a quick cycle around, I had been feeling like getting out alot this week but when it actually came to today when we have glorious sunshine I just didn't get round to it. Until I finally snapped and decided I needed to get myself out and about no matter how lazy I was feeling!

Really glad I did push myself to get out as I feel so much better for it now, even if it was a bit of a strain cycling around York in the cold - just shows how out of condition I am after nearly a month of not commuting to work on my bike (due to the snow/ice mainly and then Christmas of course).

Just hoping that the weather next week is a few degrees warmer than it has been so that I can get back to my cycling commute - need to save money even more now given the rise in the cost of diesel, and more importantly I really need to get back into shape (or a less fat shape anyway)!

Medieval Plays

2010-12-18T19:28:00.005Z

At the beginning of December I had a trip down to London to meet up with friends for pre-Christmas shopping and this also gave me an opportunity to go and see the production of two medieval plays by HIDden Theatre at the British Museum.

The plays were produced by Trinacria Productions which was setup by two of my fantastic friends and I really wanted to go along to provide my support as well as seeing the plays themselves. I was very lucky to actually end up getting involved by photographing the rehearsals and ultimately the performances of the plays which meant I obviously got to watch them as well.

It was fantastic to be involved, even in such a small way and I'm really grateful to everyone involved for that. I've uploaded the photos I took from the rehearsals and performances to my website.

On a technical note: almost all of these photos were taken on my Canon 5D mk II at ISO 3200 (some of the rehearsal ones I managed at 1600, several of the performance ones as high as 6400) without the aid of a flash! While the pictures did have a significant amount of noise it was still quite impressive how well they have come out in the end - the choice of camera/software clearly helped an awful lot with this.

It happened ...

2010-12-14T17:08:00.002Z

Sorry for the delay in updating things in case anyone was desperate to know the outcome of the weekend, the week after was rather busy and also I was on a bit of a down after everything. But yes, everyone did get over so I did manage to see my Dad for the first time in over 2yrs :D Also got to see my Mum and hadn't done that for over a year as well.

The weekend went incredible well, in fact it felt like the past two years hadn't happened and we just chatted normally and easily. In some ways it was like an anti-climax, there were no big scenes or upset it was just normal service being resumed!

I'm told my Dad was fine with meeting the 'new' me and didn't seem fazed at all. One of the first things he said when he came in was "You look like your sister" which was quite nice; well for me, I suspect my sister has alot more to complain about in the comparison!

Seeing my son again was also fantastic and I don't have words to describe how wonderful it was to put him to bed and read a book with him (which is what we always use to do) and have him do the actual reading! Meant so much.

I was quite upset after they all left and it's affected me for about a week - lots of memories and feelings, not to mention a whole lot of confusion was unlocked by the visit, things I'd just held in check. Getting over that now and I really want to just keep moving forward now and see my parents, and son, as much as possible.

For everyone who made that weekend so special: thank you :)

Snow Fair!

2010-12-02T06:58:00.003Z

I love snow and I've been saying it would be great to have more so that everything feels all Christmassy and magical. Well, as they say, be careful what you wish for: York, like alot of the country, is now blessed with an over-abundance of snow and as well as the mayhem it's causing for everyone else it could also wreck my plans for the coming weekend which was meant to be one of the most important in my life.

I mentioned previously that I'd been talking more openly with my Dad and that there was a distinct possibility that we may meet up soon, well, that was (is?) this weekend! Both my parents were planning on coming over and also bringing my son for a visit also! I do get to see my son regularly but he's never stayed over at my house before so this weekend was going to be important and fun for that as well!

I haven't actually seen my Dad since June 2008 (fathers day in fact) and he has never laid eyes on me since I started my transition. It's going to be a bit of a shock to see what I look like now, compared to then, I have changed quite a bit! Also the last time I saw my Mum was over a year ago, when I moved to York, and I'm told by friends that my face has altered in that time as well.

I've been quite busy of the past few days so haven't had a chance to sit down and really think about how the visit would go. It has been on my mind though and I've gone through many scenarios in my head. It's also caused me to revisit feelings and experiences from my past and has almost transported me back to the last few times I saw may parents and how I felt then. That's quite disorientating as it reminds me of how I was before my transition and the way I looked and acted - both of which I have tried hard to forget.

My Dad has said that he is ready to meet me now, so it really is just a matter of timing and opportunities for this to happen. While I may pretend, even to myself, that I can deal with this and that it's something I shouldn't be too worried about, I know that the closer it gets to happening the more nervous and anxious I'll get. It is a huge deal and something that it going to be difficult for all concerned. That said, hopefully things will get easier after that and we can all start trying to rebuild some sort of normal family life.

Now, if only the weather would ease a little on Friday, and the roads clear ...

On the Up

2010-11-01T21:53:00.003Z

Well, the recent weeks have been full of downs and some ups, now thankfully the latter seems to have caught up and I'm getting back on track.

Again, I won't go into a large amount of detail about all the relationship stuff but, suffice to say, that it was, at least in part actually my fault. I should have explained my feelings a bit more clearly and honestly to those concerned and that would have avoided alot of upset. In my defence I didn't fully know what I felt, but that's still not much of an excuse.

In other news I have had a rather more open conversation with my Dad and it seems like there is a chance for us to meet in the coming months! I'm really not sure this has fully hit me yet, I was over-joyed to even be talking about 'me' and to know that I could soon be seeing my parents is just overwhelming.

I want to write more about all of this but, after a busy weekend, I'm rather tired so will have to leave that to another day when I feel more coherent and awake than I do now.

[ P.S. There was a TV show in the early 90s called On The Up, I use to love that, must see if I can get the DVDs ]

I Picked A Hell of a Week ...

2010-11-01T20:40:00.002Z

... to change my hormones! This is paraphrasing a line from the very silly 80s movie, "Airplane!", but I felt it somewhat apt given the rather serious post of last week; changing hormones after that was maybe not the most sensible thing to do.

As it turns out I don't seem to have had any major problems so I just need to go and get my levels checked to make sure the dosage is right.

Question of Attraction

2010-10-18T19:53:00.004+01:00

I've been thinking about attraction, particularly how this relates, or more than likely doesn't, to me. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of people who I know that have been actually attracted in any way shape or form and this isn't a very comforting thought. Recent events have made me ponder what it is that I'm doing wrong? There must be something either I'm missing or that I simply don't have!

My friends tell me I'm really nice and that I look good, I'd even concede that I'm reasonably stylish (or at least try to be) so I can't really see that I'm doing anything obviously wrong. But still, there must be something about me that, at best, says "friend", rather than "girlfriend". I just don't have it, whatever "it" is.

[ For reference, this is my profile on Gaydar Girls, I didn't think it looked *that* bad, and it is totally honest - maybe too honest? ]

I don't really want to whinge and complain, I'm lucky in lots of ways, and it seems a bit wrong to be whining about this, but, to be brutally honest, my self esteem has taken some rather vicious knocks recently so I desperately feel the need to vent a little. I won't go into the full gory details but here's the brief summary: was trying to 'date' someone, became apparent she was not attracted to me, obviously bit upset about that, never mind got a new friend at least, introduce to house-mate (also my ex*), flirting followed (right in front of me), arranging to meet but excluding me, and generally carrying on like they are dating.

* - and to add insult to injury, even though we'd split, and most definitely would not be getting back together, we still had a bit of a complicated "friends with benefits" relationship. Oh, and further salt rubbed into the wound by the fact that my ex stated that she "wasn't interested" in dating this person and that she "wouldn't want to do anything to hurt me" either. Okay, I know that you can't always control who you love/lust-after but in these kind of circumstances a degree of discretion is usual, the open flirting in front of me was probably a little unfair then!

I know going on about this isn't entirely attractive either but really and truly I do need to know what is wrong with me. If I'm destined to have this kind of crap happening to me all the time then I'd kind of like to know why and then at least there will be a reason and I won't have to feel as bad about myself as I do now.

Photoslam!

2010-10-10T07:53:00.003+01:00

This is a shameless plug for the next big photography event that Rachel is organising: the Leeds photoslam on 30th October 2010. I think this is about the third or maybe fourth photoslam that Rachel has organised and it's essentially an opportunity for photographers and models to get together and cram many different shoots, looks, outfits and a large amount of fun into one morning/afternoon, or in this case a whole day!

For anyone that's read my earlier posts about previous photoslams, you'll know that they're quite a challenge; from a photographers point of view you really have to think about what you're doing, trying to get the best from the pictures you're taking and thinking on your feet. For everyone it's a great opportunity to learn and teach at the same time; there is so much that goes into making a fantastic picture and being able to work with some fabulous and experienced models, make-up artists, and stylists is an education.

You can see pictures from the previous shoot we did at the Leeds Corn Exchange, the venue for the photoslam, over on my website.

In Two Minds

2010-10-10T07:16:00.007+01:00

The past few weeks have been incredibly busy and have had lots of ups and downs. I've had so much to deal with and, at times have felt completely overwhelmed by what has been happening. I've been practical and sometimes not when dealing with everything that has been thrown at me. Some of it has been a huge disappointment and some just seems so unfair and cruel. There have been several occasions when I have simply broken down in tears and not felt I could cope.

But

On the other hand, I'm still here, I'm relatively fit and health, have a job I love, fantastic friends, and am, in the grand scheme of things, very, very, very lucky in my life. There is so much that I can be thankful for that others may not have. What right have I to get upset, to complain, to bitch and moan?

And that's normally how I think: I don't have a right to get upset, even with the things I have to deal with, they are nothing compared to what others go through, I really am thankful for what I have and I recognise that. I use to be able to hold this idea as a rock-hard certainly and didn't become emotional and confused and let go of that anchor, but recently it has slipped a little.

It really has been like being in two minds about everything: logical on one hand, completely emotional and distraught on the other; I've been pushed so much I couldn't control the second of these at times. I know this all sounds very vague but, rather unusually, what has been getting me down is not something I really want to share publicly unfortunately, I'll get back to my usual, open and honest style shortly on other topics.

Looking at things more philosophically, being pushed this hard has meant that I've really thought about alot of things and I've really found who is there to support me and who hasn't been willing to put up with me being an emotional wreck/powder-keg.

I'll end the rambling now and get on with more useful, and less emotive things; like the washing, ironing and tidying up which are amazingly comforting and therapeutic I've found!

Night photography ...

2010-09-21T09:06:00.006+01:00

Yes, I've been filling my time with all sorts of things and being completely lax about updating this blog (as usual it seems)! I really can't remember everything that has been distracting me but I certainly seem to have been busy and there's been a fair amount of photography involved. Which brings me to last nights activities.

I finally got around to doing some night photography in York - I don't know why but I've always liked the view of cities and night and particularly the bring and colourful lights. I'm looking forward to when winter really sets in with cold, foggy, air and the light, warmth, and sounds of people enjoying themselves spilling from the houses and buildings in the city. I think I'm thinking Victorian Christmas here which I should really stop doing as it's only September!

Anyway, the picture above is one I got last night while a friend and I were wandering round York, camera's and tripods in hand trying to capture something of the beauty of the city. Really is quite nice at night with the clear sky, relatively warm air and the occasional group of tourists being escorted around on one of the many ghost walks. I think I might do this more often, particularly at the beginning of the week when the pubs and clubs, and streets even, fill with people after a more alcohol-fueled view of the city.

I had a really nice time and got some more practice at night photography, certainly need more and definitely will be exploring more of the city.

[ P.S. There is another image of from last night on my website and also some from the photoshoot I was involved with at the Corn Exchange in Leeds ]

Snap Happy!

2010-09-07T21:25:00.005+01:00

My hobby is getting a little out of control!
I have been spending an awful lot of time taking pictures and processing the resulting images and, if the purchase of new L-series lenses wasn't enough of a clue, I'm getting rather obsessive about it all! That said I'm really enjoying myself and hopefully getting pictures that other people like as well. The one above is of Jaymie, and below Caz.
All of the pictures are going into galleries on my website which was originally intended as a dumping ground for everything I couldn't fit on here but which now seems to have taken on a life of it's own and which probably needs a bit of a re-purpose and clean-up!

Here's a few of the recent galleries and shoots I've done in the past month or so, I still have several hundred images still to process and upload but that is a very time-consuming task so need to just attack it a bit at a time work and life permitting!

Jaymie - Portfolio pictures
Manchester Pride - Pictures of people from the weekend, still need to processes the parade shots!
ASK York Shoot - Caz and Holly with make-up by Natalie, in the ASK restaurant in York

Hopefully I'll get the other sets of images in the queue processed by the end of this weekend ... but then I'll probably have even more pictures to deal with!

It really is an all-consuming hobby at the moment but I'm really enjoying it so much and think the investment in time and money is worth it for the amount of fun I'm having :)

Goodbye Alice in Wonderland

2010-09-07T20:55:00.002+01:00

This is the title of a song by Jewel which I really love and feel the lyrics of which are rather apt at the moment. I've always been pretty naive and trusting and I guess always seen only the good in people and never considered that all of us have a dark side as well. It's a simplistic and childish view and I certainly needed to do some growing up (still do).

But now I do feel like I'm jumped forward in the cynicism a bit, I really have been upset and angry about some things and not just brushed them off as I use to (and sometimes cry about them quietly later). It's like the glasses are clear and there is less of a rose-coloured tint to them.

I'm not sad though, and I still do firmly believe that the glass if half-full and it's pretty cool I've got a glass in the first place! Like the song says, I'm not pretending any more though, I'm maybe still dreaming though and approaching things philosophically which I still think is a good way to be :)

[ And I still keep smiling and littering my writing with copious :) 's as well :) ]

Fat!

2010-09-07T20:19:00.005+01:00

I should say first in relation to "fat", that a fat lot of use I've been at keeping this blog up to date! Seem to have be swamped with real life, which isn't entirely a bad thing, as well as concentrating on other websites and things instead.

Anyway.

I'm getting fat.

Well, technically I'm not actually putting any weight on, Wii fit tells me I'm exactly the same as I was several months ago (overweight then, BMI 27 I seem to recall, and still same now). However I seem to be continuing to increase in clothes size and had to buy some new jeans the other day since a few of the ones I have are now uncomfortable to wear.

I'm not *that* upset about it since my hips seem to be getting bigger as does my bum (well, I suppose it has to keep up with my hips really lol) but I just wish my boobs would join in the same game as well, I'm sure they must be feeling a little left out!

Will continue with the cycling and eating sensibly and just try and stay health and fit and let my body sort itself out into a shape it's comfortable with.

I need a Date

2010-08-25T08:41:00.003+01:00

With the onset of autumn this week (yes, I know it seems early but it certainly feels, smells, and looks like we're heading into that season given the recent weather) I've been feeling a little tired and thoughtful - this is of course partially down to having to cycle through the aforementioned weather and also having lots to do at work and at home. So I've been thinking about what can get me out of this slightly lower patch.

Life at the moment is quite busy; lots to do at work, plenty of things to occupy me at the weekend, friends to chat to, trips away to plan. Rachel and I seem to be getting on fine as friends and house-mates so no awkwardness there. In short, there isn't much that should be holding me back.

We just received the e-mail about our works Christmas party which of course has now got me thinking about who I would take along. Also I'm heading to Manchester Pride this weekend and, while I'm meeting up with Lucy on Saturday (which is fantastic, so need to catch up) I've no-one to wander round with on Friday. I know it sounds terribly practical and unromantic but it's just these kind of occasions when having a partner just makes life that little be easier and more fun.

It's nice to have someone to look forward to seeing aswell, someone who makes you happy when you think about them and who's there for a cuddle when that's just what you need to make the problems of life disappear for a few brief moments. And it's nice to be that for someone else as well, to be the person they really want to be with.

I guess this is one of those times when you realise what you had only when it's gone. I waited a long time to start a new relationship and it actually happened when I least expected it. It really did give so much more confidence in myself at the time, and while that hasn't all just vanished, being alone again has had an impact.

I hope I'm not behaving as whiney as the above sounds, I really do think I'm lucky and I've got alot to be very, very, very thankful for, I just need a big kick to get be back to feeling as confident and happy as I should be!

It's all about Image(s)

2010-08-25T08:16:00.003+01:00

You'd think the web and the numerous sites I'm on would be perfect for showcasing the pictures I take, and you might also consider that this is a pretty easy thing to achieve, e.g. upload picture, point people at it. Well, apparently it's not that simple because alot of the pictures I produced just didn't look right at all which was rather annoying and upsetting - particularly as I spent all that time calibrating my monitor and painstakingly tweaking the settings on the images to get something that looked right in Bibble.

After MUCH Googling and reading about similar problems it seems that I've run into the same issue that alot of photographers hit; we're the only ones with calibrated monitors and colour management enabled properly! That isn't the specific issue that is affecting me viewing my own pictures on the web but it's as a result of it; FireFox doesn't correctly render colours in image files by default, and even with this setting on it still needs to know the correct monitor profile to render to.

[ Note: this is based on my experience on Ubuntu Linux, I'm not sure if FireFox on Windows will hook into the default system monitor profile or not. I would be inclined to believe that browsers on Mac's would do all this automatically but it does assume that a correct profile is present ]

Anyway, there is a partial solution to this problem, I installed the Colour Management add-on for FireFox which meant I could easily change the relevant settings (they can be found using about:config I believe) and load the profiles I'd generated for my desktop and laptop machines.

Now, when I view my pictures on the web, the colours match those I set while processing them so at least I know that they are correct. The only problem is that I have no idea at all what they look like on anyone else's monitor so it might be that I'm the only one who gets to enjoy them properly! That is a little irksome when you're hoping people will say nice or constructive things about your images and, in actual fact they just look terrible to them!

In Court

2010-08-12T15:27:00.003+01:00

That was horrible.

This was the initial hearing regarding the divorce so the bit in front of the judge, just in an office btw, was probably all of 3mins at most. Not pleasant waiting for it, very nerve-wracking but I don't know why! I've never ever been in a court before so I should have been overwhelmed by curiosity, not fear.

The worst part, and by for one of the most uncomfortable and horrible experiences in my life was seeing my ex there and not feeling that I could chat or say hello or even acknowledge her presence. We can chat okay on the phone, mainly about our son, and we'll even exchange some friendly words face-to-face (though obviously she prefers not to see me). But to feel that I can't even say hello is horrid. It was just such a de-humanising experience :(

If people really knew how horrible this is, for both 'sides', I don't think anyone would ever risk getting married. As I've said before, the only people to win in a divorce are the lawyers. And I can also now understand why people have divorce parties (I will most definitely not be) it's not to celebrate it's to drink so much that they forgot all the pain, even for just a few hours.

I'm going to head home, probably stopping at the Trafford Centre on the way to avoid the insane M62 and to just take my mind off all of this. So upset.

Models of Diversity

2010-08-02T17:32:00.005+01:00

After my very energetic few days of cycling it was time to get down to the serious business of packing for a few days away in London which included the night out for the Models Of Diversity event that I'd been so looking forward to!

I could go on and on about everything that happened over the weekend but I'll try and keep it brief so no-one gets bored (a little bit more detail about the night after this summary):

Night was fantastic, amazing, wonderful, so much fun!
Didn't want the night to end so carried on going when we got back to the hotel
Met a lovely girl from Texas who was lovely to chat to
More drinking
Crashed out at the hotel, woke up to early, did not feel well, needed TLC from Rachel and Deborah to help me back to normal!
Picked up prints of my son from The Print Space - fantastic results, looked exactly like on the monitor (with soft-proofing)
Photoshoot on Saturday with four fantastic models - very hectic, but good fun.
Back home to normality with some wonderful memories, photos, and a burning desire to do it all again!

Really, having had a few days to think about it and remember how much fun it was, I so want to move down to London and be involved in those kind of events all of the time. It's hectic, high-pressure, but just such an enjoyable challenge (from a photographic point of view) and it's unbelievably amazing to meet so many fabulous people who are just so nice and interesting!

The night involved, apart from the drinking and socialising, several catwalk shows that allowed the models to show just why we need more diversity in the industry and how fantastic they can look. There was of course alot of photography on the night as well, I think I now have significantly more developed arm muscles (not something I wanted lol) having carried around my camera all night!

Just to be a little geeky for a second, the kit I had consisted of the following: 480EX II Flash (which is a little slow to cycle I discovered, I can see now why the pros spend alot more to get the 580EX, Canon 24-70mm f2.8 lens (very heavy), Canon 5D Mk II camera. It all adds up to a fair amount of weight, mainly due to the large amount of glass in the lens (you need alot when it can go to f2.8), so not exactly something I could put in my purse. I hope the pictures I got make the effort worth it, you can see them on my website and I will upload full resolution versions to my deviantART page over the coming week - shrinking pictures and putting them on FaceBook etc doesn't really show them at their best.

As a final note I should just say a big thank you to Models Of Diversity for organising such a fantastic event and for all of the models, friends and guests that made for such an enjoyable and memorable evening. Thanks all xxx

Back and still standing!

2010-07-27T14:18:00.003+01:00

I did 50km in just over 2hours! Bum is slightly sore and I'm a little tired but, I DID IT! Selby and back, which was one of the trips I wanted to make during my hols, just to prove I could still manage such a distance and that there is some life left in the old bird!

Now, time to make some pasta to recharge my energy levels! I need to go out tomorrow on my bike to make sure I don't seize up!

Me at Selby...

2010-07-27T12:16:00.001+01:00

just to prove I'm here too and not just taking pics of my bike lol

Cycling to Selby ...

2010-07-27T12:15:00.001+01:00

Took an hour and 10mins for 25km! Time for 2 drink and then set off back home :-)

"Oh, what a night ..."

2010-07-25T09:35:00.005+01:00

... and day!

I should first cover the sacrifices made for the day/night to be so good; my feet for a start (think those shoes needed wearing-in first!), and the screen on my N900 phone (though the camera survived me dropping the bag which I am immensely relieved about obviously!). Will have to put in an insurance claim for the phone and rest my feet!

Okay, now the good stuff: Afternoon at York races curtesy of my fabulous and stunning friend, Jane who invited me along. This was the, sometimes dreaded and infamous, girls-day-out, comprising Jane's sister, cousins and friends. I mentioned what I was doing to (male) friends at work and they immediately decided that York was not the place to be on Saturday!

But the group was just fantastic and while we were definitely loud, drunk, and sometimes pretty boisterous and maybe even verging on crude and more unruly than some of the guys, we looked gorgeous and just had soooooooo much fun! I think only Jane won anything on the horses and the ones that the group picked all failed to make it across the line first (though there were some that were close ... sadly this doesn't appear to count, oh well, live and learn lol).

I've never been to the races before and it was a wonderful experience that I completely enjoyed! Just a nice atmosphere. I took quite a few pictures (could have taken more there was so many stunning people and outfits) which I'll have to add to the pile I need to process so don't expect an update anytime soon.

One rather irritating thing was some particularly obnoxious guys who kept pestering our little group. They were just annoying, making comments, staring, pointing and being generally the mindless and laddish in every possible bad sense of those words. Really, this is not the way to impress the ladies, it just shows what an idiot your are. Thankfully after Jane had a little word with them they left us alone. Considering the guys we met later I can only conclude that these idiots were childish little boys.

So, moving onto the X factor performance - there was a stage they'd set up that became the focus of attention after the racing finished. Everyone seemed to know who the people were that sang but I've lost interest in the X Factor so I had no idea. Was pretty entertaining and we had a good dance (more photos of course), and were joined by a lovely group of guys who turned out to be quite photogenic and fun (can you have phonetic alliteration?). See above for contrast by the way!

After the dancing fun it was time to get some junk food to soak up some alcohol and then head into town on the extremely over-subscribed shuttle buses; the queues being fueled by the torrent of people streaming from the race course. Feet got a bit of a rest at this point and once we got off we all realised that, while our shoes may look fantastic, they aren't designed to cover the miles in comfort! Several shoes ended up having a little rest as feet got to feel the slightly cold (and damp - brief shower) pavement.

Found a bar (Varsity as it happens) and got more drinks. Ended up talking to a guys out on a stag night who couldn't decide if they were Fireman or bin-men or both. Either way they were lovely to chat to and we ended up following them to Reflex which is an 80s bar, where the remainder of the stag party and Jane and I danced solidly from when we got in until when we left (the guys carried on, I finally succumbed to my feet's wishes so we had to leave). Thanks guys, we had a fantastic time x

Back home by taxi, then time for bacon sandwiches before crashing into bed. Up at stupid o'clock this morning (Jane had to get away and I'm genetically cursed with waking up early irrespective of when I go to bed). Thankfully I'm not hung-over but I suspect I'm going to be very tired later on; today is therefore a 'duvet day' and I'm going to chill in front of the telly!

Now, just a note for regular reader(s): I've mentioned guys lots here so I better clarify; no, I'm not turning straight of anything like that, I have no interest in men apart from as friends. However, I do really, really appreciate guys who are polite, respectful, and charming. I would happily go on a 'date' with a nice guy who would be a total gentleman (I've even got a mental list of people who I'd pick given a choice - it mainly includes actors and the likes but there are some others on there). Guys do get a bad press (because of the f***-wits I described earlier) but really most of the men I encounter are pretty much normal, nice, fun, interesting and just wonderful human beings.

Anyway, I best get on with chilling out and having a relaxing Sunday. Final word: to Jane and the rest of the girls, THANKS LOTS you're all FABULOUS xxx

Why do my boobs shrink when ...

2010-07-24T11:31:00.003+01:00

... I've been out cycling?! It's not exactly as if I've feeling my most gorgeous at the time, you'd think they could be a little more considerate and try and put a brave face on it. They haven't been doing any work at all either! I mean, I can understand my bum sighing with relief to be of the seat, it did at least get into the swing of things (I suspect given it's size lol) and was doing it's bit to encourage my legs!

I've noticed as well that may bum appears to be pulling my figure down - if I give it a bit of support I'm actually pretty curvy, left to it's own devices it goes and hides. I'm considering hanging upside down for length periods of time to fool it regarding the direction in which it should be growing.

Anyway, I just thought I'd mention it in case anyone was interested lol!

That Sucks (or doesn't in this case)

2010-07-21T13:28:00.004+01:00

It's rant about a big company time again: Curry's is in the firing line this time!

I bought a hoover last year when I moved over to York and I went for one of those little cyclone ones, a Hoover TFS 7202 to be exact, which seemed, according to the numbers/price to be suitable for whizzing around the relatively small house I'm in.

Well, it kinda worked okay but wasn't then best. Over the past 6 months we both used the hoover and each time we noticed more things that it wouldn't pick up and really how poor the suction was. To cut a long story short: I gave it a proper test and checked filters pipes etc at the weekend and came to the conclusion that it just wasn't very good. Maybe the design was faulty, maybe this hoover itself was just broken from the beginning, basically though I wanted to take it back.

So I tried. I was well past the 28days return period but I thought I'd simply ask to swap for a much more expensive one; after all Amazon sell alot of the same models for about £70 less so I reasoned Curry's wouldn't mind too much since they would have a happy customer.

Apparently that's not important to them, they have to follow policies and procedures and I had to phone up Hoover themselves and get an engineer to have a look at fixing it first. All this hassle for a £70 Hoover which I'm sure they must know is rather a low-end model (they don't sell them anymore). I pointed out that I could see nothing broken, it was useless from the start. No, no help at all. Even when I insisted and the customer service person went to talk to the manager, they wouldn't budge.

Very annoying in itself but really they just didn't seem to care, the woman kept saying she was sorry but that was their policy and there was nothing she could do. Why not offer to have a look at the hoover there and then and see what the problem is, maybe then deal with the manufacturer for the customer? Or at the very least offer to get the manufacturers service centre to phone me. Just anything to show that you aren't just being useless and apathetic towards your customers!

What really made this all the more laughable is that I phoned up Hoover directly, gave them the relevant details, explained the issue and they said I just need to provide a serial number and they will give me a code to have the Hoover returned to Curry's. I couldn't believe how efficient they were!

So, not shopping at Curry's again, they've annoyed me. Instead I'll just get my money back and I've already been to Argos to get the replacement cleaner: a Vax Mach Zen which seemed to work really well last night on it's first try! I now have really clean-looking carpets which has actually cheered me up a bit; I like having things nice and tidy and organised and the house was getting to look a bit of a mess. I suspect I'm going to be hoovering lots over the next month so I can really test the new gadget out ... as well as making sure the house is spotless!

Choice

2010-07-18T22:43:00.002+01:00

The catch-all come-back for any hardship I've had to endure as a result of transitioning is that it was my "choice". This has been thrown at me a few times, sometimes directly or maybe just implied in explanations of someone's upset, confusion, or recalcitrance at accepting my 'new' persona.

I usually give the pretty standard response about the facts of gender, sexuality, biology, chemistry, etc, the "science bit" as it where. Few people fully grasp or appreciate that approach, probably including me, as it's all very interesting, if ultimately quite complicated, but doesn't really get away from what happened in my life seeming like I took a choice. It's also very hard to convince someone that there is no aspect of free-will in it because there is nothing to compare it too; no-one has the frame of reference to deal with transition unless you go through it yourself (or are one of the few partners that stick it out when their other half flips).

So "your choice" gets applied to everything, and extended to the point of incredulity; what has followed has all been foreseeable and was part of the original "decision" that I made, every possible consequence was deemed to be included in my plan.

The reality is that I took a small degree of control in my life, I took a certain path based on what I knew, how I felt, and what seemed, to me at least to be the most sensible and practical thing to do. I put things off for a long long time and buried feelings (I'm *really* good at that now, what a wonderful skill to have) but eventually life had to change.

At no point did I have even an inkling of what really lay ahead, I just felt so strongly that I must proceed a certain way; we're talking beyond addiction or desire or something that one may be cured of or control, it's even getting past obsession and reaching the point where it's not fully understandable "why" but simply that by becoming what I was fixated on was the only way to have some peace. That seems rather dramatic and slightly exaggerated now but it's unimaginable to me to go back to how I was before; while I can't claim to be completely happy with me I certainly don't obsess in the same way with trying to achieve a result, rather about improving it instead.

I know there will be those people who will not accept the above; I will be the person who has chosen to break up families and destroy lives with my selfish choices, I deserve what I get. Dismissing the fact that I had previously been thought of as a kind, caring parent and partner makes it all the easier to condemn me; I obviously have no feelings any more so I deserve what I get. Really? Who actually made a choice about that?

???

2010-07-18T18:48:00.003+01:00

I can't think of a title, there is too much whizzing around in my head that I could write about that I really don't know where to start. In fact I feel like I don't know where to start with anything at all. Today hasn't really helped either as I've just got nothing done and the things I've tried just have taken ages and not worked (sometimes computers are damn annoying).

I had a nice night out with a friend last night, lots of talking until the early hours of the morning, the upshot of which is that I didn't get home and into bed until 5am so I've felt pretty much wiped out all day. That said, I felt much the same on Friday given the split and just everything else in my head as well. I just feel drained and unmotivated.

I also feel fat, a mess, and totally unattractive. While the end of the relationship itself was upsetting the most scary thing is that I can't see me ever finding anyone else. I know that it's not the right time to start mad dating but I thought the idea of trying to come to terms with a split was that your friends can say "plenty more fish in the sea" and you should have some glimmer of hope that this is indeed the case. The fact is that the number of potential partners out there for me is pretty limited; really I have little to offer anyone except an awful lot of complications.

The above isn't me just being down, it's pretty much a fact. What also is a fact is that I do need some help with my confidence (that ability to overcome facts like that horrible one) as it's become clear than I really haven't got any at all. Staying with the theme of dating, I was discussing the whole thing about "pulling" people with the friend I saw last night. I have never been "out on the pull", I've never chatted someone up in a bar/club/anywhere, I just never could bring myself to try. I think the way all of my previous relationships started was by me being nice, chatty, mostly harmless and rambling quite alot. I did have a little bit of, misplaced, confidence then and more than enough naivety to compensate but now I have neither of these.

I think ... well, thinking is interrupted by watching "Up in the Air" ... hopefully give me a distraction or feel better.

Single Again

2010-07-16T10:36:00.004+01:00

While it was an obvious shock for alot of our friends, Rachel and I were heading for yesterdays 'serious' talk for quite a while, the conclusion of which was that we have decided to split. We'd had a few discussions about things that we each wanted out of life, love and relationships, and it become more and more obvious that we were very different in many respects. So, in the end, there was little we could offer each other than simply friendship.

It all sounds very organised and clinical and, while there was alot of holding back tears from both of us last night, it was quite surreal at how quickly we decided things and then went about updating FaceBook to remove our relationship from there. That does make it official these days, once all the social networking sites have been updated then it's the truth, final, indisputable.

We slept apart last night and just started a fairly normal day this morning. I don't know how Rachel is dealing with this or what she feels at the moment. For my part I'm burying this among many other feelings and thoughts I have cluttering up my head. If I think too much about this, like any of the other things on my mind at the moment, tears pool in my eyes and I have to fight to get everything under control. I know that I will have a 'good' cry at some point soon, it's just a matter or time.

It is the right decision and I don't think either of us had been completely happy being in a relationship which we could probably see wasn't right for us. But it's still sad and it's still a shock to have life change so quickly. It's odd to now be single again, feeling a little direction-less and empty. Maybe that is why some people stay together because, even if things aren't perfect, it's better than the hollow feeling of loneliness.

Anyway, I best not ramble on too much, I need to focus on all the other plans in my life, the weekends away, seeing friends, holiday with my son, photo shoots, work and a myriad of other things I can keep busy with. Busy is better than thinking after all.

Motoring Through the Ages!

2010-07-12T06:45:00.007+01:00

Sunday turned out to be rather a surreal day! We started off heading to Tatton Park to meet up with a friend who was at the BMW show. Sounded like a good excuse to get pictures of cars and of the fabulous park itself. We spent several photography-packed hours there, taking pictures of cars, army Jeep, and finally Deer. The picture above is obviously from the BMW show.

I should point out at this point that I've got nearly 1000 images to process and sort out from the weekend so it'll take me a while to get them all on the website and DeviantART, will post another blog entry when I finally manage to do that.

After Tatton Park it was back to York to quickly dump our things and then rush off to do a photoshoot that Rachel had organised with Maddy. The shoot was at Maddy's house and quickly evolved to include a harp, a cat, Maddy's Mum and then a rather amazing vintage car that her parents own!

I should explain that both Maddy and her parents are pretty cool (for want of a better expression). This shoot came about simply because Rachel was doing her usual thing of constantly keeping her eyes open for people who are particularly photogenic and who could fill a role in some creative idea that happens to be bouncing around in her head at the time.

Since Maddy is sixteen Rachel, of course, made sure that her parents were fine with doing the shoot and it was her Mum who arranged everything in the end and was so welcoming and enthusiastic about the whole thing. In fact, so much so, that she ended up participating in the shoot as you can see from the picture on the left (I've deliberately de-saturated the colours to try and make it look like an 'older' picture). For anyone that is interested, the location is the York Racecourse car park.

In itself this made for a perfect and rather amazing shoot ... and then it got even better, some friends of Maddy's parent's turned up in a, erm, new purchase.

I really didn't think the day was going to turn out so amazing and fantastical when I got up in the morning! It really was such an enjoyable day and certainly one to remember! Also further proof, not that it's really needed, that York has some amazing, hidden gems in and around the city; and not just the cars, the people too.

Sparkle 2010

2010-07-10T23:09:00.002+01:00

Today Rachel and I went to Sparkle in Manchester, for those that don't know this is kind of like the Transgender version of pride but on a smaller scale (I guess due to the statistics; there's fewer of us who fall into that category, whereas the LGB bit of LGBT is quite alot).

I have to admit that I wasn't that bothered about going and the main aim was to do some photography and get a chance to see a few friends, I wasn't particularly interested in the event itself. The first time I ever went, 2 years ago, it was a big deal and something I guess I even needed to do. However, my life has moved on very quickly since then and I have so much that fills it that I no longer throw myself head-long into the T-scene (in fact I never really did).

So it was particularly moving and poignant that I got so many reminders of why an event such as this is not just a chance to dress up (or worry less about how you are dressed) or about, often outrageous, outfits, clothes and make-up; it really is about pride and humanity. First of all Joey Hateley (artistic director of TransAction Theatre) act on the stage in Sackville Gardens was hilarious, political, uplifting, funny, and touching. [ I got lots of pictures of the act, I'll get these in a gallery as soon as possible ]

Then there were all the friends, acquaintances and notable names that you end up bumping into. There were quite a few people I wanted to meet up with and it was fabulous to see them, then some I hadn't seen in so long and again, fabulous to get to catch up and chat. Then there was friends of friends or just complete strangers who were so open, happy, and fantastic. I made lots of new friends as well as renewing existing friendships.

And I think that's what I'd forgotten; how somewhere like Canal Street and an event like Sparkle can really foster such a wonderfully supportive and happy atmosphere. It really does strive to be so inclusive and welcoming and it reminded me that, while I have a fairly normal existance, there is, as many people put it, a wonderful tapestry of life out there and it's not "weird", or "wrong", or "dangerous" or even "evil" and some of the more nasty bigots would have you believe. People really do come in so many different shapes and sizes and, in this case, genders and sexualities. More importantly, and event like this also shows how tolerant people can be, how friendly, welcoming, understanding, and simply overflowing in humanity.

Really, I felt moved, happy, and inspired by the whole day ... now I just hope all the photos come out properly :)

One final point; for everyone I met today: thanks, you're all FAB, each and every one of you xxx

Pictures and Prints

2010-07-08T07:40:00.002+01:00

I'm slowly getting sorted out with my pictures and websites though I have some tinkering still to do. I've added more galleries to the website and very soon I'll make this the main destination for that domain and use it more for holding medium resolution versions of my pictures.

I've also started submitting prints on DeviantART, for example this one of a Poppy, which can be purchased and shipped to the UK. For the most part I'm going to keep providing images under the Creative Commons License, but for some I'm going to retain all rights and see if anyone is willing to part with their hard-earned cash. If you really like my pictures then do consider purchasing a print, it gives me a great ego boost as well as funding my shopping needs (well wants really).

I Think the Lens Works

2010-06-27T22:29:00.007+01:00

I spent a fantastic afternoon in Delamere Forest with a friend of mine, walking, chatting, and taking pictures. I'll eleborate more on that and the rest of the weekends activities later as it's rather late now. But I just wanted to share this one photo (I've got quite a few to process later in the week):

I tried LOTS of shots to try and capture a dragonfly and in the end I got this - it's a crop of the full size picture but even at 100% (click on the picture and it will show that) the image is pin-sharp. For the photo geeks, this picture was captured on a Canon 5D with an old 80-200mm lens that came from a Canon 35mm film camera. No image stabilisation, no L-series glass, nothing apart from an awful lot of luck!

Update: Another picture that came out well!

Little Monkey

2010-06-23T23:07:00.001+01:00

This is my other little monkey, given to me last weekend by my son. We decided he would be named the same as my son though I won't be referring to him by that name on such a public site (my son isn't old enough to decide to give up his privacy like the rest of us yet, hence no mention of his name on my blog). Anyway, there have been a few pictures of 'Little Monkey' on FaceBook but I think he's going to be appearing more on twitter and the blog, so keep your eyes peeled :D

Not Funny Anymore

2010-06-23T22:43:00.003+01:00

I was going to write about the joys of hayfever and how it seems to be, so far at least, quite bad for me this year and that it's rather inconvenient when a) cycling, b) wearing make-up and c) attempting not to have ugly blood-shot eyes with dark bags under them. That would certainly count as "Not Funny".

But what just struck me was making (or trying to make) a witty reply to something a friend posted on FaceBook. I use to be full of one-liners and smart comments. In reality they probably weren't that funny, smart, or welcome, but at least it meant that I felt I was with it in some way and at least came across as bright and chirpy (probably also not entirely welcome in alot of cases).

So it occurred to me that I just don't have that anymore. I think part of it is me growing up somewhat; I was always pretty immature and, while I'm not claiming to be completely cured in this respect, I feel that I now have a fair amount of 'serious' experience which has an affect on who I am and how I behave. I use to write about the trials and tribulations of my life but, looking back, I think I did that in a fairly detached way. Now I feel and experience the reality of my situation and life almost constantly.

I'm not depressed or anything, and I certainly have lots of things to be happy about (for example seeing my son at the weekend, and meeting up with friends, and photography ... the list goes on), but I'm just a tad more serious, cynical, and real about life than I was before. Less naive maybe. But still hopeful I think.

Don't know where to start

2010-06-22T08:44:00.004+01:00

I've really got behind with blogs and uploading of pictures. Everything seems to have been so busy lately and I just haven't had time to sit down and write anything. There is quite alot I need to write though. The divorce is reaching it's conclusion, I'm also getting to the point where transition gets a little more difficult that just taking pills, my relationship with my parents continues to be 'interesting', and there is so much more to consider seriously now when almost everything seems to have been dealt with. I maybe have the space to consider reality, even if I don't seem to have the spare time to do that.

From a practical point of view, I'm going to start putting all my pictures in galleries on my website, currently the 'beta' version of this is here but it'll eventually move to the main site itself. Full-sized images will still be available on my deviantART page and I'm now generating prints on there which you can buy (the site handles all the purchasing/printing and I get a small royalty - am going to try buying my own prints to see how it works later).

I really do need to get more organised at this as the photography continues at a rapid pace. I've now spent a significant amount on kit and really should be able to produce some impressive photographs and actually start to do something serious about this rather than just mucking around aimlessly. More importantly I've got ALOT to learn and I need/want to do that quickly.

I'm beginning to realise that my seemingly endless spending and obsession with things like photography and otehr gadgetry really is linked to my state of mind and other issues. It's becoming apparent that I really do shop because I'm unhappy and that I've got lots of things to resolve and deal with (including reining back the spending obviously).

There's lots I need to write about the relationship with my son aswell. The other day I stated, quite categorically that I didn't have much of a plan in life, I then found myself thinking, some time later, that I really need to fix that. I need a goal of, for example, seeing my son more and living closer too him, or even just putting even more effort into making sure that we have a strong relationship; as it is I always get the feeling that I'm missing out on so much and becoming less relevant to his life. Not nice.

Rainy Day Shoot

2010-06-14T20:32:00.007+01:00

Well, it started out with the rather grand, and frankly over-ambitious plan of taking pictures in the rain using a lighting technique that I'd seen but only briefly practiced! Thankfully it turned into an inside shoot with some fab outfits, wonderful background and, as ever, another chance to work with an amazing model and friend, Carmina.The location in the end was the Royal York Hotel near the train station and we will certainly be heading back there again on both business and pleasure; really lovely place and they were very nice to let us shoot inside at such short notice.

I still have alot to learn about getting lighting right, particularly using the flash when bounced (it's a little easier when you have proper lighting and a studio/controlled environment as you can move things around and fiddle more ... when you have one light source on the top of the camera it's a little more interesting!) but my learning curve aside it was fun to try different thing as well. The shot above is an example of this where we wanted to get the tiles on the floor in the picture, so Carmina just lay down and we took a few shots that way! Same with the picture to the left, it was just an idea to try this, and I think it works.

Also Rachel took quite a few pictures that she later processed as black and white to great affect. I have to admit I've never really been a fan of monochrome pictures, I can see that they are more detailed and often convey more meaning and emotion than colour but I think I just like to see everything as real as possible, as if it was there in front of me. However, I thought I would give it a try anyway with a picture that was a little too over-exposed in colour but which, I have to admit, looks at least marginally better in black and white.

Anyway, ultimately it was a very productive, and most importantly, fun shoot even after the slight disorganisation at the beginning and impact of the rather too rainy rain! I've been practising more with off-camera flash and I will actually do a shoot at some point using that ... and maybe even in the rain too (with lots of big umbrellas!

[ Update: The full-sized versions of these pictures can be seen on my deviantART page under this gallery ]

Half millennium!

2010-06-14T20:25:00.002+01:00

I seem to have been really busy over the past few weeks and haven't really had the time or inclination to write anything so I've been a bit lax about keeping things up to date. I've got a tiny amount of time now and I just noticed that I've had 499 posts so far which makes this the 500th! That's quite alot of wittering over the past ... goodness, it's only two and a bit years!

Anyway, here's to another 500 posts of complete and utter nonesense!

I would have been early, but ...

2010-05-24T11:45:00.006+01:00

... I was busy taking pictures of the balloons!

On my cycle route to work I pass the York Race Course and I'd seen one balloon lift off from there earlier in the week but just hadn't got close enough to get any decent pictures.

When I had a second chance I made sure I got really close and took as many pictures as I could! It really was a quite amazing sight and the glorious sunshine and clear blue sky just made for, hopefully, fantastic photographs.

I'll process the rest of the photos soon and put them up on my deviantArt page.

What a mess!

2010-05-12T01:52:00.004+01:00

For the past three days or so I've been really under the weather with a nasty cold/virus/bug which has meant I've pretty much stayed in bed and look and sound pretty rough to say the least. Not been able to get dressed, do my hair, make-up or anything like that.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I went to see my son on Sunday, and for that trip I didn't have time/inclination to do my make-up which is something of a novelty, in fact I'd say it's the first time I've ever been out without my 'face' on. I'd like to say it was a momentous achievement and that I looked fine but in reality I was just too tired to care and I probably looked absolutely terrible.

Anyway, as I've been shuffling around the house looking, and feeling, a complete state, and it's strange how androgynous this can make sure feel. In fact I had a long soak in the bath yesterday in an attempt to keep warm and kill of the bugs by sweating them out, and was shocked to realise I still had a body with a figure under all the baggy PJs and dressing gown - it was like some amazing discovery!

It's interesting how much your sense of self is affected by your appearance, clothes, and presumably how all of your senses react to your immediate environment. There was even a recent study into this involving virtual reality projections of different bodies to see how people reacted.

Anyway, I don't want to be repeating my own experiment of being ill and androgynous for a while, much prefer being well, even if it does mean going to work and running around with lots to do!

More Regret

2010-05-10T11:45:00.004+01:00

I'm sat at home trying to get over a pretty nasty cold at the moment; it's one of those that gets into your muscles and just makes you feel weak and lethargic as well as adding the cough, ear-ache, and sore throat into the bargain. It started on Friday, held off a little on Saturday but was pretty much dragging me down on Sunday.

So, I didn't, and don't feel well. The letter concerning the divorce that was waiting for me on Saturday night when I got back from seeing my son was therefore not particularly welcome. I was quite upset when I got it, maybe a little angry, certainly a little confused as to what it really meant.

By Sunday morning I felt terrible and thinking about the letter was really getting to me along with all the other recent pressure and stress ... and I snapped. I just couldn't take it any more, I dissolved into floods of tears. I think I only stopped because I was just so tired. I phoned up to say whether I was going over to see my son and, when asked what was wrong, just cried and screamed down the phone because I was so upset and distraught. Surprisingly it didn't turn into a huge row. It was suggested that that I should feel better for getting everything of my chest and maybe a did a little or I was just too tired to be upset anymore.

I went to see my son in the end as I wanted to see him in his new football kit that he was so proud of (I'd bought him the boots on Saturday). We went to the local park and I tried to play football - he thinks I'm good but in reality he'll likely be beating me easily by the time he's ten (or probably sooner than that)! We didn't spend long out as I still felt really tired so we headed back and I got to have a sit with him, watching telly, for half an hour or so as B gave me a drink, paracetamol and cough sweets. It was really nice to be sat there, I wish it could have gone on forever.

There are so many good times and good memories and occasions when we were all happy and got on. I can't really remember many of the rows now - well, apart from the one where I had a chicken sandwich thrown at me but that was funny in the end ... even more entertaining when we kept finding bits of sandwich over the subsequent weeks. I miss it all, I really do.

I have made choices along the way and I know that these have upset lots of people who I care a great deal about but honestly, I never chose to have this much hurt and pain, it really wasn't what I wanted at all. Unfortunately none of us in all this got to choose some things; I really didn't choose to be trans, I didn't even know, nor fully understand what that meant until about 4 years ago! My wife didn't get choose to fall in love with someone who was (unknowingly) trans either, and of course our son had no say in any of this.

It's all such a horrible shame and I so wish there was a way to make it all right again and for us all to be a family again. But there isn't.

"Christian Cop arrests Gay Protestor for anti-Church comments"

2010-05-06T09:01:00.002+01:00

I'm paraphrasing this headline: "Gay Cop arrests Preacher for Antigay (sic) Comments". The story was carried in a few places, e.g. Telegraph, and many pro-Christian and pro-Gay sites. My version of the headline looks a little odd and out of place, and would either make people do a double-take or get quite annoyed.

The balance of feeling now is that gay is fine, it's been incorporated into 'normal', and persecution based on sexuality is fading fast. All good. It's also been shown that religious fundamentalism is seen as just that, an extreme, containing views that the majority of the faithful would not really hold.

So we would, rightly, be quite upset and angry if someone used their faith/belief as bias to persecute someone. Strangely though, it's fine when we do exectly the same but just under a different banner, that of gay-rights. From the reports on this story it seems that the preacher concerned stated opinion, quoted scripture, and was engaged in a debate. He wasn't hurling abused or threatening or "inciting hatred". In my opinion his views are wrong and I agree that, to me they are "offensive" in the sense that I'm gay/lesbian so he's, in a very minor way, insulting me for my sexuality. But it's his right to hold that view, in doing so he's not harming anyone (except maybe himself).

My (vague) understanding of the bible is that same-sex relationships are pretty much painted as a bad thing, you could argue this is devine proclamation or simply practical advice from the time, nevertheless that's what it states. Why persecute someone for stating something that is historical fact?

Seriously, there are lots of opinions that people hold that I could take offense at, and vice versa. You can use the law to force people to comply with what you believe - we really don't want to go down the 1984 route of having the thought police. This arrest was a bad thing, it shows that we've replaced anti-gay bullies with pro-gay ones, is this progress?

"British People"

2010-05-05T12:57:00.003+01:00

This may be a little rambling as I don't seem to be able to get the ideas about this in a coherent form at the moment, needs more thinking about.

Anyway, I was listening to radio 4 this morning and a few things caught my attention, one was the criticism of an idea by the Lib Dems (I think) to have asylum seekers doing work, presumably while they wait for a decision on their case. The interviewee was against this but it made sense to me; why have people hanging around doing nothing when, for their sake and ours, they could be doing something useful with their time.

The other thing I heard was some rambling from UKIP about wanting to take us out of the EU and to limit immigration and concentrate resources on the "British People". So I started to wonder what "British People" meant? Who is "British"? Given our cultural, social, racial, and genetic mix, the only real common thing is geography, though the likes of the BNP would have you believe otherwise.

Which got me thinking some more; there are many people in this country who would vehemently claim to be "British" and yet live off the state, probably don't have much claim to any (spurious) genetic ancestry, and bemoan the fact that we're being 'flooded' with illegal immigrants and asylum seekers. On the flipside there are people that want to come to this country and work hard, not live off the state, and generally contribute society in this country.

So I wonder whether we should stop thinking about nationality strictly in terms of location, surely that means you can adopt a quite lazy attitude to being British; "I'm British therefore I deserve ...". If instead being British, or any nationality, it about contributing to the society as a whole then that mind-set leads to a much more positive and inclusive definition of what it means to be and to belong.

That probably didn't make sense at all!

Through The Lens

2010-05-04T09:15:00.002+01:00

This was a little bit of an experiment to see if I could get a nicer shot over the back of York University without the glare from the sun that had just decided to come out from behind the clouds that had been giving a nice pattern to the sky as well as doing a good job of blocking out the glare from the morning sunrise.

Not sure whether this really works too well but I think it looks quite colourful and would certainly qualify as "different" photography. Well I thought that until I was told by B that the idea of taking pictures through sunglasses has been shown on the kids art programme, SMART, a week or so ago! I wonder if my son is going to want to try this out at some point.

Anyway, the set of images have been uploaded to my deviantART page where you can download the full size photo or leave critique (if you have a deviantART premium account).

Finally Photo-processing

2010-05-03T22:08:00.004+01:00

Just to boost Rachel's ego some more (not that it needs it at all) the above is one of the pictures I took while practising with the new lighting set I bought. Rachel didn't need much of an excuse to get herself made-up and looking sexy and was more than happy to pose, pout, and occasionally offer advice on how to get the best pictures.

I have actually got a rather large back-log of pictures of all types that need processing though today I've at least managed to make a significant dent in this. I should be finished by the weekend anyway and then I need to keep on top of any new pictures that come along.

The majority of the pictures are going to end up on deviantART as that will host the full resolution shots and also allows me to sell prints - once I get this all setup. The idea being to try and make a small amount of money out of photography which really is something I need to do given the amount I've invested in camera, lenses, lights, etc!

If anyone wants any photographs doing, let Rachel or I know :)

Second Thoughts?

2010-05-03T00:49:00.001+01:00

This is probably a bit rambling, sorry about that!

I've been spending a lot of time recently really thinking about my transition and what I really want to do and be. This is partly because I do need to consider next steps like surgery, which scare the hell out of me, but also it seems that I'm having a nasty bought of reality due to getting older, my divorce, relationship with my son and many other things related to life that just need to be dealt with. Also I'm putting in lots of hours and effort at work and, ironically, this is meaning that I'm thinking more - I think this is down to my mind constantly being on the go and carrying on at full speed even when I should chill out.

The fact is that I can't really allow myself to think about before and what I was like and why I felt the need to change. I look at old photos and in the mirror, pulling my hair back and out of the way to see what I'd look like. I don't want to go back to my previous appearance, I like my hair how it is, my face, figure and look. I don't get the urge to go back to old clothes and style - it may seem odd to place so much emphasis on what I wear but that is the thing that does define who/what people are most of the time, the outer appearance. The only way I could start emulating the gender that I later realised I was involved only outward appearance.

I noticed things about my figure this week, specifically my bum and legs. Strangely my bum is taking some getting use to; its bigger, more rounded and smooth/curved. I don't think I'd considered bums much nor other changes to my hips tummy etc. Legs were something I'd thought of and mine are now more of a female shape and I'm pleased with that. the same goes for my chest, I'm pleased with that, it could be bigger but it looks right.

It may seem odd that I'm looking at myself in the mirror but I'm really trying to figure out if this really is the body I wanted or expected and what else still needs to change. Also I'm trying to remember how I felt and what was so wrong before that made me take this path. I do still strongly dislike hair on my legs, I know that is hardly sufficient reason but it, and a few other things stick in my mind.

So, am I happy? Yes and no. I do prefer how I look now, if I try to imagine cutting my hair and reversing the last few years of development I really don't like that idea even if I can't easily put into words all of the reasons. It does just come down to this feeling more right than wrong.

In terms of life though I'm maybe less happy than I would want to be. A marriage, close relationship with my son and a family life with a whole extended family of my relatives, my (all too soon to be ex) wifes relations also, has been lost. There is so much of that which I miss and, if I could I'd go back to that life in and instant. But I'd have to go back as the new me. I miss everything I had, and still care deeply about, with all of my heart but I couldn't give up being me.

I think this is the hardest thing for everyone to deal with. I think alot of my journey to get here would have seemed, and sometimes was, selfish and thoughtless. But I am who I need to be, this really is what all the signs pointed to all along. Why now? Why couldn't I wait? The truth is that it just happened, my life unfolded in such a way that I could start to transition and, once you begin to realise who/what you are you just take every opportunity you can and the process accelerates. It may seem cold, calculating and selfish from the outside but it's not, it's driven by desparation to overcome an image that doesn't feel quite right and to achieve one that seems more comfortable.

I managed most of my transition in blissful ignorance of how traumatic and confusing this whole process and life in general can be. I think anything that may be what I feel is a second though is really just me finally dealing with the harsh reality of the choices I've made and the path I've taken. Things could have been so much worse, I hope they can get so much better for all concerned.

One final point; it may seem that, to take this path in my life means that I don't care enough about my son and wife. Really I care so much about them and, like I said, would love to have the life we all had back ... If I can still be me. And that's the saddest thing; I still am 'me' and there is so much of me that is identical, I just now look how I really felt inside all along.

To my son: I really do love you so much, you are amazing. To my wife: I am truly sorry.

Decree Nisi

2010-04-29T20:43:00.004+01:00

I just received this in the post today. It makes fairly stark reading:

"On 19th April 2010

The Judge help that

the respondent behaved in such a way that the petitioner cannot reasonably be expected to live with the respondent,

that the marriage solemnised on 21st July 2001

at <...>

between <...> the petitioner

and Fiona Andrea (f.k.a <...>) Bianchi the respondent

has broken down irretrievably and decreed that the said marriage be dissolved unless sufficient cause be shown to the court within six weeks from the making of this decree why such decree should not be made absolute"

It's boiler-plate text, impersonal, functional and without emotion, yet it's talking about something that is so different from those adjectives and which, in 6 weeks time will be decreed to be at an end. I think it's only now that I see it in black and white that I can begin to fully realise what a horrible shame it all is.

Did I really want this to happen? No. Did I really think that there would be such finality to a relationship, no, I didn't expect that at all. I guess I just never thought it would come to this. I don't think I expected some miraculous change where everything went back to "happy families" but I probably still had that hope in the back of my mind.

I feel oddly calm at the moment, I can actually feel myself just thinking about other things, trying to fill my head with something else to concentrate on to suppress what I really feel and just not think about it. When I consider everything we had and all the memories from my past it really does just hurt so much.

So, do I regret the path I've taken? At the moment it seems really odd to try and think about that question, I'm not really thinking about who I am, I'm just getting on with things; upgrading to the next Ubuntu version for example, thinking about plans, what to do at the weekend, etc. I would say that I don't regret my transition, but I can't really grasp that idea and explain how I feel about it.

As for the loss of a marriage that lasted 6 years and 8months and included, among the usual ups and downs so many good times and happy memories, not to mention a son who is the most fabulous little boy in the world ... yes, I regret the loss of that more than I think I will ever regret anything in my life.

I can't write any more.

Exercise!

2010-04-29T07:39:00.002+01:00

This is the reason that I'm currently a bit behind with all my blogging; I've been cycling to/from work for the past few weeks and I'm shattered by the time I get home!

In fairness my lack of blogs updates is also due to a rather hectic time at work and the fact that I really haven't got into a good routine of early nights to match the pre 6am mornings which I need to be able to get up, cycle, shower, make-up and breakfast in time.

Anyway, I'm sure it's doing me good and I do feel a little bit fitter. Hopefully I'll be into the swing of things very soon.

More Catching Up

2010-04-18T17:05:00.002+01:00

Okay, I should be getting more organised in my old age but apparently not! I'm really behind on all of the blog updates and have been so busy with work, life, and togging (easier to type that photography) that I've just not got round to writing anything ... which then becomes a catch twenty two as I need to cover all the events up to this point before any new topics. Of course that just means that the topics pile up and I never get anywhere!

So here is a quick catch up and I'll gradually get the photos to match these events on the website over the next week and then I can carry on blogging in a more organised and up-to-date way!

Taking pictures of Rachel with a sword (yeah I know, slightly surreal)
Meeting up with friends in Leeds as well as shopping with Rachel for work-wear
My bike being stolen from the shed - not happy about that but covered by insurance
Visit to the National Railway Museum in York - didn't get that many pictures I like as I was trying low-light togging (without flash) and the I'm a bit fussy about clear images
Holiday away with my son visiting Windsor, London and of course, Legoland - had a fantastic time!
Cycling to/from work for the entire week last week - VERY tiring, need to get more sleep and get use to this new level of exercise
And just this weekend; my birthday party and seeing loads of my fab friends including my "bezzie" (it's a Brum expression apparently), Lucy.

It's amazing how much I seem to have crammed in over the period of a few weeks and need to do even more as well!

So, now I'm up-to-date I'm going to go and chill out and recover from too much alcohol, not enough sleep, and the affects of lots of having a fabulous weekend with my friends who are all amazing and I love them to bits.

Manic Shoot

2010-03-30T11:58:00.006+01:00

Rachel had the idea of doing a completely random and impromptu photo-shoot with as many models as she could get. I think she managed to organise and arrange all of this in just over a week and we had a whole afternoon taking pictures at Orgasmic in York (which we're told will soon become part of Revolution which is next door).

There was three of us taking pictures that day, Rachel herself (also doing make-up, styling, organising, etc, etc), Jo doing fantastic photography and helping me out (and lending me lenses), and me. I should make it very, very, very, clear that Rachel and Jo have been doing this quite a while and they are both amazingly accomplished, experienced, and confident photographers. None of these adjectives apply to me!

Taking pictures in this kind of situation is hard, really, really, hard work and takes an immense amount of skill and expertise. Having a flashy (no pun intended) camera and a few good pics will not get you through this. You have to know what you are doing, have an aim to achieve and a good idea of how to get there. It is thinking and acting under pressure. Rachel and Jo can do this without much apparent effort, I am not there yet (and may never be).

However, it was a good learning experience for me and, at least looking back, a fun, enjoyablem, and rewarding way to spend an afternoon and I'm really unbelievably thankful to Rachel and Jo and the models who were there; Holly, Richard, Suzanne and Sarah. I only hope the pictures do them justice!

I've yet to process all of the images (and am going to spend a long time getting them looking as good as I possibly can) but for now, here are three of the ones I liked the best (this doesn't mean they are good by any means).

We were taking turns photographing each model and I started working with Suzanne who was so lovely and friendly and looked absolutely stunning. She's modelled before and frankly she was helping me out so much in terms of just ideas and poses, I had no idea what to ask her to do but that was fine as she already knew. There is a large mirror on the way to the toilets and I really wanted to get a nice shot with that but it was really difficult given the lighting and angles available.

Next was Holly who Rachel has photographed a few times before. Apparently she has never done professional modelling before and so far has only worked with Rachel. I have to say I think she is a natural! She's also fantastically nice and wonderful to chat with. We decided to do some pictures outside but had so much 'fun' with the rather strong wind and the sun that kept changing it's mind - it's hard enough for me to get the exposure settings right once let alone having to muck around as the light fades and then increases again. Anyway, Holly was very helpful and patient and the pictures do seem to have come out quite well.

Last, but by no means least, was Richard and Sarah. I think by this point we were all quite tired and I just wanted to do something silly. Rachel got MUCH better pictures and certainly more stylish ones of both Richard and Sarah but I like this one as it was the expression that I'd wanted to capture, and that was so elusive due to someone having a fit of the giggles.

So, overall it was a good day and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun. I definitely learnt alot including the fact that there is so much more for me to learn! I'll update this post with links to all of the pictures once I've processed them.

[ UPDATE: The processed images have now been posted on my website, see this page for links to the three galleries that I've produced. Warning the pictures are quite big! The full sized versions of the best of these still need uploading to deviantART, will do that tomorrow ]

York Wander

2010-03-30T06:38:00.007+01:00

On Saturday I decided to enjoy the fantastic weather (while we had it!) and wander out into York to get my York card (free admission to certain attractions, discounts, library etc) and also a Minster pass (again free entry).

I took quite a few pictures on my little outing and will link to these when I've got them all processed (even going to try doing some HDR images). When I got into town I was drawn to York Camera Mart to see if there were any lenses I could dream about being able to afford. Big mistake! They had a 2nd hand 28-105mm f3.5-4.5 lens in the window for only £99!

The big problem with owning a 5D is that I can't use the cheaper EF-S lenses that fit the crop-sensor cameras from Canon, e.g. my old 350D or the 550D, 50D, etc. I need to get the full-frame lenses that fit EF mounts. In simple terms - I have to get lenses with a red dot on them instead of the white dot!

This lens had the red dot! It goes without saying that I bought it; shouldn't have but took the opportunity of getting a cheap lense to fill in the range that I have (now have 50mm prime, 80-200mm zoom, and this 28-105mm). Felt a bit bad about spending more money and really need to get control of my money.

Anyway, it took me a while to get use to using this lens - in particular I've not done much in the way of scenary shots since getting the 5D but now at 28mm I'm able to get a wide-angle picture and the image above seemed to come out quite well. I feel a little less bad about spending the money given the results but I really need to stop getting more now!

Fashion Event

2010-03-30T06:23:00.006+01:00

This is the last event that Rachel intended to run for now as it takes quite alot of effort and she is so busy with more pressing matters anyway.

We had quite a few people turn up this time and I'd like to say that I managed to capture it all in photographs, but I didn't. Instead I spend the time before everyone arrived taking pictures of Rachel in the, only slightly extreme for her, make-up she applied for the night.

Anyway, I had a fantastic time, it was nice to meet new people and catch up with friends such as Freya who was modeling some of the clothes on the night. And I have to say that Stonegate Yard is a fantastic venue and does really nice food as well.

Catching Up

2010-03-30T06:13:00.003+01:00

The problem with taking lots of pictures and having a fairly busy social (and work) life that presents many opportunities to practice my photography, means that I don't seem to have much time to sit down and process the images that I've captured so that I can blog about them or even get prints!

I guess I could make things a little easier on myself by not taking pictures in RAW mode but the advantage of doing that is that it's then possible to correct for colour, contrast, or carry out other tweaks before producing the final picture, if you go straight to JPEG that's not as easy to do as you've lost alot of the information that the camera captured.

Since I have a bit of a back-log of events and pictures I'm going to blog with place-holder entries to keep everything in order and then update each entry when I've got the whole set of images done so I can refer to the location on my website or deviantART where I've uploaded the pictures!

He

2010-03-29T19:40:00.004+01:00

I now live in a completely different town and have a job where no-one I work with knew me before my transition. No history, no old memories of how I looked and the only name I have used is "Fiona". It's fantastic. The right name, the right pronouns, no baggage.

So it's been a while since I've had to deal with a blatant error in terms of my gender so it was a bit of a shock when, on a night out last week, someone referred to me as "he" in the context of me waving a camera around: "he's trying to take pictures of us" or words to that affect. The person concerned immediately apologised and I, of course repeatedly said "oh, it's fine, don't worry".

But the truth is that it wasn't fine at all. In fact it bothered me for a few days and really quite upset me. Eventually I decided that the thing that bothered me the most was that I hadn't been more firm in correcting the mistake and actually made it clear that I *AM* female - in fact I've got the paperwork to prove it! [ Slightly flippant but true]

It bothers me that, when introduced, as me, that this person, and some of her friends I guess, have made the smug assumption that they can tell I'm not quite 'normal' and that in some way gives them a right to file me under the incorrect gender. I suppose in some ways I can't condemn people for jumping to conclusions and pigeon-holing me, I certainly did it to the person who made this mistake.

I think to make matters worse some friends of this person turned up later and there was some ill-disguised pointing and whispering going on which was just frankly rude and totally unnecessary, at least I have the decency to discuss someone's faults afterwards and so they are unaware (yes, still mean but at least more polite).

Really, I guess it's just the shock of, for the first time in a long while, being faced with people who aren't like the usual type I encounter: those that are intelligent, understanding or compassionate enough to 'get' it or at least be polite. Sadly not everyone is like that it would seem.

Money Grabbing B******

2010-03-24T22:02:00.003Z

I'm generally a very calm and chilled out person but, possibly as other blog posts have illustrated, sometimes certain things do get me very annoyed, upset, angry and stressed. I think generally I'm in need of letting off some steam or spleen-venting so I'll indulge myself with a little rant about two such things now.

First of there are the banks, or in my case, the Nationwide Building Society. There has been a recent court case over the legality of bank charges and whether these are fair. From what I understand this has now collapsed and the banks are claiming a victory. No matter what the charges are still unfair - lawyers may be able to argue that black is white but it still won't change the facts.

I have an ongoing issue with Nationwide where they charged me for cheques accidentally written against the wrong joint account. The first incident was refunded the second not. They then continued to add charges to the account (as it was now overdrawn - no overdraft on it) but the only reason it was in this state was because of the charges they continued to apply, £20 each time. I did finally get some refund and was about to close the account when, yep, you guessed it, another charge.

Charging someone who has a regular income is annoying, greedy, etc ... when you are dealing with someone who is in the process of trying to sort out their finances and a bank, Nationwide again, slap on £90 for direct debits and refuse to refund them, that's when you start to wonder whether the charges are fair at all. It seems even more exorbitant when you remember that these are automated transactions; it would have actually not cost the bank anything to reject them, it would have just been done by a computer.

Obviously I'm being naive; the reason I can get a good rate of in-credit interest and the other services I enjoy is because the bank I choose is ripping off those less fortunate with bank charges and inflated interest rates. I guess that is how things work and I shouldn't complain too much. Then again I think I'd be happier with the whole situation if the banks would just be honest and not try and say that the charges are justified and that customers should be more responsible with their money. In reality they want you to be irresponsible!

And now we come to parking charges. What is the justification for these? Are they a deterrent? Punishment? Or simply a revenue stream? A case in point is the charge that York City Council slapped on me for parking on a residential street when they were carrying out regular cleaning. First of all I wasn't aware this was happening (not a resident of that street or York at the time) and second, the only sign I would have passed was likely obscured by parked cars or at the very least not in my line of sight when I was concentrating on driving, at night, safely down a road flanked on both sides by said vehicles.

Explaining all of this doesn't seem to have made a difference and it's now getting to the point where they are trying to recover the money having gone to the DVLA to get my address to send me various charge/penalty notices. Leaving aside that potential invasion of privacy and the dubious arrangement whereby councils and private parking enforcement companies can just get your personal details without you having committed any crime (so without any oversight), what do they hope to achieve by pursing people in this way? Is it to upset and stress their victims? It's not nice getting letters detailing dire consequences for not paying in large, unfriendly, letters!

The only conclusion I can come to in both of these cases is that the organisations concerned are just basically trying to grab money with little thought for how people feel. These places don't care about "fairness" or looking after customers. residents or visitors, no, it's just about squeezing every last penny out of them. Yes, I know there will always be charges of some kind but I think in many areas now it has long ago past the point where these were in any way justifiable, now it just seems to be common practice to try and penalise anything possible with some kind of fee, penalty or other money-grabbing scheme.

Why I bought a Canon 5D mk II

2010-03-24T14:21:00.006Z

Okay, there isn't much justification for buying a new camera but pictures like the one above are a start! This was actually captured on my camera with a 70-700 f4 lens I borrowed from my friend Jo (who is a fantastic source of photographic information ... as well as lenses and other kit). The original is on my deviantART page (where you can download the full resolution version) and the full set of images from the afternoon out are on my website.

I need to do alot more photography to really make the purchase of the camera worth it and hopefully have a chance with an event this week, photoshoots at the weekend and then there are also holidays and days out where I can keep practicing. I even started taking pictures of things around the house to get different shots and effects! Might need to start getting a little more organised and disiplined about what I shoot otherwise I'm just going to have loads of images to process (which is the most time-consuming bit).

Envy and Pride

2010-03-23T12:41:00.004Z

Last week I had an appointment with the GIC in Leeds. Technically most of my treatment and progress so far has been due to taking the 'private' route but I do get medication on prescription and, as my whole transition is a fairly big deal, I've always thought it's worth getting any help that is available, hence why I'm also progressing down the NHS care pathway as well.

This appointment with the specialist forms one of the six sessions I must attend before I can be referred to an endocrinologist, yes, I know it is rather late for that given I've been on hormones for over a year now but that is the process that has to be followed. In fairness the specialist did acknowledge that, while steps can't be skipped, they can be shortened. It was quite nice being told that I was somewhat ahead in terms of progress, which is one of the reasons to mention pride.

Before going into pride a little more I think I should cover envy. There was another TS woman there, in the waiting room, just before I went into see the specialist, and I also saw her when I left, she was outside smoking. We didn't talk so I've no idea what her situation was or what she thought of me but I did notice that she looked me up and down when we passed on my way out. I thought at the time that is was a rather jealous look, I was further ahead on my transition that she was, I was wandering around without any apparent problem in my 'new' gender.

I guess the problem with me assuming someone is envious of me, particularly for trans reasons is that, not only am I judging them to be, in ways in need of being jealous of me, but that I'm in some way so much better. And I think that's the scary thing, if you are too proud you're at risk of a big fall ("pride goeth before a fall") but you almost have to be to believe that you are making progress.

I think it's a fine line between confidence and self-assurance and simply being too proud and looking down on others. I can't say that I've got the balance right myself and I suspect that it down to my own lack of confidence and lingering insecurities. There is maybe less for me to be proud of, but also less for anyone else to be jealous of as well.

Devious Deviant

2010-03-15T09:00:00.003Z

I've got round to uploading some of my pictures to deviantART in full resolution. There are only four there from the 5d (the ones of Lizzie), the rest are from the 350D but are the best of the bunch and mainly taken with the 50mm lens so very sharp.

Missing Being Interrupted

2010-03-14T22:16:00.003Z

The mountain bikes got a much needed clean today; I don't think I've done that since I bought them about three years ago so it was a rather time-consuming, and messy process. I stayed outside for a good 2hrs while I cleaned and checked the bikes and, when it finally started to get dark I'd managed to get the moving parts free of accumulated dirt and oil and had everything working well.

And that was it. I just did that job, put the bikes away again and then went in. No-one came to ask me how I was doing or when I'd be finished or if they could help*, I had no interruptions at all.

That's when it hit me that doing these kind of jobs is something I use to do quite alot of in my former life and, in fact those interruptions were actually something precious. I really felt quite alone once I realised I much I miss that and much about things before.

I thought about this more when I came in and came to the conclusion that I feel happier as the 'new' me, I'm more comfortable and at ease with myself. But I'm really beginning to miss lots of the little things that I now realise meant something quite big. I guess again that this is one of those lessons about life; you really need to appreciate even the littlest things, even the interruptions, they might be the things you miss the most.

[ * - I should say that I'm not having a go at Rachel here, she was very busy doing image processing and many other jobs. ]

More Photography

2010-03-14T13:51:00.004Z

It's been a rather hectic week, and in fact I can't believe so much has been squeezed into it. Mainly work-related activities for me and that seems to have been taking alot of my concentration and time, but Rachel had her interview with Blackpool for a place on the photography degree course and I'm sure there were other things going on aswell (I must *try* and keep this blog up to date then I have a record of what has been happening in my life).

This weekend was equally packed with two photoshoots on Saturday in York. One of these was to give Rachel's new sword an outing and the other to get some images for the webzine. Of course both were intended to be fun, and they were, both models, Freya, and Lizzie were fabulous to photograph, they both look amazing and are so friendly, chatty, and just wonderful to work with.

I should say that I don't have anything to do with organising the shoots or the styling on the day; all of that is down to Rachel; she sets everything up for the shot and I'm just so lucky to be there at the time to be able to take advantage of the opportunity and get take my own pictures! Really, I have such a long way to go with this, but it's so much good fun that it's worth doing all the practice necessary to get better.

I need to do more practice now since I went and purchased an upgrade to my existing camera (a Canon 350D) I've now got a Canon 5d which is going to take me a while to get to grips with. Rachel got some amazing pictures with it on Saturday afternoon and I also managed to take some of Lizzie which I'm very happy with.

Here's links to the latest pictures I've taken

More spring related images
Scenary around York University campus
Picture of Freya, barbarian princess
And finally Lizzie looking fabulous

New Website

2010-03-08T21:56:00.003Z

I've finally got round to setting up my website at www.fionasboots.com and I've even got around to putting from content on there as well! For now it's just a storage place for my pictures but I'll maybe try and get some more words on there sooner or later.

For anyone who is interested in the technical aspect of the website, it's using Mambo CMS (Content Management System) with a template I hacked from one of the provided ones. The images are rendered using the Simple Gallery plugin (the free one) which makes use of LightBox for the actual full size display. I need to get some of the images onto DeviantART as well when I get round to it!

I'm Famous ...

2010-03-05T21:31:00.004Z

... well, not quite, but for the first time someone, other than my friends, has re-published a post from my blog which I'm really quite pleased about, their version actually looks better than the one hosted on blogger here!

The post in question is Empowerment Through Style and can be found here on the Directory of York website. The screen shot below shows my entry on their blog page:

Now, if only I could get my website to look half as good as that I might be on to something!

Spring has Sprung

2010-03-02T22:56:00.005Z

The gorgeous, clear, and sunny weather that we've had over the past two days has really lifted my mood, not that I was particularly down but I definitely was in a winter, rather than summer mind-set. So today I decided not to waste this fantastic weather and took a few photos on the walk from the office to Heslington. I've just been processing them now and I'm really, really, pleased with the sharpness and colour - all this with some random compositions and standard lens.

I really want to do more photos this week (subject to weather) and again, I'm really going to have to get my image gallery sorted so I can host all these (might have to use deviant Art in the meantime).

Hen Do!

2010-03-02T22:47:00.004Z

Well, hen "dos" would be more appropriate as we were out on Friday night and then again on Saturday! I should state for the record that I wasn't drinking a drop of alcohol for the second outing as frankly I'd got an absolutely stinking hangover from the previously nights ridiculous excesses! No sympathy please, it was totally self-inflicted.

Thankfully I did manage to get some good photos (Rachel got some amazing ones) and I wasn't drunk enough that I lost or broke my camera either! The image above is one of quite a few that turned out beautifully clear, sharp in such vibrant colours (helped by the "wig" theme for the night). I'll update this blog post when I've uploaded all of the pictures to my website, I really do need to get the image galleries sorted ASAP.

The pictures from Saturday night weren't anywhere near as good in terms of colour and clarity which is surprising given that the lighting should have been better as we were at someone's house. I think I'll put that down to fatigue on the part of myself and Rachel!

York Photos

2010-03-02T22:40:00.004Z

Rachel and I hadn't been out for a walk around York for quite some time so we finally managed to get ourselves into town to take some pictures, get some exercise and spend some time together. Sadly didn't get much in the way of good photos, still think I need to work on focus, composition and probably even post-processing. I guess I could use the excuse that it was a little flat in terms of light (well, so Rachel said). Anyway, we did have a nice walk, and lovely cream tea and cakes at Betty Tea room so, all in all a pretty good day.

London by Night and Day

2010-03-02T21:27:00.005Z

It's taken me a while to get round to updating my blog and I'm trying to catch up with all the pictures I've taken. Eventually I hope to get something setup on my own website where I can host the galleries of images properly but until then I'll just post the (hopefully) best of the pictures here.

While I was down in London with work I was lucky enough to end up in a room on the 11th floor of the Danubius hotel which gave me amazing views over the city - I have no idea what I was looking at but it was impressive nonetheless.
What I don't like about this picture (and the next one) is that they aren't quite pin-sharp. If you zoom in on this image you will see pixelation which is only to be expected on the JPEG version, however it's still a little blurry on the RAW one as well. I'm told that there isn't much I can do about this given the length of exposure, zoom, position, lighting etc but I really want to try and get clearer shots. I think this is a huge problem with more practice (and expensive lenses); you start to expect the same clarity all the time!

This one took a bit of tweaking to get the colours right. After some research (Google and DP Review) it seems that white balance on Canon cameras is a known problem. In natural light they are fine but incandescent and fluorescent lighting mucks things up - I guess the same will apply to dawn. I'm told that a shot like this may have been better captured with a 10-22mm lens though I'm a little reluctant to invest in one of those as, for a start it's £600 (£669 from Jessops and £625 from Amazon) and also it can really distort the image if you don't know what you are doing with it!

More practising at pictures I think ... and presumably more staying in really tall hotels!

Encoding Issues

2010-02-24T09:45:00.003Z

A technical blog post for a change:

I've been having a really frustrating problem with my development environment recently, something that I've encountered before but never really understood or resolved definitively either: character encoding in source files.

Thanks to this blog post I think I've finally got a handle on what is going on and why. Essentially I had assumed that it was something odd in my environment but I think it's down to the fact that developers using Windows aren't setting the correct, UTF-8, encoding in their files which is therefore causing the problems for me.

The ultimate solution seems to be to fix these files by converting to UTF-8 and re-committing but I also have the issue that Maven appears to be using ASCII encoding by default so I'm not entirely sure if converting to UTF-8 will fix things. Unless of course it is expecting UTF-8 and is converting to ASCII to compile and the error message I'm getting is misleading. Will experiment later.

SeeSaw Launched

2010-02-17T10:18:00.005Z

In previous companies it's been the usual policy (or at least accepted practice) not to link blogs and any other public, non-work, sites (forums and the like) back to my employer. Given the publicity around SeeSaw and the fact that they have no problem with their brand being spread far and wide around Twitter for example, I find myself in unfamiliar territory.

So now, given the evidence on my Twitter, it wouldn't take a genius to work out that I'm employed by Ioko and since October I've been working on the SeeSaw project! I'm obviously biased but it has been one of the most fun projects I've ever worked on and the team, client, and everyone has been so nice and fab to work with!

The project has been espescially fun when when you get to see something that looks so impressive - again, yes, I'm biased but I've thought all along that it looks fantastic and the web developers that pulled that together are amazing. I've been working on the Java side of things, along with many others, and while no-one outside the project sees that code I would still say it's pretty elegant and impressive in itself (sorry, it's a geek thing).

So, after the official launch this morning we're all busy working away on further development and just getting on with normal activities ... though we have got a big TV screen showing all the stats from the site and it's interesting to see it ramping up now.

Anyway, back to work for me.

Chinese New Year

2010-02-15T21:05:00.003Z

Sunday was spent in Manchester with my son seeing the Chinese New Year celebrations. On the plus side we had a good time, managed to see some of the performances (the Dragon for example), took a few pictures and ate some nice food. Ultimately though it was rather over-crowded and we didn't stay into the evening to see the fireworks.

It was lovely to see my son again and I must mention what really made the day extra special. For a start I was able to pick him up from his house rather than meeting somewhere else. This in itself is an amazingly huge step and I am thankful enough for that alone. But I also got to stay for a while when I dropped him off and got to see the wonderful home in which he lives and also his bedroom.

I know that sounds a bit silly, it's just a room after all, but it had changed so much since I was last there and ... I really don't know how to explain it. It was just something I wanted to be able to share in and be able to picture in my head when I talked to him on the phone.

When I left I was close to tears I was so grateful and happy, I really can't describe how much it meant to me. All I can say is Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, Thank you.

Photo Shoot

2010-02-15T20:37:00.006Z

I haven't been with Rachel on a photo shoot for quite a while now so it was nice to actually be involved with one again in York, even if I was mainly there to setup lights and help out as I've done before. I still think it's fantastic fun and I love meeting new people who are always so nice to work with and chat to.

We were doing a fair bit of swapping on lenses for this shoot - Rachel has been using the new 50mm f1.4 (prime) lens that I bought which can, if like her you know what you're doing, capture some fantastic detail and clear, crisp shots. I made plenty of mistakes with the lens while in Paris and alot of my pictures looked terrible (when Rachel used it, her pictures come out fine or quite simply amazing showing again that it really isn't as easy as it looks).

Anyway, lots of help, advice and encouragement from her and some luck actually meant I didn't do so bad; the picture above is one that I took! Couldn't believe it when I processed it, it's come out just how I wanted (though it needs a little more processing to get the colours right). I also tried to be a bit arty and took this picture as well:
The full shoot was over fairly quickly and we managed to get everything dismantled and packed away in plenty of time - I think we're just getting practiced at this now! The full gallery of pictures of Sasha (the lovely model - who had some fab Vivian Westwood boots, need to try and get some myself) can be found on the Random Acts website. I should say that all but two of the pictures are Rachel's (though the ones of mine she used have been processed so much better by her) - again, this highlights another big difference between enthusiastic amateur and pro; I got one of two pictures that were "wow", Rachel got a few more than that!

Finally, I decided that the whole corset-trying-on experience had been so inspiring that I managed to find one of mine that a very good (and generous) friend gave me, and wore that. So I couldn't resist getting a few pictures of me as well.

I did quite well with the corset on, managed to wear it most of the day, in fact only started to get uncomfortable after Rachel re-tied it at the back and tightened it quite a bit in the process! Also quite pleased that the blouse that I'm wearing fits and doesn't look too bad! I bought it a while ago and never thought I'd 'grow into' it!

Empowerment Through Style

2010-02-15T19:55:00.004Z

Friday night was the event that Rachel had organised at Stonegate Yard in York, "Empowerment Through Style" brought together several independent, local, boutiques as well as the Body Shop, to show how feeling good about yourself isn't always about fashion but simply putting together your own look that you can be confident about. My friend Jen (see earlier post with her posing in a red corset!), very kindly, offered to act as a model for clothes and make-up (the picture above is Saskia from the Body Shop doing her make-up which looked amazing!).

We all had alot of fun, the clothes, as provided by One (Responsibly Gorgeous Clothing) were fantastic (so much so that Jen actually bought the outfit she was wearing) and everyone mingled and had a good chat. One thing that really stands out in my mind was trying on the corsets that Sarah from Elizabeth Wells had brought along. They did look fab but I wasn't initially thinking of actually having a go myself but I'm so glad I did!

I should say first of all that this isn't the best picture of me, nor of the corsets that Sarah sells, in fact I'll add a second picture below of Hannah who looks so much better than me anyway and utterly amazing in the gorgeous white corset (I tried this on as well but no pictures of that unfortunately).

The black corset I'm wearing isn't full size, though it's slightly on the large size for me apparently (didn't feel like it) and Sarah didn't fasten it very (relatively) tightly but it still did give me more of a figure and actually was very comfortable. Yes, I know that doesn't sound right but really I didn't feel like I couldn't breath or that I was being painfully squashed, it felt fine and also made me sit straighter and with much better posture. It also made me feel pretty good as well.

Trying on the full size white corset was amazing! I wasn't brave enough to do this will no t-shirt or bra on, which I should really have done, and I've kind of regretted that as it would have been fantastic. I am definitely going to get a proper fitting and try on a few different corsets when I get the time (and the money) to do that. Really I'm not sure how to describe how good I felt with the corset on - it's not anything kinky (though I can fully understand why people like them for that reason) it just feels really amazing to have that shape and feeling of being so poised, stylish, feminine I guess. And it affected everyone there, loads of people wanted to try them on and everyone was thrilled once they did. Really I haven't got the words to describe it!

Anyway, a fantastic night was had by all and I really hope Rachel organises something similar, only bigger, better, and starting sooner and finishing later, sometime soon!

Out and Out in Paris and London

2010-02-15T19:09:00.005Z

I'm sorry, that is a really pathetic pun on the book Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell that I vaguely remember reading for English at school. I just couldn't resist the blog post title as, with the visit to a lesbian bar in Paris and then the brief look in The FairyGothMother shop it did feel like a bit of an 'out' weekend.

As I mentioned, the reason for being in London for some considerable time was because our train back wasn't until 10pm so we had some time to kill, which always sounds rather wasteful and, in fact we made good use of the time by meeting up with Misae Richwoods who I'd got chatting to on Twitter (@minxymoggy). She'd suggested meeting at Spitalfields Market which is somewhere neither Rachel and I had been before but once we got there we wished we'd known about it before.

Basically Rachel was in hog's heaven as the place is packed full of the latest bleeding edge style with market stalls for designers to sell their own creations. It really was quite inspiring and I wish I'd had the money left after the holiday to afford several things that I saw!

Anyway, I think Rachel managed to chat to quite a few people about photography and we also had some valuable help and advice from Misae as well as all three of us having a really nice meal and a few cocktails to boot (Happy hours is fantastic). Will have to head over there again when next time I'm down in London and maybe this time get to spend some money on some fantastic clothes.

Paris

2010-02-13T18:35:00.002Z

Seems so long ago but it has only been a week since we were sat in the lesbian club drinking mojitos and looking at the fantastically stylish people around us ... and sticking glow-sticks down my bra (yeah, one to many drinkies on my part I think). Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself!

The trip started at a reasonable hour on Thursday, from a rather cold York train station with us both rather laden down with bags containing camera equipment and, for me, a ridiculous amount of clothes, make-up, and assorted shampoo, conditioner and other bathroom 'essentials'. I travel heavy!

We had a nice trip down to London, then carted all our bags across London to first go to Rachel's GIC appointment (stopping off for lunch at a nice little pub first where I gleefully remembered I could actually have a drink in the middle of the day since I didn't have to drive at any point over the weekend!). Though against my usual 'rules' of footwear (and style) I was wearing walking boots which frankly was the only sensible option, I'd have very poorly feet if I'd worn my other kind of boots!

Getting to Kings Cross St Pancras and we had a pre-trip Starbucks before going through the check-in and security - same as airport setup but nowhere near as busy or time-consuming! You go through French passport control on the way out as well, bit odd as we weren't in France yet (nothing in Paris in this respect at all). We didn't have to wait long before they opened the doors to let us up onto the platform so we could get onto the train.

The trains are a little dated by today's standards but they are quite comfy and the legroom is reasonable. I was cheeky and got some plastic cups from the lovely man in the buffet car so Rachel and I could have a drink of wine on the trip (thought I'd start how we meant to go on)! Also thought it might pass the time a bit but really the journey doesn't take that long, you're only in the tunnel itself for 30mins tops and the rest is spent speeding across the French countryside - seems faster than on the UK side.

We found the hotel without any issue (I have Rachel-Nav) and set off out to take some pictures of Paris at night. Walked what seemed to be miles (or kilometres) and got back to the hotel late once we'd reach the point of being rather cold and tired. We did make a slight tactical error in that we set off with the intention of a certain route that avoided an area near the hotel that the guide suggested we stay away from. Of course we ended up wandering into it and only realised after a few clues like the condom machine fastened to the wall and the woman who must have been rather chilly given she was wearing a almost invisibly short skirt, stockings/suspenders and a big coat. Rachel described the area as "less that salubrious" though I guess it still had a certain ambience! Thankfully we got back onto the main road once we realised our mistake.

Slow start in the morning and ended up having a lovely brunch followed by more wandering round Paris all the way from Notre Dame along to the Champs Elysée stopping off to have a lovely drink and cake on the way. After taking pictures of the the Arc de Triomph we decided to head back to the hotel via the metro to avoid more tired feet. A quick doze at the hotel was followed by venturing out to the gay/lesbian area of Paris, a quick bite to eat (along with some nice wine) and then one of the local bars. A few drinks were followed back a stagger back to the metro and then back to the hotel.

The following day the weather was a little more on the rainy side so we took the metro to the Champs Elysée and found a nice restaurant to have more fantastic food! Thankfully the rain cleared while we ate so we could do some more wandering around afterwards and eventually headed to Musée d'Orsay so we could see a bit of art and also be somewhere nice and warm!

We were both enjoying the warmth and excellent photo opportunities when Rachel's camera stopped working! Neither of us have ever had any problems before but in this case the memory card could just not be read which was all a bit of a disaster! Thankfully Rachel was able to use my camera to carry on taking pictures and, in the end, when we got back home I was able to retrieve all of her images anyway.

In the evening we got dressed a little more smartly and headed towards the canal (not far from the hotel - useful given the shoes I was wearing) and had a lovely meal (and wine) before heading back to bed for a nice hug and sleep before having to get up early in the morning to head back to the UK.

Trip back was equally rapid and uneventful. Nice to be able to see the country-side this time (it was dark travelling there) and at least we knew when we were getting close to London as Rachel pointed out various landmarks. Got back, dumped bags at left luggage and then headed into London to entertain ourselves until our trip back to York at about 10pm! I'll leave all that for another blog post.

Random Clicks

2010-02-08T21:29:00.002Z

Paris was fantastic but I'm currently too tired to give a detailed explanation of what we saw and did there as we didn't get home until 1am this morning and I stayed up a while longer trying to recover all of Rachel's pictures from a corrupt SD ... which thankfully I was able to do!

Anyway, in lieu of a full textual description I'll just include a few of the pictures I took for now and will add another post later to link to Rachel's images as well as also explaining what we got up to.

Paris by Night

2010-02-06T09:03:00.003Z

Still got to process alot of the images properly but here's one from the night we arrived.

Right, time to get sorted and head into the city for more food, erm, I mean photos.

Food!

2010-02-06T08:53:00.004Z

Well, there is obviously going to be something of a time delay getting pictures and blog entries up given that we should be out and experiencing Paris rather than sitting in front of a computer! Since I'm recovering from a late night and also reviewing the pictures anyway I thought I'd do a few posts.

And the first subject is FOOD! (yes, I'm feeling a bit hungry as I type this, must get a move on). Anyway, this is what we feasted on yesterday brunch time and it was delicious!

As well as capturing the food I was trying to show off with the new lens as well, it certainly does give nice clear and sharp pictures, hmmm looks good enough to eat (must get up soon, getting really hungry).

I'll leave you with a bit of a puzzle. Spoons in drinks, why (had several like this yesterday):

On our way to Paris!

2010-02-04T18:04:00.001Z

Ok not the best picture of Rachel but all I could manage for now until we get to Paris and can do something with the pics off the proper camera :-D

We're on our way now and it's all very exciting :-D

Dressing up!

2010-02-02T08:56:00.004Z

I don't really remember doing much dressing up when I was little, I maybe did go through that usual phase when I was very young but it's not something I can recall. I do have fairly clear memories of NOT wanting to dress-up and being quite embarrassed about costumes and the like, certainly I never went to any fancy dress parties!

But things do change and access to a rather interesting wardrobe of 'dressing-up' clothes, courtesy of Rachel (items she's used on photoshoots before) and of course her, armed with camera, to record the results, has opened up quite alot of possibilities! The picture below being an example of this:
My friend Jen came round on Friday night, originally for a girlie night in that was to include food, endless chatting and equally limitless alcohol. Rachel and I had been talking about photoshoots to Jen and we just suggested we could do a few pics to practice ...

... well that's when it got out of hand! We essentially turned the sitting room into a studio with proper lighting (those big lightboxes you see on the pro shoots, wish I'd got a picture of the setup it looked very impressive). The pictures here are just a few samples, most were taken of Jen on her own (she's alot more photogenic than me) and I'll add a link to those once Rachel has processed them properly (they will likely be on the Random Acts Webzine so keep an eye on that).

For anyone who is a little scared of having their picture taken I have to say this: don't be! It is, once you get into it, sooooo much fun! Really just go for it! A good photographer like Rachel will be happy to work with you to get what you want and delete images you really aren't happy with, or, if you want it, do a little touch up work in PhotoShop if that makes you happier :)

Really, and truly, a photoshoot is fantastic fun!

Dad (again)

2010-01-25T09:06:00.002Z

He phoned last night. Totally out of the blue!

Well, maybe it wasn't completely unexpected, I'd been tinkering with the e-mail hosting that we use and was in the middle of moving it all over and had sent out a rather terse and technical message about what was to change. I'd phoned my Mum and told her to tell him to look but just expected no response at all.

But he just phoned ... asked if he could speak to "" and then said it was "Dad", which of course I knew. Weird, I didn't think my voice had changed that much ... probably it hasn't and he just didn't know how to handle phoning when he is aware of the fact I have a partner.

It was really quite surreal. Just a conversation about setting up e-mail and why Google is good (using Google Apps which means 50 free accounts using your own domain) and when this would all change over. Really it was as if we'd never had a break in communication. I can't say that I'm really elated or disappointed or anything ... I'm obviously happy that we talked but really it was just like nothing had happened in the intervening months.

Don't think I can really grasp the feelings I have about this properly.

I did, rather flippantly, comment to Rachel that I should break more e-mail things in future so we get to talk some more!

New hair do

2010-01-22T17:49:00.002Z

Got new fab hair cut curtesy of Jen's hair dresser Claire.

Update: Changed picture for the one that Jen took on her iPhone as it's a better shot! Also Clairs's Salon is

The Salon
87 Pendas Way
Crossgates
Leeds
LS15 8HN

Very happy with my new do and it's survived well overnight, real test will be when I wash my hair and try and repeat the same look! Suspect I'll be having to go back to Claire very soon!

DRM again

2010-01-22T13:01:00.004Z

Haven't content providers, suppliers, and anyone in the media industry got the message yet? Are they still wasting time, money, effort and valuable good will on futile efforts to control, subjugate, and extort money from, their customers?

Apparently not.

There is a proposal from the BBC concerning the scrambling of EPG (Electronic Programme Guide) data on the HD channel such that only receivers that supported a given DRM technology would be permitted and able to access it. This, the proposal claims, would then lead to devices having to support a given DRM mechanism which could then be used to protect content from rights-holders who want to stipulate such restrictions. The Register has a good article about this (which is where I got the link).

Seriously, this technology doesn't work. It is a waste of time (everyones) and money. For example, at home I can play or copy CDs or DVDs without restriction at all. There are tools available to record streams from iPlayer and other VOD (Video On Demand) services. I did a quick Google and it seems BluRay has been hacked already as well.

No matter what methods are used, there will always be a way round them. What is also apparent is that DRM, far from protecting consumers, will often result in them not being able to make legitimate use of content, e.g. CDs that won't play in PCs because of copy-protection schemes.

Given my objections to this proposal I've done something about it and responded using the online form, here are the answers I gave to the questions posed, I would urge anyone with an opinion on this to respond as well.

Question 1: Do you agree that copy management would broaden the range of HD content available on DTT and help secure its long term viability as a platform?	No, absolutely not. Investment in new and original ontent would be a better use of the money involved in implementing DRM. The BBC in particular has had a reputation for this type of programming before, and providing more of this is likely to support the viability of DTT HD as a platform far better than wasting money on futile attempts at restricting illegal copying.
Question 2: Do you agree that the BBC’s proposed multiplex licence amendment represents the most appropriate means for securing an effective content management system on HD DTT?	No, the most effective content management system is not to implement any restrictions at all. Taking the no-DRM approach is a 0 cost option, maintains consumers rights to make fair and legal use of content and encourages the development of innovative and affordable receiver equipment.
Question 3: Do you agree with the proposed change to Condition 6 in the Multiplex B Licence?	No
Question 4: Do you agree that Multiplexes C and D should be granted a similar amendment to their Licences as Multiplex B?.	No
Question 5: Do you agree that the BBC’s proposed approach for implementing content management would safeguard citizens and consumers legitimate use of HD content, and if not, what additional guarantees would be appropriate?	No, absolutely not. The legitimate use of content would be seriously hampered. This has been true of all past DRM implementations, e.g. copy protection on music CDs led to them being unplayable on many home computers. Any of the approaches that were used before, e.g. in the example above where a special player were provided, would lead to increased complexity and restrictions.
Question 6: Do you agree that the BBC’s proposed choice of content management technologies will have only a negligible impact on the cost of HD DTT receivers and their interoperability with other HD consumer equipment? .	Actual cost to manufacturers would likely not be affected significantly though the prices a consumer pays could well be - essentially devices with this support would be more expensive than those that do not. Interoperability will be dramatically affected, even if the devices concerned support DRM the extra complexity could well lead to problems. There is also the increased potential for legitimately recorded content to become unusable due to software changes or bugs, thus providing more inconvenience and cost to consumers.
Question 7: Do stakeholders agree that the BBC’s proposed Huffman Code licensing arrangements would have a negligible effect on the market for HD DTT receivers?	I am not a stakeholder in this per se, however I would suspect that this proposal would allow device manufacturers force consumers to purchase new products to support the implementation of these proposals. Their incentives to update older hardware are not apparent and I would expect would be dismissed on the grounds of cost or viability.
Question 8: Do the BBC’s proposed content management states and their permitted use for different categories of HD content meet the requirements of other HD broadcasters on DTT? .	I am not able to comment on this.
Question 9: Are there any issues that you consider Ofcom should take into account in assessing the BBC’s proposal, that have not been addressed by this consultation?	There isn't a single commercial encryption system in existence that has not been cracked or circumvented in some way. No matter what technique is used by the BBC, those who have the technical know-how will, eventually, render any implementation of DRM ineffective. Forcing the implementation of a DRM technology is likely to increase the level of illegal copying rather than reduce it. This appears to be the case with existing formats such as DVD, CD, and BluRay. Forcing a DRM implementation would also add to or cause compatibility issues with devices that would interfere with consumers legitimate use of content. Devices that consumers currently own or may purchase in the near future may become obsolete very quickly if this proposal goes ahead. Quite simply, this proposal will not, in any way whatsoever, bring benefits to the consumer, quite the reverse; it will restrict competition in the marketplace, restrict or eliminate fair-use of content and ultimately cost a significant amount to license fee payers.

Fiona's Boots

And now for something completely different ...

6 weeks on

(Not) happy with Audi

Consistent device links with udev

Post-op/Pre-op

Packing and Panicing

Counting and Caterpillars

Moving ...

Photos everywhere!

Apparently it *IS* all about gender

Even more photography and other stuff

Lots of Pictures!

It's Not all about Gender

Lots of Knocks

Fashion City York!

Fireworks!

"Are you a he or a she?"

VMPlayer: kernel.sched_compat_yield not set

Fiona's Boots

Stop and Think

Squeak Squeak!

Photoshoot for me!

Goodness it's cold!

Medieval Plays

It happened ...

Snow Fair!

On the Up

I Picked A Hell of a Week ...

Question of Attraction

Photoslam!

In Two Minds

Night photography ...

Snap Happy!

Goodbye Alice in Wonderland

Fat!

I need a Date

It's all about Image(s)

In Court

Models of Diversity

Back and still standing!

Me at Selby...

Cycling to Selby ...

"Oh, what a night ..."

Why do my boobs shrink when ...

That Sucks (or doesn't in this case)

Choice

???

Single Again

Motoring Through the Ages!

Sparkle 2010

Pictures and Prints

I Think the Lens Works

Little Monkey

Not Funny Anymore

Don't know where to start

Rainy Day Shoot

Half millennium!

I would have been early, but ...

What a mess!

More Regret

"Christian Cop arrests Gay Protestor for anti-Church comments"

"British People"

Through The Lens

Finally Photo-processing

Second Thoughts?

Decree Nisi

Exercise!

More Catching Up

Manic Shoot

York Wander

Fashion Event

Catching Up

He

Money Grabbing B******

Why I bought a Canon 5D mk II

Envy and Pride

Devious Deviant

Missing Being Interrupted

More Photography

Apparently it IS all about gender