I got in late Thursday night, and there was
We'd set aside Friday for hanging out together and catching up, so we got up slowly and drank more tea and chatted about bookies and
We went out to Alimentum for dinner; it's just about the only grand restaurant I've eaten in which really does strike me as twice as good as an ordinary restaurant. I can't really afford it, but I wanted to do something really special to mark the momentous occasion of
Saturday we accompanied
Joined a very convivial crowd in the Carlton for the afternoon. I was fascinated to see the partial overlap between
Sunday morning we put
We came home to more crossword and a batch of scones my mother made spontaneously. I joined the parents watching an episode of Lark rise to Candleford, a series I'd probably get into if I lived in the right country for it. It has Julia Sawalha in it, and she's even more awesome now she's grown up. My parents watched a bunch of other programmes too, while I sat reading papers in preparation for the interview and then playing on the internet a bit. We didn't bother with supper, which is the first time in my life that has happened; I'm delighted to see that Mum has finally relaxed enough not to feel obliged to provide three fully cooked meals every day.
Monday morning I dressed up in my smart red suit ready for the interview. I felt somehow like a little kid putting on a school uniform for the first time, pretending to be grown up. Mum made me the same packed lunch she's been making for a quarter of a century, and Dad gave me a teapot keyring sold as a fundraiser for a cancer charity (and a lift to the hospital early enough to beat the rush hour traffic). Granny, to my amazement, gave me encouraging and even complimentary comments, and a hug, which I think is the first time in my life she's done that.
I hadn't really believed that the interview would take all morning, but it did. It was very friendly and unstressful, though, and my talk went exceptionally well. And
While I was away,
If that moves you to care about the issue, read this article about a literal Catch-22 scenario which is preventing trans folk in Oxfordshire from obtaining treatment. Thanks to
Then, if you are a UK citizen or resident, go and sign the petition to get this stupid situation resolved so people can access the medical care they need. I'm not always a huge fan of e-petitions, but this seems to be exactly the sort of scenario where they're most useful. It's a specific, detailed issue of local policy which needs to be changed in order to make people's lives less miserable, and can readily be changed without changing the entire constitutional philosophy of the country or spending unreasonable sums of money. And note the .gov.uk site; this is official, and people with political power actually read it, even if there is a lot of crap there too.