Rudolph The Well Guarded Reindeer

Unison LGBT day 2 10.30 am. Lobby of the Marriott Hotel.
Last night was good fun. I met up with Lucy from Southend who I have been cyber chatting to for a year. We had a real good natter and realised we are both Geeky T's. So most of the night was spent swapping transition tales mixed with a sprinkling of telly tattle.

This morning has been made up of a disappointing breakfast (continental, what's that all about.) and a nice mile long (and it did seem a long mile) stroll along Harbourside to this huge hotel where the conference is based. I must admit even on a dull morning, Bristol is a really pleasant city though surprisingly quiet.
The conference proper don't Starrt for a goodly few 'ourrrs yet (look I'm picking up the lingo already (actually that sounded more piratey than west country) so I'm toying with a trip to the shops. I've just noticed someone coming out of the lift that looked just like a guy Chris Bisson once of Coronation Street, but who knows I'm not going to ask him. ...... Laters...

12.45 coffee bar, Marriott Hotel
Got back from my shopping jaunt. It turned out to be more of an adventure than I expected. My main targets in descending order were , Evans natch, Hmv or similar, Claires and Waterstones. (for anyone overseas these may just be random words!) anyway a right turn found me in Cabots Circus shopping mall. This was a brand new looking, flashy, glassy arcade. Not seeing any of my targets, my eyes were drawn too the Christmas decorations (and for once both eyes were drawn in the same direction!) there were some huge wire Reindeers dotted with lights. Liking big things, I drew my camera and snapped away. Just as I was holstering my camera back in my bag, out of somewhere a large black overcoated man appeared. (large and black refer to the overcoat and not the man) with a telltale curly wire trailing from an earpiece and disappearing into his overcoat. "Do you work for House of Fraser" he asked. "Errm no I don't think so'', I replied unhelpfully. "You need permission to take photographs''. ''Do I ??'', as I pulled out my camera and brought up the pictures I had taken. "Look, I just wanted a pic of your stags''. Unimpressed, he said "you can't take photographs here'', and indicated away from the arcade. ''Oh sorry, perhaps a sign would be helpful and maybe some duller Christmas decorations'', and with that Cabots Circus, the security man and me parted ways. I did wonder what they were so worried about. My best guesses in no order are that I may have been an  international terrorist, a rival flashy glassy arcade  developer, or that everyone in Bristol is terminally camera shy.

Anyway I now found myself heading leftwards and lo I stumbled upon another oversized decoration in the form of a huge pyramid of baubles. So I was torn, I should really just walk away but the devil made this my quest. So I scoured the scene for possible securitas. There was one possible candidate the far side of a square, so unsuccessfully secreting myself behind a lamppost I waited for him to turn away and snapped my prey and quickly stowed away the incriminating camera.

  
The conference starts with a stutter rather than a bang. I'm used to the motion fests of the national conferences, but this is much more civilised with the first day taken up with meetings and caucuses, interspersed with networking and mingling. The meat and heat of debate starts tomorrow. I killed a few minutes bantering with some of the service provider stands selling insurance, breakdown cover, financial advice and credit cards. I asked how many of them had merged or been nationalised since the credit crumpet had landed, but from their expressions I guess that was really only funny in my head. Anyway, I have 3 meetings ahead of me, the Trans Caucus, West Midlands regional meeting and the Healthcare group meeting, so I was kept out of any further shopping expeditions

10pm All done and dusted and back in my Hotel cabin

The meetings went well. In the Trans caucus I was banging on about still getting called by my old pronoun. I even related the story of Gammo my cat to illustrate how hard it is to change the way peoples brains work. When I had Gammo off Vicky she told me it was a boy cat, so it naturally became he. On closer inspection, when one morning I awoke and found him sitting on my face, I noticed that he was in fact a she. The thing is, even with my trans super powers I struggle to call her she. If I can't get the bloody cat's gender right how can I moan when people get mine wrong. I guess the problem its it hurts me, much more than Gammo. I was less annoying at the other meetings and mainly kept quiet. The conference day was finished with a reception at the civic centre with speeches by the mayor, the council leader and minister for state Dawn Primarolo who brought the house down.

Sitting tapping away I have realised that I haven't eaten since my disappointing breakfast. I've taken my slap off so I'm not going to venture out. I will just have to stick it out till morning as the only things I can find to eat are 2 sachets of hot chocolate powder.