Warning; This blog contains an awful lot of photos of me in my party dress - because, well, in all honesty, much like Narcissus, I fell in love with my own reflection in this outfit, probably the best one ever, definitely top five!
Chris and I were off to the Housebuilder Brain Game in aid of Marie Curie. It’s a very glitzy black tie charity quiz night. It’s great fun, and I love getting dolled up and quizzes, so for me it’s a fantastic night out.
In the morning I got myself out for a walk. I am trying to do this regularly, but laziness gets the better of me, that and tiredness. My insomnia is off the chart at the moment, so it does make life a tad draining.
But it was a gloriously sunny warm day, and that makes getting out infinitely more enjoyable.
Top from Tesco, Shorts from Hollister.
I got my steps in, and had a hot chocolate, so I congratulated myself for a job done well. The fact that I even bothered to try was enough to be proud of to be completely honest.
And then it was back home to get ready for the big quiz.
Excuse me while I get mesmerised by me yet again! hahahahaha.
I think we can all agree, whether you like this dress or not, it’s not a dress to feel meek in. You can’t go out in it feeling insecure and uncomfortable. It just wouldn’t work. This is no wallflower dress.
It’s a showy dress, a look at me dress, a dress that says I’m bold and fearless.
*I’m not particularly either of those things but you gotta fake it to make it baby! So I did!
I felt really good, and more importantly I felt I looked really good (…that’s my personal opinion, it’s not up for debate. It’s not about if anyone else felt the same, me loving it is enough).
I felt like a fabulous shimmery little glitter ball.
I did have a slight confidence knock, when I discovered I’d caught my watch on it and quite a few sequins came off. But I was at the venue by this point, so I had to just suck it up and style it out.
I decided on this dress for a couple of reasons; 1, I’m shopping from my own wardrobe as much as possible, I have more stock in my walk in wardrobe than most stores. And 2, because it was a warm day I felt like wearing a short dress.
This one happens to be 15 years old. I saw it in TK Maxx, it looked so beautiful on the hanger, so I snapped it up, and it sat in my wardrobe for ages before I found somewhere to wear it. I wore it for the first, and only time, at a Christmas event 2011.
It still looks fabulous on 14 years later (minus a few sequins). Chris said he’d know where to find me if I got lost, he’d just follow the trail, I was like a very sparkly Gretal.
It struck me as I admired my reflection in my shimmering frock, ready for a great night out, that I have had some really odd things said to me over my 15 years of stoma owning.
For some reason, and I’ve no idea why, but random people have said that they would rather be dead than have a stoma like me.
It’s okay to think it, it’s okay to think whatever you like, it’s none of my business, but it’s an odd thing to say to someone standing there who has one.
So many of my stoma owning friends have had it said to them too, more so than I have to be honest.
Imagine preferring to not carry on with your life though? That’s so weird to me.
When I was first told I needed a colostomy I was horrified and traumatised, but I still very much wanted to live.
And Chris said he didn’t care if all that was left of me was a talking head in a jar as long as we could be together, that’s all that mattered.
Life is so ridiculously precarious and precious.
I love every minute of it, the good and the bad. Even the worst days are worth it because I’m still here to live it.
I don’t mind anyone asking me anything, I’m very open and honest about life with a stoma. I welcome interested parties asking questions that they have been curious about.
It’s how we learn, and it’s how I can make a difference by educating others about stomas, well, about my stoma anyway.
I’ve had questions about all sorts of stoma related things and I absolutely welcome that; How often do I poo? How often do I change the bag? Do I still pass wind? Is a sex life possible?
A question asked with interest, without malice, is absolutely fine and to be encouraged, but telling me that they’d rather be dead, inferring that my life isn’t as good as theirs, that’s a piss take.
If you’ve read my blogs you’ll know that I have a great life. My stoma doesn’t define it, and it doesn’t define me. It’s just something I have, that I’m perfectly comfortable and at peace with.
My whole existence and personality isn’t my stoma…(I’d say that title goes to travel, I get claustrophobic if I haven’t got anything booked. Hahaha).
I have a stoma, it doesn’t have me. 🥰
Dress from TK Maxx, Shoes from Jimmy Choo, Bag from Carvella
I gave myself a confidence boosting talking to before we left home.
“You went for a walk! You didn’t want to but you did it anyway! You do a lot of things you don’t want to! You are a strong, confident mermaid! You have great legs! Play to your strengths! You’ve got this!”
(Apart from the cellulite, and scars from the little skin cancer removals, I do have jolly nice ~ visibly vein free legs). So, absolutely good enough for a nearly 52 year old grandma.
The photos below are of the first time I wore it, 14 years ago.
I am told it was a great night out back then, I have no memory of it because that was still in my drinking era. 😬
I do recall something about the Daniel Craig lookalike’s gun. But the memory is blurry and fleeting, which is probably for the best. ;)
Our night out on Thursday last week was far more sedate and refined, I find not getting shit faced and embarrassing works wonders for my self esteem.
I’m not a fan of the morning after scaries and paranoia, and I definitely don’t miss it.
We were absolutely made up that at the half time mark we were in the lead! That was certainly a first! We celebrated like we’d won the whole thing!
…reader, we didn’t end anywhere near winning, but I9th out of 62 is better than we usually get, so we were happy with that.
Then Friday was very exciting! We were heading up to Liverpool, for our very first visit.
Ben’s girlfriend, Erin is from Liverpool, and she wanted to show us her beautiful home town, that she is rightly proud of.
It’s also my ancestral homeland and heritage, as my granddad was from there.
There is this misconception in the south, that the north of England is shite, I don’t know why that is. Maybe it’s a ploy started by northerners to keep southerners at bay! Hahah.
It is far from grim ooop n’rth.
Liverpool is an absolute delight. Aided by the fact the weather was glorious.
I found it very welcoming, friendly, and it felt very safe, and blessed with some fabulous architecture.
Little known fact about Chris and I, if we are going somewhere to sightsee, we will not pay out for expensive hotels. I think it’s just money down the drain.
So when we go somewhere to look around the area, like New York, Paris, Venice etc, we’ll stay somewhere nice enough but not necessarily 5 star fabulous (unless we get a bargain deal).
When we go to a 5 star hotels, the hotel is the destination. Like when we went to The Savoy at Christmas. We pretty much stayed inside the building, luxuriating within the entire time.
So for this trip Chris booked The Crowne Plaza in Speke. What we didn’t know though, was that is an amazing architectural gem!
And for a £120 a night we got to stay in this beautiful Art Deco converted airport. It was Liverpool’s main airport until 1986.
It’s spectacular! What a treat, a real feast for the eyes.
We are big Art Deco fans.
We pay an arm and a leg to stay at a beautiful Art Deco hotel in Devon, called Burgh Island Hotel.
For a fraction of the price we had a very authentic Deco hotel experience on the outskirts of Liverpool.
Top from M&S, Jeans from Michael Kors, Shoes and Belt from Hermes, Bag from Goyard.
It was so odd to see these posters as we first walked into the foyer, they are of two of our favourite places to go.
The only odd thing was the decommissioned planes parked out the back. A nice touch, although I’d have lined them up in a more decorative display, rather than just leave them sitting there, randomly haphazard.
We left our hotel for…wait for it…fish and chips in the car by the estuary. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but after a five hour drive we didn’t want to make an effort and go out for dinner.
And we wanted to try Liverpool’s salt and pepper chips that Erin had told us about, so that’s what we did.
We discovered that pickled gherkins and pickled onions are a southern thing, as we couldn’t get them. There is a north south divide, and it’s in pickle form. But thankfully my order of mushy peas with my fish is a northern delicacy too.
Chippy tea in the car, followed by a walk along the prom. It was the perfect introduction to Liverpool.
The new Fab Four!
After we’d had our walk Ben and Erin headed off home and Chris and I were going back to the hotel. I asked Chris if it would be possible to go and see if we could find my granddads old family home, so we headed over to Toxteth.
I had an address my aunt had given me, unfortunately it wasn’t the correct one, so we sat outside some random strangers house trying to figure out where his home might have been.
Apologies to the home’s owners if you saw us sitting there.
It’s entirely possible that his family home was flattened in all the regeneration that has happened over the years.
I’m going to do a bit more research and see if I can find a more accurate location for our next visit.
Then it was full tourist mode…
Shirt and Trousers from Ralph Lauren, Shoes from Hermes, Bag from Goyard.
Liverpool is great, great for sightseeing, great for shopping, fabulous buildings, great atmosphere, great for music lovers, great for nightlife (so many lively, cool places, and loads of live music venues, it has a rich heritage of musicians).
We started our day with breakfast at The Quarter on Faulkner Street, which I’d highly recommend, then hit the city centre.
Obviously it’s the birthplace of Liverpool’s most famous sons, but it’s also home to the very first Boodles store, some 200 years ago. So I popped in to see where it all began, and very nice it is too.
No visit to the city would be complete without a visit to the iconic Royal Albert Dock, home of the This Morning TV show (1988-1996). I was surprised Richard and Judy didn’t get a Blue Plaque on the wall. 😂
The Liver birds on top of the building are named Bella and Bertie. And we were told the way to remember who’s who, is that Bertie looks over the city waiting for the pubs to open, and Bella looks out to sea awaiting the arrival of seamen (make of that what you will) (are we slut shaming copper sculptures now?).
I found quite a lot of the architecture similar in style to Manhattan, particularly the streets leading to the docks.
I really wanted to see St Luke’s church, or The Bombed Out church as it’s known locally.
I had seen it on the Things to do in Liverpool list, and really wanted to see it. It was perfectly placed at the end of our open top sightseeing bus tour.
They have music events and weddings here. I think it’s absolutely perfect for a wedding.
We ended our day with a meal at a really good Greek restaurant in the city, where I was able to practice my horrendous Greek speaking. I speak in Greek like Forest Gump talks. But I try my best, and that’s the main thing.
We met up with Erin’s family for dinner, which was so nice. We’ve met her lovely mum before, but not the rest of her family. It was so good to get together and put faces to the names.
We finished the evening off with a trip over to Birkenhead to watch the sun set over the city, bringing Erin’s adorable niece along for the ride, we hadn’t just randomly snatched a child.
We were up early the next day for Breakfast at Lark Lane, a great place for independent shops and cafes.
I got dressed, got to the car, decided I hated the outfit choice I’d made and got undressed and redressed in the back of the car.
Shirt from Gap, Vest from Intimissimi, Trousers from M&S, Shoes from Hermes.
Try try again…
Top from Ralph Lauren, everything else as above.
It would’ve been lunacy to not try one of the little cafes for breakfast in Lark Lane. We headed into a very cute little female owned cafe. They sell the most fantastic cookie cakes.
Followed by a walk around Princes Park and Sefton Park, both of which are delightful.
On the tour of the Liver building the day before we’d heard about a local hero, a famous donkey who had saved the lives of 16 children from drowning in a boating pond.
I can’t find any evidence online that this actually happened, most information says Judy was a beloved working animal in the park, who gave rides to the children, and had a fondness for iced buns and chewing tobacco.
But it’s a cute story either way, and it’s nice she has a memorial in her honour.
So we searched for it in the park to pay our respects, it’s very much hidden and forgotten in the wooded undergrowth.
It’s the centenary of her death next year, surely there will be a big do to celebrate such an important lady, who may or may not have had the wherewithal to save 16 children from drowning.
One very handy thing is that Liverpool is only an hour and a half from where our friend Fay moved to in Yorkshire, so she very kindly drove down to meet us for lunch, and we had a much needed catch up.
We met at Papillon, a lovely restaurant near Faulkner Street, again, I would recommend, a great Sunday roast place. Not as good as Erin’s or Sam’s but very nice.
We don’t get to see Fay that much as Yorkshire is far. So it worked out fabulously well.
I am going on holiday with her next month, so we’re doing all our catch ups in a very short time period.
It was so nice to see her and her mini me. 💖
I really wanted to visit the Catholic Cathedral, on the sightseeing bus the guide had said that on a sunny day the stained glass roofs lights looked like a giant kaleidoscope.
I am Catholic by baptism as a baby, but I’m not religious in any way (I try to be a good human being and a humane one, but not fuelled by religion, just deeply ingrained moral compass - although that said I can be flexible on that 😬😂).
I felt a bit guilty (hold on, maybe I’m more catholic than I thought), because as we entered the church Pip asked if this was the indoor soft play centre she’d been hoping for.
I got her to help me light a candle (I always do in any denomination church, for my cousin Anita, who I miss very much, and who was a church goer).
We had to come up with something for her to make up for the lack of soft play.
Erin suggested walking back to Albert dock, which was a great shout.
We had such a fantastic weekend! I would recommend a visit to Liverpool if you are looking for a fun place to go.
I felt incredibly safe and unworried there.
The overall crime rate may well be higher there than in London, but my interest is in specific crime rates, the ones that are pertinent to me and my enjoyment of a day out.
We visit London a lot, a lot a lot. Most weekends are spent there. And as much as I love it, it does have its downsides.
Phone snatchings are wildly out of control in London, as are luxury watch and luxury bag snatchings.
At one point last year we were up 3 weekends in a row, and saw phone snatchings each time.
And a few weeks ago Chris and I were walking towards each other on Oxford Street when Chris saw someone snatch a shopping bag off someone coming out of an underwear shop!! A bag of undies isn’t even safe.
Liverpool has way less phone and watch theft. The other crimes there aren’t relevant to a visit for us, after all, I’m not moving there, just visiting.
I advise anyone visiting London not to use their phones for following directions, you’d be better off getting a paperback A to Z. It’s always tourists looking at phones for directions who we’ve seen get robbed.
Last year our car was broken into in a very expensive car park in Knightsbridge, we assumed due to the cost to park there for the day (£75) it’d be safe, but apparently not, and they don’t even have CCTV as it turned out.
It was only because Chris’s car starts videoing itself when it’s under attack that we have footage of the thieves.
Its frustrating, fucking annoying, but an accepted risk.
It really bothered Chris recently, he had done something really out of character and treated himself to a very beautiful, well deserved, luxury watch, but he got the fear and stopped wearing it because he felt it just wasn’t worth the risk of harm, so he sold it.
It doesn’t really bother me too much, obviously I’d rather not be robbed, but I think I’m just resigned to the fact that it’s a possibility…if newly purchased inexpensive bras and knickers are a target then so is everything under the sun, there’s no point in worrying, just carry on, live happy, hope for the best.
It doesn’t put me off going to London, I love it very much. But I am careful and keep my wits about me.
There’s always a risk anywhere you go, so sensible measures are always advised no matter where you are.
I did chuckle to myself about how different the north and south is.
I accidentally left my Moncler gilet on the back of my chair in the cafe. I only realised 10 minutes later, when I started feeling a bit chilly, we went back to the cafe and there it was, still sitting on the back of the chair where I’d left it, it’s an expensive mistake to make if it had been taken. Compare and contrast to some La Senza knickers being stolen out of someone’s hand in London. 😂
We had such a wonderful introduction to Liverpool thanks to Erin for creating a fabulous itinerary, and her family giving us a warm welcome.
I very much look forward to going back at some stage…I’ll see if I can persuade Chris if he’ll marry me for a third time at St Luke’s. 🫣😂
Keep well, stay safe, much love Xx