Monday, December 30, 2024

TOTTIE HAS LANDED.

 


Tottie. I’ve landed, exhausted, 18 hours in a plane with hundreds of strangers is not my idea of fun, but then there really is no other way. Unlike Tom I really couldn’t splash out and go business class. I should have booked a seat but ended up right at the back by the toilets and no chance of sleeping. At Dubai I was sure my luggage would be lost, but miraculously it all appeared on the carrousel at Perth. I tried to take a leaf out of Tom’s book when packing but still ended up with two large bags, and somehow managed to stay under the limit. I know I’m only here for a month, but shoes take up so much room. Charley’s youngest daughter Nicky picked me up from the airport holding a large handwritten NADIN sign. I’d already been in touch with her and she hugged me like the long lost relative that I am. We stayed up chatting into the night, looking at old photos of Tom’s previous visits, and I can now understand why he wanted to make it out here again. I’m so excited to meet them all at New Year, and Charley has said I must join them on the trip over to Bremer Bay.

New Year, mid-morning. We’d made an early start and arrived at Kent Road just in time for coffee. They were all waiting on the front door step as we drove up, Lara Charley and father-in-law Tim, and two other visiting friends, but Tom was nowhere to be seen. I wondered if he’d done another one of his disappearing tricks, or had caught wind of my arrival and was now hiding in the walk in wardrobe. After hugs we unpacked the boot and Charley lugged my cases in. They had a house full for New Year so he popped my things into the first bedroom, which l thought might have been Tom’s since it had what looked like his latest needlework propped up against the wall. Once into the kitchen Charley shouted to Tom down in the sitting room that someone was here to see him. He struggled out of the chair and stood for a short while rubbing his hip before looking our way. It’s difficult to describe the look on his face, some sort of strange mix of delight and shock horror rippled across it in quick succession. A somewhat forced smile and look of embarrassment followed by, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Well that’s a fine way to greet a friend”, said Charley, and I began to question the wisdom of making my visit a surprise.  Tom recovered quickly with a large grin, and we made a rather awkward embrace as everyone looked on, obviously delighted by our reunion. Thankfully it was Charley who took over from there, explaining how the secret of my arrival had been kept, however I could see that a more expansive back story was required. Charley was all ready to whisk us off to the beach in the Land Rover for their traditional New Year’s Eve brunch, but it was Lara (a very wise and observant woman) who suggested that maybe we would like some time together to catch up. So, off they all went and left us to have coffee by the pool.

Tom. “What the fuck!” I knew something was up, but I didn’t see this one coming. Tottie in WA was simply not on my radar. I’d known about her looking into her family tree, but thought little of it. Now here she was. We sat in silence for several minutes out by the pool, while both of us wondered what to say. I thought she was going to burst into tears, but then all of sudden she roared with laughter. “The look on your face was priceless”, and I began to see the funny side of it all. Right from the start we’d been doing this ridiculously clumsy dance around each other, and it was time to get in step. So, yes; I’ve been on a female hormone treatment for the past 18 months, my body has changed shape, and at times my emotions were all over the place, torn between mourning the loss of my masculinity and embracing my newfound female side. Coming to terms with being a chemically neutered man is not easy. There is both anger and disgust in equal measure, but an overriding powerlessness to change what is inevitable if one wants to continue living. More than ever now I thought myself lucky to have done that work back in my mid-thirties on discovering what made me tick. However, I still felt ill equipped to deal with such an unexpected turn of event. Nobody thinks they are going to get cancer, why would they. We drift blindfold into the future rarely giving a thought to what is inevitable. Advanced age brings with it infirmity and illness. We become our own pill-popping parents, something we said would never happen to us, and yet here we are fighting for our lives, every day another miraculous blessing, or a determined struggle with the bum hand of cards we’ve been dealt. I can now look Tottie in the face and know she has always been a part of me, quietly hidden from public view. Remembering now how I loved as a child to go through that box of my mother’s old clothes, to twirl around and dance in a long frock, and later in life the pleasure I derived from putting on makeup for a party, and to be what we saw as being outrageous. The hormone treatment I’ve received has simply made me look again, and I do now see that as a positive thing. I can count myself fortunate in having this opportunity of experience. Tottie will always be with me, we are one in the same person. I feel different for sure, but I also feel complete, wiser and more powerful, and nothing like that which society sees as being “A REAL MAN”. I hope that over the past year you have enjoyed reading about my adventures with Tottie, and will continue to enjoy the part she now plays in my life. We also hope you will continue to enjoy our creative output, be it with a needle, paintbrush or some other manual skill. No sooner had my latest piece come off the stretcher than another old section of blanket took its place. This time it is the turn of the tiny jetty that sits south of the Clannish stones. I’m part way into the drawing but still have little idea of what it will look like when complete. Much like my own life, I love the often random way in which it has developed.          

Thursday, December 26, 2024

SURPRISES.

 

Tottie. I can’t believe I’m actually doing this, freedom from work and flying to Western Australia. I’ve never been out of Europe, and to be down under during their summer has got to be experienced even with all those spiders and snakes. Charley has insisted that I stay with them in Bunbury and that I keep my arrival a secret from Tom. I can’t wait to see the look on his face.


Tom. There's something afoot, I can tell. Christmas day was fine no nasty surprises there, too much food and insufficient discipline to resist it, but Charley just loves a surprise and I think it has something to do with our planned trip to Bremer Bay. I’ve had a look on line, and the latest thing on offer was whale watching day trips. That's eight hours at sea, fifty miles off shore and the Southern Ocean can be rough. I really don’t want to spend a day feeling sick with a boatload of whale hunting tourists. I may have to grin and bear it. Another piece of my artwork was hung shortly before Christmas, a present from Charley to Lara for their 25th anniversary. The needlework still life I consider to be one of my best, and I’m delighted it now hangs in their home. There are quite a few other works here, which makes the place feel even more like a home from home, but it’s the back of the kitchen door, a piece of artwork in itself, where my height is recorded along with the children and other friends that really places me here.


   

Friday, December 20, 2024

TOTTIE AND ME.

 

I thought I might have heard from Tottie by now since I’d given her my address before leaving. She must have worked out her notice, and she had mentioned something about researching for a book. Most likely she’s gone into hibernation for the winter and I can’t blame her for that. I suppose I was a bit grumpy during the summer months with her constant dropping in, but now I find I quite miss her showing interest in what I’m up to. I had hoped in my absence she might head down to London and do a little article on my latest show, but not a word. Then I tell myself, why would she be interested beyond her work? I think I was reading too much into this friendship and yet she was full of questions about Charley and his family.

My visit to WA is already half way through, the time has been well spent with this my second family. The sketch pad is filling up, the stitching is my constant companion, and I even managed to sell a few of my old paintings that remained from previous exhibitions I’ve had in WA. A trip down to Walpole and the giant Tingle trees meant I could once again say hello to these most impressive of trees.

 


I have in the past spent hours sitting quietly sketching them, and during one very still early morning I could swear I heard them talking in a low mumble. This time I felt sure they knew I had returned, and yet I hear you ask could know that. Well if I felt it that’s good enough for me. I knew from the outset this trip would be a great mixture of emotional reunions and equally difficult goodbyes, but I am so glad I took that opportunity when it presented itself as doable. I feared that the heat of summer would increase my hot flushes, but they seem to have been within bounds, and there has always been the pool or ocean to cool off in. Hopefully in the New Year I will have plenty of opportunities to swim again in the cooler Southern Ocean when we head off to Bremmer Bay for a week. It must be fifteen years since I’ve been there, the first time I stayed on the campsite and received my first experience of a bull ant bight, not one to be repeated. Later trips gave rise to several oils, all of which  sold.








Christmas is likely to be a much larger gathering than I’m used to, and a big contrast to a quiet day without presents, spent with my brother in Cornwall. Hear the decorations are up; lights on the tree and presents under, wreaths at the windows and homemade Christmas pudding hanging in the larder. The organisation has been ordered and a drive to keep things simple is our goal. Thankfully the temperature that are now in the mid 30’s are due to abate and drop back to a pleasant 24 on the day.


Meanwhile I continue stitching and am nearing the completion of another rather complex stump work ticking sampler. I am constantly trying to push the boundaries and this example is the first that has taken on a totally symmetrical form. The initial idea was to have two birds perched on the entrance post of a house, but since the stitching of these samplers is a slow process the chances are that it will always become complex as all good samplers should.