It Wasn't Exactly the Riviera...


Is Yorkshire always chilly?


23 July 2000: It Wasn't Exactly the Riviera...

I got up bright and early and had a silent, overcast breakfast of tea, corn flakes, a fried egg, bangers, and toast with marmelade and butter. My arteries and I then decided to get over to the train station as soon as possible.

Coventry is a mess of concrete. It was bombed out during WWII, and rebuilt horribly. The chewy medieval centre is surrounded by concrete now. There are lot of Indians in Coventry, too. I found this out when we drove through a bit of town that J described as "dodgy" but it turns out she only saw it as being rough because it was Indian, not because it's actually unsafe. It's unfortunate that people fear things that are different.

Meanwhile, as predicted, the train I needed was cancelled, but the earlier one was leaving in two minutes of my arrival at the station, so I made it aboard and still had a sec to buy some water and chocolate.

I had time to kill at Birmingham New Street station, so I rang up my friends, whom I was meeting in Leeds, and waited for the bloody awful Virgin train, which arrived late, and then also was delayed at Sheffield, waiting for a platform. I got a good look at Sheffield from the train. Lots of old industry sites, and the attached homes on the hill looked just as they did in The Full Monty.

I finally got to Leeds, 40 minutes late! They made us queue up and show our tickets at a gate as we left. Utter nonsense. My friend M was waiting for me there. He's a nice patient soul. He's a gay Quaker, so I figure tolerance comes with his territory. Plus he has a new boyfriend, S, so he's in a good mood.

We drove up to Hype Park in Leeds, to HYDEout, a gay pride event for Yorkshire. I sat with him and S and other folks from the gay Quaker groups. HYDEout is in its third year, but the corporate sponsorship has caught up with it. Gay.com's yellow bags were everywhere, and they contained Strawberry Volvic water (mineral water with sugar--how silly), all manner of licorice and fruit pastilles, and other samples and paraphernalia.

HYDEout is a big picnic ringed by tents with merchandise and food vendors, a disco tent, and a stage with entertainment that went largely ignored until disco diva Hazel Dean took that stage late in the day.

It was a nice day, but it was absolutely freezing, given it was July. A and A from Upper Mill near Mancester came up for the day and had a really beautiful and well coordinated spread. They'd have made Martha Stewart proud. They wore shorts and froze worse than us. Only M and S, who've only known each other for a fortnight, didn't mind the chill. Ah, the warmth of limerance.

What the Quaker blanket did not have in accessories, they made up for in originality. S2, a lesbian Quaker, made a cake to celebrate another members 21 years of being out. It was a chocolate fortress! Yodels were the turrets and Cadbury fingers were the F-Troop-like walls. Two Lego men were locked in an embrace on top of it all. Bunting connected the turrets.

While waiting on line at the portaloos, I overheard a dizzy circuit conversation.

"He was at all the Nottingham bars," said gossipy friend A.

"There's Nottingham bars?" friend B asked without a trace of irony or bitchiness

I guess Geographic Undesirability is universal. Nottingham is to Leeds what Kearny, NJ is to New York City, I guess.

What was interesting that day was the preponderance of straight couples with children, and a lot of dogs. It seemed like a real family affair. Straight people were there to be with their gay and lesbian friends. I also met C, a transgendered person who is now a woman. She told me how she does not see her children or grandchildren. Her children don't know how to deal with, as C puts it, "What I am." Seems the concern with What is far overshadowing Who, and that's a horrible shame, because C is a wonderful woman, and would be a good mother and grandmother. So what if she started out a father first?

At about 6 pm we drove to Harrogate. En route there, we drove along a scenic overlook that gave us a view of a wonderful valley, the kind you only see in movies. It reminded me of the valley they had in the movie about C.S. Lewis, which starred Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger. I cannot remember it just now.

Harrogate has a lot of grand old hotels. Apparently it was the place to go for turkish baths. The Czar Nicholas II and his family came here once. Now there are lots of conventions and conferences held in Harrogate.

After S left for work and S2 left for home, M and I talked until about 11 am. I neglected to ask about dinner. I was so hungry I ate the breakfast bar in my gay.com bag. The sun sets a full hour later in the UK than it does in the US, so it's easy to forget it's later than you think.

Posted: Sun - July 23, 2000 at 01:50 AM        

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