Words of Interest

Friday was another day of moving on, which meant locking up the house in Pudsey. I always struggle with this and what made it harder this time was that someone had put a jumper over the front gate. I'm assuming someone lost it, but it made me somewhat uncomfortable, so I had to move it onto the wall. Still, with that job done, I was soon on my way to Liverpool where I was due to meet Procyon that evening.

He picked me up at Lime Street station and we headed into the city to try and grab some food. We swerved the Christmas Market on account of me having all of my luggage with me and settled on Fat Hippo, a place I had wanted to try in Leeds but discovered was a chain. This was fine, although I was expecting them to offer to replace Procyon's burger after he had taken a bite of it and his patty had slathered out onto the floor, but clearly not. The waitress was new and maybe that was why, but I am not sure. Anyway, I had a decidedly average chicken burger and some hand cut chips that weren't too dissimilar to the fries that Procyon had ordered. Still, the blue cheese dip was decent at least.

Continuing the average experiences, we then headed to Brewdog so I could collect the stamps in my Visa 3.0. Even though I have very much fallen out of love with the brand, as with Newcastle last week, if I happen to be in a city with a bar then I would probably visit. Alas, not many other people had done the same, as the bar was rather sparsely populated, perhaps being one-third full. Still, I managed to pick up my free birthday beer and we had a nice chat.

It was then back to Procyon's to drop all my bags and offer him a piece of my delicious unicorn cake. This had been given to me by Patter in Newcastle last week, but we didn't get chance to share it. This meant that it was left to me to eat the whole thing, which apparently serves 18 people. Consequently I was glad of the help, and the raccoon obliged. I wish he'd had more really, as I ended up leaving about a quarter of it in my hotel room in Manchester this afternoon, but it was quite sweet so you couldn't eat much of it. I also gave him some cheese, ham and chicken that I hadn't eaten from the week as I had over shopped.

One of the reasons I was in Liverpool was to try the bars of the Baltic Triangle. Many of these are craft brewery taprooms so unfortunately they shut early. The main place Procyon wanted to take me to was Kiosk, an underground bar full of kistch things that can best be described as flammable. The guy who owns it, along with his assistant, is somewhat cooky and that just added to the whole light experience. It's the sort of place where you share tables and get to meet strangers over a pint, and although we tucked ourselves into a corner, the atmosphere was no less reveling. We toyed with going to other bars, but this place shut at midnight whereas most of the others in the area were earlier. I am glad we didn't go early as we got to experience the last orders vuvuzela and the time's up horns, which added to the madness of the evening.

After this, we went to a place that looked like an arts centre, but turned out to be a banging club of the sort that give me a headache. Therefore, we headed home after picking up some Worcester Sauce flavoured crisps en route. When back at the raccoon's place, we chatted some more and I showed him the Harry Enfield Scousers characters that I don't think he understood.

The next morning was an early one, albeit one that was difficult to rise for, as I was due to visit my uncle and aunt in Liverpool's northern suburbs. This saw me leave Procyon's at around 9:30am destined for Moorfields station, from where I used the excellent Merseyrail system to head north. My uncle picked me up and after stopping at a Morrison's Local to get some deodorant, I was soon at his house. We are looking at writing a book together, so this discussion took up most of the morning, then my aunt had cooked me a wonderful steak pie with mashed potatoes and peas. The afternoon was spent watching football or talking, catching up mainly as I hadn't seen them in over a year. My uncle then drove me back into Liverpool so I could catch my train back to Manchester. I had booked the 17:19 service and feared it would be swamped by Nottingham Forest fans on their way back from Anfield, but fortunately most of them hadn't reached the station in time.

Animalz was my next destination and I was feeling somewhat apprehensive. Indeed that and the excessive drinking of the last two days had made my bottom something of a foghorn. This continued into the event itself unfortunately, where I had to fart discreetly. There was a tight turnaround between getting into my hotel and getting to the event and with Shiro bailing, I needed to find someone who could help me get into my pet suit. Fortunately, Sy was obliging and I didn't delay him too long. Indeed, we were still in the queue about 15 minutes early and although I had my top half covered by a t-shirt I'll admit it was a thrill walking around central Manchester in my pet suit, despite the biting cold.

I wasn't going to stay too long at Animalz, maybe for three to four hours, but in the end I was there until past 2am from a 7:30pm start. Within the first half hour I was dancing on the stage and although I didn't get to do any dark room fun, I did enjoy chatting with loads of people I hadn't seen for a while. I hung around Sy quite a bit initially, and Skavi and Dorje came about an hour later. Then it was largely Stray all the way once he had gotten off his cloakroom shift at around 9:30pm. There were loads of other friends there too like Dirian, Ellie, Loui, Tommah and even Iffy, who I hadn't seen in over a decade. Quite a few were asking about Wolfie and why he wasn't there, so I had explain his foot situation a few times. That does seem to be getting better at least.

The only negative really was the insane prices of beer. £6.67 for a bottle of Budweiser, £7.12 for a bottle of Peroni, is obscene but I had to have bottles due to the pet hood. At one point, Stray kindly let me try his Smitzen paws and doberman hood, which are both incredibly heavy but also incredibly restrictive, making you morph into the character. I really loved wearing these, along with meeting his harem, while we went outside to take a few pictures too. As I say, it was a fun evening and we stayed long after it ended, but I do wish I had more body confidence. I would have liked to have played in the dark room but aside from arranging things beforehand - which I tried to do but then people didn't come to the event - I'm not sure what else I can do. The only form of intercourse I seem to be able to do is talking and I can't seem to get over that. It's all a little frustrating.

I was feeling quite tired towards the end but Stray insisted I went to a takeaway called Rody's, which saw me stay longer than intended. Lupin also kindly bought me a drink, so we didn't get to have food until much later. It seemed most of the furries had descended on here. I wasn't too hungry as my lunch had been huge, but I thought I should probably eat and Stray insisted he'd buy. In the end I had a hotdog with BBQ sauce which was okay - I didn't reckon much to the sauce - and some cajun fries which were delicious. I ate these back at my hotel room after saying goodbye to Stray and Lupin, while watching Stephen Manghan's version of Deal or No Deal. I hadn't realised he'd taken it over.

I had booked an extended checkout so treated myself to a lie-in. I got up around 2pm, ate a little more of my unicorn birthday cake, then had a shower. I've been needing shoes for some time so I thought I'd get to Clark's, which turned to be a greater battle than I'd expected what with the Christmas shoppers. Also, I had to go to the Arndale as the other Clark's shop was just an outlet store. That was absolute hell, but I did get my shoes, at a bargain price of £45 due to their Black Friday Sale. I am sure I paid over £70 for the same pair of shoes last October. They also kindly disposed of my old shoes for me, as I was getting a flight and I couldn't really take them back.

Then it was back to Manchester Airport for the usual procedure. I stopped at Greggs along the way to get some proper food and my birthday treat before making my way to my flight. This was all pretty standard stuff, although EasyJet has now been moved to Terminal 2 which is a far better experience. I didn't fancy alcohol so once I'd gone through security, I opted for a WHSmith meal deal and sat on a table looking for jobs. I saw Fox B and Orona but I couldn't drag their attention. I assume they were both travelling back to Berlin on the same flight as I. The flight itself was about 20 minutes late, but I got back to Spandau at around midnight after a wonderful nine days in the UK.

There are many hard decisions to come I feel. It's certainly true that nearly all of our friends and family are in the UK and I have a much happier time there. It's also true that being there will significantly reduce our overheads. However, the poor public transport, the general trajectory of society, and the outright racism I witnessed first-hand during the trip are all huge negatives. Ultimately, I don't know what we are going to do, and I have been feeling this for a few years now. I do hope the answers become clearer soon.

I fell ill during the middle of the week, meaning I had to take Thursday off work. I probably should have taken Wednesday off too, while I also had to finish early on Friday as I couldn't hack it. I did everything I needed to, but sometimes I probably flog myself too hard in my desire not to let people down. Adding to the difficulties was Wolfie's foot, which reacted badly to our night out at Fuerst Wiacek, the NFL, and his need to go to the doctor on Monday to get some routine bloodwork done. His foot started descending at the same time as my health and by Wednesday, he could barely walk. This meant that he couldn't go and get his test results, nor could he do very much really. He was effectively bedridden, needing to hop to the toilet. On top of my illness, I therefore had to go and get him pills from the pharmacy, as well as doing all the cooking and cleaning. It was exceptionally difficult, what with going away on the Friday evening. We had planned this trip back to the UK for a while and despite ordering some crutches for Wolfie, ultimately he was in no fit state to travel back. He rearranged his flight to next Wednesday, while we agreed I would travel back as planned. This is what I ended up doing, spending a good chunk of time on my own at BER airport with two BRLO beers in hand, with the SOS Mayday collab with Brewdog being particularly pleasant.

It was just as well he didn't come back in the end as hell descended once I landed back in Manchester. There had been a heavy storm throughout the day and the landing itself was hairy. However, I passed through security quickly, only to be greeted to the fact that all trains and trams from the airport had been cancelled. I toyed with booking a hotel, but I was advised to get the number 43 bus into the city centre, from where I could pick up a train to Leeds. The main problem he was that the number 43 is a stopping service that only runs every half hour and loads of people wanted to get on it. Consequently, it was absolutely rammed, but at least I got a seat. As we trundled along, it became increasingly clear it would take forever to get to Piccadilly, from where I had booked a ticket on the 01:03 service. This was due to leave an hour and a half after we had left the airport, but it was clear it would be tight. The atmosphere was quite tense, made worse when a gobby woman started having a go at a Spanish tourist for reasons unknown. The word 'fuck' was every third word and she kept saying 'I'm not speaking to the Spanish' before extolling how she was 'proud to be British'. She was an example of this country's abject descent into racism and rancour over the last few months and yet it was still disheartening to hear these disgusting slurs. Once she had thankfully gone, another bloke got pissy about the bell being dinged for every stop. To be fair, it was annoying, but the bus was so cramped, it was clear it was just people accidentally hitting the button with various parts of their body. However, he thought people were doing it deliberately and they were laughing about it, so cue another potential fight.

By the time we got to Withington, I was ready to scream, and it was here where the students embarked. To be fair to them, they were being rowdy not racist, and as we approached the city centre, they advised me where to get off to have the best chance of making my train. This turned out to be correct but upon arriving at Platform 3, we were advised the train would be departing from Platform 14 at the arse end of the station with only three minutes notice. As it turned out, we needn't have worried as a Trans Pennine Express train turned up ten minutes late and sat there mockingly, while the bitter wind blasted down the platform. Apparently, this train was 'Delayed' and I know this basically is a prelude to cancellation. I therefore dropped Doveux a message, who had been following my progress for much of the last hour, and he agreed I could stay at his. Once I had arrived, having taken an Uber, I learnt that the train had indeed been cancelled and thus I had little other option. I was grateful to Doveux for putting me up, and for the hour-long chat we had prior to going to bed, not to mention the wee dram of whisky too. I also enjoyed the knocked over wheely bins I saw, a true sign of British chaos. The next morning, there was some polystyrene packaging that had been blown outside his front gate.

We awoke at about 10:15am with Doveux having the desire to go to Greggs as he had a free breakfast to claim. This is what we did, with me having a bacon sandwich as they had run out of sausage. The lady incorrectly gave me brown sauce first and looked at me as if it were my fault. Still, the Greggs was busy so it must have been a hard morning. After this, I headed over to ASDA to pick up some toothpaste and deodorant, as I had expected to come back to Pudsey and pick some up. We then headed back to Doveux's, where Patter was waiting. After a quick shower, we then headed out to the Leeds meet, where we arrived shortly after 1:30pm.

I grabbed my third Greggs of the trip before going to the venue, mingling and chatting with a range of people. The weather was still gash so there was no walk, only a photo, while I agreed to look after one of the radios and keep an eye out for people who had brought outside food into the venue. Apart from that, the meet was just a social one, with a few drinks and catching up with many of my furry friends. I also picked up my fantastic sparkly new fursuit paws from Uno, which fit perfectly. The feet paws are to come, but it looks like the fur she has found will be a perfect match for the rest of my suit.

We left the meet at around 4:30pm, with the aim of getting to Newcastle for some dinner. Ever since I had found out about Greggs opening a pub called The Golden Flake in the city, I knew we had to try it. Doveux had tried to book a spot a few weeks back, but accommodating eight people proved to be tricky and they told us they were fully booked. However, with Wolfie out and Dorje not coming, I thought that six would be a more manageable number. I also thought there would be a reasonable chance that someone would cancel - either through illness or the weather - so we travelled up to Geordieland with the idea that we would try our luck on Sunday morning. This is what we had been advised to do by the Greggs people and it proved to be wise. The journey itself was uneventful, but we did have to stop off at Wetherby Services to deal with my embarrassingly weak bladder. This also afforded me to go to my fourth Greggs of the trip, where I picked up a surprisingly tasty and succulent vegan festive bake. After we had eaten, but before we had set back off on the road, I needed to go for my second piss at the services. Fortunately, we didn't need to stop any more.

The second car - featuring Sy, Procyon and Skavi - didn't have to make the stop so they got to our accommodation about 15 minutes before we did. In the west of the city, it was a furnished apartment that was like an Air BnB but not quite. The area wasn't too bad and I was delighted to see that someone called Jeff was available for all your photocopying needs. Once we got settled into the accommodation, we realised that it being for eight people was somewhat optimistic, not least because the fold-down bed settee was clearly buggered. It wouldn't lie flat, with a weird undulating shape, and the owner of the place wouldn't pick up the phone to help us. In the end, we were quite relieved that our party numbered six rather than eight as I think we would have struggled with having more people.

We headed into the centre of Newcastle at around 8pm, with our first stop being the Free Trade Inn in the east of the city. As this was Doveux's patch, he was effectively in charge, while the views from the car park over the River Tyne towards the bridges were quite wondrous. This pub hasn't changed in years, yet it does have a wide range of excellent beers on tap. There was also a pub cat at one point, that was only there for three-and-a-half years. There was a lively atmosphere too, with my favourite person being the "no, no, no, no, fuck off!" guy like a rude Jim Trott from the Vicar of Dibley. This place was having a lager tap takeover going on, so there were even more interesting beers than usual. This made for an excellent start to the evening and the vibe was relaxed, albeit rather busy. You'd expect that on a Saturday night though and we were to discover that Newcastle on a weekend is quite the party city.

Doveux had made a booking at the Khai Khai Indian restaurant but the only time they could fit us in was 9:30pm. This meant we stayed at the Free Trade Inn for just over an hour before descending onto the riverbank to walk back to the city centre. We got to the restaurant bang on time and soon I was having sumptuous chicken tikka. I should have probably ordered a more saucy curry, but the meat was flavoured well. We also decided to share the sides so I had my pick of garlic naan, keemer naan, Bombay aloo and greens. We also had poppadoms of course with three dips, one of them containing taramand. It was a really classy place and definitely a good option, while I was to be affirmed in my decision to go for the coconut lassi rather than a beer later in the evening. I did have coconut bits in my teeth for the rest of the evening though.

We went to a few more bars after this. The Bridge Tavern was first and it was the place we went after Wolfie's exhaust had fallen off during our last visit to Newcastle back in 2018. This was somewhat rowdy and busy, getting increasingly so as the night wore on, while the seating arrangement around the table was somewhat tricky. After this, we stuck our snoots into the Crown Posada, a narrow pub in an old Victorian style. This was a little too rammed for us and Doveux was tempted to go home, although he ended up picking up a second wind at the Head of Steam. This was a very old and rundown bar, but it was full of fans of The Offspring, who were playing a gig in Newcastle that night (indeed we had seen the arena getting full as we drove over the bridge into the city for the first time). I had seen them on this very same tour three weeks ago so I ended up chatting with a couple for a while, with the man wearing a t-shirt from the band. Here there was also a very pissed man from Northampton with beer down his cranberry-coloured shirt and very moist lips, but he seeemed nice enough.

There was talk about going to Rusty's Showbar - a bouncing clubbing venue right where the old Newcastle meets used to be in the Baron and Baronness - but we were feeling tired and didn't like the vibe. I had grabbed a vegan sausage roll from Greggs before this - marking five of five Greggs meals thus far - and in the queue a drunk man was munching on a packet of crisps. He just ignored the security guard who tried to usher him out, but the security guard was somewhat half-hearted in this pursuit. In the end, we headed back to our digs, where we divvied up the beds. I ended up sharing with Procyon and despite a very loud domestic outside our window that I completely failed to hear, I slept incredibly well apart from my bladder doing its usual thing at six in the bastard morning.

I awoke with little hangover on Sunday, having had six alcoholic pints spread out over about 12 hours, but I wanted to ease into the day. I was still recovering from this damn cold. However, there was an excited voice while I was sat on the toilet doing my morning constitutional - Skavi had managed to book a table for six of us at The Golden Flake. The drawback? It was at 11:15am, thirty-five minutes from the time at that point. This saw me finish up quickly, pack everything up, leave the apartment and check Jeff was still offering printing services before we got into the cars and headed to the city centre. We parked at the Times Square car park and spent five minutes in a lift going up and down, or with doors that kept opening and closing, for no good reason. This meant we were going to be about ten minutes late, but fortunately Skavi phoned ahead to tell them.

Finding the Greggs pub in Fenwicks was no simple task and we did have to ask for directions, being guided to the back of the first floor. The poor group in front of us were turned away as they hadn't made a reservation, but ours had been kept so we were ushered through. As it was Sunday, it was Sunday roast day, which was essentially a usual roast but the meat was replaced by a steak bake. The service was a little slow, but the food itself was decent enough, although I would say mid-tier. The steak bake did work surprisingly well, with the internal gravy mixing well with the external stuff, but the highlight was the cauliflower cheese due to the tanginess of the cheese and the tartness of the mustard. The Yorkshire pudding was dry and a bit of a disappointment, but the vegetables were crunchy. We were served at our table, while we were permitted to get seconds from the buffet trolley at one end of the room. However, we were all so stuffed that we didn't really fancy more. Some of us, including me, did get a yum yum bread and butter pudding with custard which was, fine. Ultimately, I am glad we were able to do the primary thing we had come to Newcastle to do, and although at £20 for the food (£17.50 for the main course) I didn't feel ripped off, I suspect there are better roasts to be had in the city. Still the novelty was rather good and we left satisfied. It also meant my Greggs record was six out of six, with some of my friends challenging me to visit every Greggs in the UK. There are 2,563 of them apparently, so only 2,557 to go.

On the way out, we called at the Food Hall to pick up some beers, including the two specially brewed for The Golden Flake. These are a lager and the jammy IPA, both from Full Circle Brewing, with me having the latter. This was something of an acquired taste as the sweet jam didn't quite work with the bitterness of the beer, not least initially. Still, it did grow on me.

After this, we split. Doveux, Procyon and Patter wanted to ride the Metro as the new trains have come into service. Skavi wanted to go straight to the Newcastle Meet as he had a friend there, while Sy and I decided to go back to their car to drop off our beers. En route, he agreed to go to Brewdog so I could pick up the Newcastle stamps. I am not that big into Brewdog these days, but if there's an opportunity to get a stamp in a city I happen to be in, I will likely take it. Doveux wasn't too keen about going to Brewdog on Saturday evening, so it was great to go on Sunday, as well as have a nice chat with Sy. They even let me put my own stamps in the visas. The beer itself was pleasant enough and we tucked ourselves away in a little cubby hole for our talk. Procyon had never been to Newcastle before, so him riding on the Metro was probably a good thing, not least because he got to go over the river on a train. Doveux was happy too as two of the three trains he rode were the new ones. I'd liked to have ridden them myself, but there will be plenty of other opportunities.

We then went back to the car, dropped the beers off (and I picked up my passport which I had foolishly left there) then we headed to the meet. This was in the basement of a bar called Twenty Twenty, right on the Bigg Market, opposite Hooters. I had messaged Arcais in celebratory fashion when I noticed that Newcastle has a Hooters now and she is equally excited. I had actually been alerted to it the night before when I saw it advertised on a phone box. Once we were directed to the meet, we had a fun couple of hours catching up with Saul, Dirian and a few others although the Camden Pale was not sitting very well with me. It was quite a chill event and I was on decent form, although I have spent much of the weekend wondering whether my exuberance has just pissed people off. I hope not, but sometimes I can be a bit odd. Anyway, the meet thinned out quite quickly and there wasn't too much space to fursuit, although the vibe was certainly chill. Having just one male toilet was an issue though and my stomach was not happy with the beer and six Greggs I had given it over the previous 48 hours. Still, I am glad we went, but alas we needed to head off early as people needed to drive back to Manchester and Liverpool.

On the way back to the cars, we went to my seventh Greggs, where I picked up some stoties, not fancying another pasty (for the first time in my life). We also noticed a business called Raccoon Removals with a cute mascot character, so of course we had to stop. Procyon and Sy obviously took the most photographs. At the car park, we split up again, this time with Sy driving me back, who kindly dropped me home in Pudsey. It was another nice chat as we headed down the motorway and I feel very fortunate I have some cool close friends who are willing to put up with me and do silly shit such as this. It has definitely been a fabulous weekend and we all achieved what we wanted to do. As I said while we were in Newcastle, the Greggs Pub was the excuse to have a gathering, and you often need one. Yes, it was ridiculous, but it wouldn't have mattered had we not done it in a way (although I would have been gutted). The point was we all did something together for the first time in a while and that was reason enough. It is also another tick in the chart towards moving back to the UK, as people have been encouraging us to do. It's certainly becoming more tempting, but let's see how that will play out. The blatant racism I overheard on that bus the other day was one tick in the negative column so I'm really torn. No decision needs to be made yet though so in the meantime, we'll see what the rest of this trip back to the UK brings.