Looking back on 2011

Yes, I do hope to get in one more post this year on Saturday, but that will be looking forward to 2012, so call this the annual review lol.

2011 has been an interesting year to say the least. Its the first year I actually travelled on a passport that said Ms, rather than Mr, and believe me, that was a special moment. Even if due to the wonders of our ‘beloved’ passport office, I still have to show gender as male! The good news, it seemed most places I travelled, the vast majority of people disagreed with that, assuming I was, or making it very clear they thought I was female. Its another reason for loving Boston to be honest, no one would have believed my gender on my passport lol! Nowadays I use the unisex toilets at work, solves all problems for everyone, and is fine by me to be honest.

The only down side to the whole thing has been Leeds GIC, who I have now totally given up on doing anything to help my gender change, and just settling for what changes my body wants to make for itself, some of them quite remarkable ones it must be said.

I guess its not hard to work out my cricketing highlight of the year, Ireland beating England in the World Cup just has to be the one. For a while I was just hoping for respectability, but Kevin O’Brien ensured so much more than that. Getting to see them play live in Belfast beating Namibia twice, was a treat all the same. We’ve made a good start to qualifying for the next World Cup too, lets hope that continues in the New Year, as well as hopefully retrieving the Inter Continental 4 day cup as well, though it will actually be 2013 before both of those conclude.

International travel wise, there were 3 trips this year, 1 mentioned above. The other 2 were Toronto (for the first time beyond the airport transit area) and Boston (for the first time in nearly 25 years!). I really enjoyed both cities, and would love to get back to both soon, though 1 is more likely to happen very quickly (like next year maybe?) than the other, though hopefully it wont be too long before I’m in Canada again. People I met have been well covered in previous postings, so just a brief thanks to Kate, James, and the people of those 2 great cities for some wonderful memories. Especially those in Boston that made it clear they wouldnt have thought I needed any surgery to be a woman!

Work, well its been a pretty good year, no real hassles beyond toilet issues (now solved) and the need to find somewhere else for next years Christmas dinner, please! The staff in the shops I have to take calls from, mmf, no comment on some of them!

Life, well I’ve started writing again, though my suspicion is the current story is going to be a one off, well who knows, I’ve certainly enjoyed writing it, though I suspect the inspiration has helped on that front all the same. The one thing I have noticed is that my body is beginning to age, and not gracefully in terms of joints. The knees are beginning to give me more grief, the back definitely is, and thats why next April will be the last west coast of US trip for the foreseeable future, it just hurts the body too much with all that sitting still on the planes for so long. It might be daft doing one more trip, but did want to see Seattle one more time at least.

The blog however will hopefully go sailing on sweetly, at least thats the plan.

The video, well I’m told there is an artist with a very similar name to mine, so lets give her a run out here. Funnily enough I knew the Corrs version of this song better, and had no idea she had written it in the first place. So, for the penultimate video of the year (and yes, the last one will be utterly obvious) lets see what dreams we can come up with for next year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_SYjv6HxRI&feature=related