"I wasn't expecting you to know the words to a song that I don't at Goths on a Field!" D just said.

I wasn't either. I'm here because I love doing anything with him and I didn't want to be away from him all weekend (especially after I was away the precious two days!). But I don't like camping and I don't like a lot of goth music.

But this evening has been a lot of folk and vaudeville kind of things. The song I knew, sung so amazingly by The Midsommars, I know as "Magpie" from the amazing Unthanks album Mount the Air.

Exeter was great. I saw an old friend C who I'd forgotten had moved there years ago! Lovely to see his new life: his partner and how cozily entangled their lives are, carving out queer space in a city that otherwise doesn't have much; his drag queen persona (I love trans men as drag queens so much); his new and very different career.

The meeting this morning that I was actually in Exeter for seemed to go as well as it could have.

I made good friends with my Guide Dogs counterpart for the day. He covers the southwest and we don't currently have a person to cover the southwest which is why I was there. But he lives so far from Exeter he had also traveled up last night -- we got Told that our meeting was at 10am, even that clearly wasn't ideal for either of us! -- staying in the same Premier Inn as me (it's perfect, you come out of the train station and it's right there ahead of you with a giant sign, most accessible hotel ever). We ran in to each other waiting to board the same bus to the Bad Bus Stops we were here to look at: him with his guide dog and me with my cane, both wondering if the other one was who we thought it was.

We made a good double act, backing each other up on our less well-received points. I'm sad he's so far away! But he's in the part of the southwest I'm more often visiting and I'm super tempted to invite him for a drink if I get the chance!

I had a long journey back, not as crowded or overheated as yesterday's until Birmingham, but with delays it was still two hours after that before I got home.

I stumbled in, drank a lot of ice water, had a shower, ate some dinner (lovely angelofthenorth had made mushroom risotto!), drank some more water, and now I'm lying in front of a fan.

I'm glad to be back home, where there are fans and ice. I bought an iced coffee this morning and there was no ice in it. It wasn't even cold! It was, like, I forgot about this cup of coffee cold, not iced-coffee cold. Ugh. I drank it anyway, but I pined for ice all day. It was 84°F in Exeter, and the first half of our meeting did involve walking up and down a road to look at its terrible bus stops (they really were terrible too -- really did have to be seen to be believed).

I've agreed to go camping this weekend, so I'm enjoying the ice and fans while I can!

At least for camping I won't have to wear my work clothes! I wore a proper shirt for the meeting this morning but immediately afterward took it off of course. I considered jettisoning the binder as well, but the t-shirt I had grabbed to change in to is a tank top and I didn't like that. The binder, my new white one, was extremely visible under the black tank top as it has a higher neckline and wider straps, but I decided that I did not care at all. It was much more comfy and it just looked like I'd layered two different tank tops. The train staff who provided my assistance and checked my tickets didn't misgender me or act weird about it or anything.

After a lunch I couldn't do more than pick at, and a difficult conversation that both did and didn't surprise me, regarding the particulars of the factually-inaccurate version of me that I already knew lived in someone else's head, and then having to talk to my parents (without being able to tell my mom "that is none of my business" all the time like I wanted to)... By the end of all that it was 8:30 and I was too exhausted to go seek out food even though I needed more food.

So when angelofthenorth offered to make me scrambled eggs on a couple of crumpets... "there's cream in the fridge...with tarragon...and cheese..." I wanted to say no (she's made so much of the food I've eaten lately!) but apparently my facial expression answered for me.

It was delicious and it helped so much.

My head still feels like a browser that has too many tabs open, but at least my body can crash now.

D came along to lift club this morning! It's so much more fun when he's there.

This afternoon we had a snuggly nap.

When I woke up this evening, angelofthenorth was making amazing delicious food. It smelled so good. What a treat.

This evening, D and I had a couple beers and watched the Twins actually win a game! And explained things to angelofthenorth as they came up.