slemslempike | Proud. Cold, but proud.

It was the launch of Lancaster Pride today. It's the first one they've ever had, and people were kind of worried that there wouldn't be very many people, so despite my awful cold and cough and general malaise, I went to the march for 6pm. I made sure to inform people just how sacrificing I was being, and they were very pleased. That's how proud I am. There were probably more than 50 people there (I'm bad at counting), which isn't too bad for a cold, damp, dark December in Lancaster. Lots more women than men. We were marching from the covered shopping bit to the town hall, which on a direct route is far less than five minutes. So we meandered round town a bit and then ended up outside, where we got to be a proper march and have the police escort stop cars for us. There weren't many people there to witness our march, except two teenage types who muttered jeers until one of the flag wavers went and waved the rainbow at them and they fled in fear. There were also other teenage types who were standing on a corner mooching moodily, and waved to one of the organisers and asked how it was going.

They made me carry a stick. They were handing out lanterns to carry on the ends of sticks, and I didn't want one really, so I just skulked. Then when we were setting off a woman asked if I had a spare hand, and then she gave me a stick. Just a stick. It had a little hook on the end, but it was a stick. And it looked just as if I couldn't be trusted with fire, but had made a fuss, so they gave me the stick to try and shut me up. It was very sad. But then Sarah let me carry her lantern towards the end, and I totally didn't drop it or set anyone else on fire or anything. I'm glad I went, and it was pretty good, so that's nice.

When we got to the town hall there were more, so maybe 100 in the hall. There were paper tablecloths and crayons so we could draw gay pictures. There was Indian food, free, which was very nice indeed. And curly fries. I left pretty early, because I wanted to get home and watch Have I got News for You and snot to myself in peace. I missed Peter Tatchell speaking, but I did see him sitting down at a table. Ooh.