My first short trip to Ipswich en femme just before Christmas had convinced me that the town didn't deserve the tranny-unfriendly label which I'd given it - in fact, fewer people appeared to have even noticed me than was the case in tranny-friendly Blackpool a few days earlier. Now, a month later, I'd accumulated a number of things which I needed to do in the town - more than I could manage on an extended lunch-break from work - so I decided to pick an evening on which a Felixstowe Girls meeting had been scheduled, and spend the afternoon in Ipswich dressed.
I thought I'd wear my blond wig, a simple white tee-shirt, my 15-inch blue mini-kilt (to match my blue nail varnish), black tights, and 3-inch high-heeled shoes - perhaps not the ideal outfit to wear for shopping in mid-January, but definitely Sally! Over this, I planned to wear a full-length raincoat, and I thought it prudent to take an umbrella - it'd been raining on-and-off for days, and I wasn't sure how my gelled-up wig would react to getting wet.
After an unusually easy journey to Ipswich, I arrived a little after 2.30pm and parked the car in Cox's Lane car park. As I was early, I decided to seek out a friend, Bridget, who works in the Co-op department store which backs onto the car park. Bridget is a member of my amateur theatre group, and I'd often promised to drop in and say "hi" when I was in town - but I'd never planned to do it dressed! We chatted for a while about shows, holidays and many other things, although I was aware that she was supposed to be working, and I didn't want to overstay my welcome; in any case, I had a timetable to keep to, so I bade farewell just before 3 o'clock, and walked the couple of hundred metres to Frobisher's, where I'd arranged to collect a wig and to meet my friend Rikki. Fortunately, it wasn't raining very much - the wind was so strong it would've been impossible to have used an umbrella. But it'd been windy all morning, so I'd taken the precaution of using more than the usual amount of gel on my wig before I'd left home, and it appeared to be doing its job well. Jo greeted me at the door to Frobisher's, and was pleased to meet Sally for the first time (I usually go in male mode during my lunch-break from work). Rikki joined us a few minutes later, and after exchanging news with Jo and with each other, we headed back onto the street.
With our heads down against the fierce wind, we made our way across town to Debenhams, where we both had a number of jobs to do. Firstly, I needed to return the silver sequinned dress which I'd bought in Rotherham the previous November [1]. Despite being worn just three times, the crocheéd mesh had started to unravel, and had already left two large holes! Since Ipswich Debenhams didn't sell that particular label, the sales assistant had to go and find her supervisor to agree a refund, so Rikki and I took the opportunity to grab some refreshment in the store's restaurant. And that's where the fun really started! We chose a table near the middle of the seating area, and sat down to a cake and a hot drink. We also noticed that amongst the other customers were five teenage girls seated around a single table near the entrance. Now, as we all know, teenage girls can be a lot of fun - they're exceptionally skilled at reading even the most convincing tranny (not that I fall anywhere near that category!) while posing the least physical threat to our well-being. Well, surprise, surprise - they read us! I was sitting in a position where I could easily see them, and from the number of times they each glanced in our direction, we appeared to be a major topic of their conversation. But they left shortly after we sat down, and we thought no more about them - until a couple of minutes later, when there was a bright flash. We looked up in the direction it had come from, just in time to see a camera on the end of a pair of disembodied arms disappear out of sight behind a wooden screen! Unfortunately, we never saw the girls again - they obviously ran off in case we decided to pose for more photographs!
Fascinated by this experience, I returned to claim the money back on my dress, and then went to the lingerie department where I'd made an appointment with Dee to get some advice on which underwear would be suitable for a low-cut or strapless dress - ironically, such as the silver one I'd just taken back. Dee decided that a bustière would do the job best, and found me one of the appropriate colour and size which I went to try on for comfort. Of course, I'd always known that it's much harder to take a tee-shirt off without getting make-up all over it than it is to put it on - fortunately, in this instance, my tee-shirt was fairly low-cut, and it survived almost unscathed. But only now did it occur to me that, in order to take the tee-shirt off, I'd first have to remove my wig - Dee must have wondered what I was doing in the fitting room! Anyhow, the bustière fitted snugly, and ably supported my non-adhesive false boobs, so I bought it. All I need now is a strapless dress to wear over it ...... but in the meantime, I thought I'd give it a try under my mauve nightie at TransEssex the following week.
The last thing on my shopping list was a pair of men's jeans. No, I'm not about to start wearing men's clothes in 'Sally' mode - you should know me better than that, dear reader! The truth is that, earlier in the week, my second-to-last pair of jeans developed a large hole just below my right buttock, and I was in imminent danger of contravening public decency laws, so Sally had been given instructions to buy 'him' another pair. It was an interesting experience - going into a men's fitting room, dressed, to try on a pair of men's trousers. Deliberately accentuating the sound of my heels on the polished wooden floor added an extra frissant to this 'illicit' activity, since I knew that the guys in the fitting room wouldn't be able to see me, and would assume that the footsteps belonged to a woman! Not surprisingly, I got some anxious glances from a couple of guys standing nearby when I emerged back into the shop wearing my miniskirt!
After meeting back up with Rikki, and doing some outrageous flirting with a lady on one of the perfume counters on the way out of the store, we made our way to Sainsbury's to get a few bits and pieces, and to have a mug of coffee before going on to our last appointment - the Felixstowe Girls meeting at 7.30. Unfortunately - although not unexpectedly - the meeting was rather an anticlimax for me. But it had nevertheless been a very special and fulfilling afternoon.
From personal notes.