The color of infinity inside an empty glass

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 after an enjoyable journey where I spoke to the lady next to me from Leeds to Manchester. This seems to be happening quite a lot on trains these days, largely because I'm on my own a lot and they are so rammed. Once I got to Liverpool, Procyon and I 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 one of my friends 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.