Call me Bob...

As it's been a while since I communicated with you my dear, loyal reader, I thought I'd try to make it up to you for my inexcusable absence by letting you in on a little secret. That's right my limpet-like little bijou(s) ....(bijoux? Damn, I hate the French - why can't they speak English like the rest of us, Dammit!?) as the exclusive preview of my latest Vanity Fair cover shoot will more than amply demonstrate, I am...(come on gal...I mean...guy ...let's be true to the real us, boyfriend....shame on all the haters....we can *do* this* thang*!!!) Yes, I can finally reveal that, after years of denial, decades of pain, misery and living a falsehood, I am, finally....ta-da..., yes, you guessed it...I am in mid-*trans* *for* *may* *shun*!

Yay brothah!

Go me!!

Oh sure, there's still a little bit of work to be done, as you can see. For a kick off, the tummy-tum-tums is *waaaaay* too flat and almost lends me a look of someone who does the occasional bout of exercise requiring more effort than just reaching over to the coffee table to take another slurp of 'buie breezer in between mouthfuls of Tesco finest salt and vinegar potato sticks. The beard? Well, that's still a little too obviously false and velcroed on to make me look like the genuine lard-bucket male hipster dude I aspire to be. And as for that mascara brush that's been poorly run over my flimsy blonde down to give the impression of a full pelt of unsightly male chest hair - well, it barely registers so much as a blip on the Giggs scale, does it? I know, I know, I know. But hell, give me time to *eaaasse* into my new gender will ya?? And besides, look how well I'm carrying off that grimy, 'just gone for a wee in the middle of my afternoon nap, but still didn't get a stain on my sweat pants' look. *Sexy*!! So, ladies, gentlemen, people of indeterminate gender who fall somewhere in between...I give you...

my new body....

my new self....

the new *ME*.....!!!!.....

                            

So how, I can tell you are *dying* to know, am I doing? Well, it's all been a bit of an upheaval, obviously. But the lads at the Rygbi club have, to a man, been very kind, and as gentle and supportive as you could reasonably expect of a bunch of hardened Welsh farm lads with minimal familiarity with their own bodily hygiene, let alone the needs of someone experiencing the biological turmoil of a complete gender reversal at an age by which most impoverished valley folk have either perished or been consigned to a dismal end of life spent salivating into a Toby jug of Harvey's Bristol Cream, muttering about Max Boyce whilst watching the 'Pobl y cym' omnibus on repeat. Given the difficulty they have in even accepting the existence of someone like Alan Carr-Chatty-Mann, they've taken having to watch the fragrant, lithe, leggy, lushly-maned nymph from whose ample cleavage they've grown up pinching the half time orange segments transmogrify herself into a portly bearded nerk pretty well I suppose, all in.

Obviously, this is just the beginning for me. I still have a long way to go, I knows that. There will be very difficult adjustments to make - not least in the undercarriage department. At the moment, I'm still finding a few *blocks* to my masculinity. For instance, I can't be doing with those badly bitten false nails with the fake black grit in the pith - no, it's Maybelline extra durable with a Cardiff City crest tattoo for this boy's talons, every day. And how do you guys walk in those shoes???? I know better than any one that, come hell or high water, high heels were never, ever,*evah* meant to be worn with a pair of tracky bottoms. But I'm sorry. I'm just not ready for the ultimate sacrifice. Can you *seriously* imagine a lad like me wearing flats? No, exactly. So, as we say at Laboratoires Garnier: *day-ull* *way-uth* *ay-ut* - Because *I'm* *wurth* *ut*...