Significant times for Jo in personal and professional life, changes to come.

A little topical tale to add to the celebration of the big day. I hope you enjoy it whether you are full of enthusiasm for the event or or not in the least interested.

I woke the next morning still thinking that it was amazing that I was just accepted by everyone as Jo and thought about my performance at the TV interview, which I quickly rewatched. There was no side of Joey that remained, the way I looked, talked and gestured just came across as ‘Girl’ no matter how hard I looked, Jo had taken over my life.

"Oh, crikey, this is getting worse,”, I thought “I'm getting deeper and deeper into my life as Jo. If it goes on like this and I keep getting more and more in the public eye someone is bound to work out what I am doing.”

Joey settles in to life as Jo, starts new ventures, and learns to blush.

After sleeping on it, Joey's mind had not changed, he was going to become Jo for as long as the project at the archaeological dig went on, but needed to act quickly to ‘bite the bullet’ before he changed his mind.

My name is P James O’Neill. If anyone asks what the P is for I tell them to mind their own business. Because of a few generations ago Irish ancestry my parents lumbered me with the name Patsy, not Patrick, Paddy, or even Pat, but Patsy. All through school and college that had caused me no end of problems, Most of my classmates deliberately called me Patsy to annoy or bully me, even though they were corrected time and time again, and I lost count of the number of times that I was made to associate with or sit with the girls, as the boys either ridiculed or ignored me.

I thought that when I left college that I would be free of all that nonsense and that the name PJ O’Neill had quite a cool professional ring to it. When I was drafted however the US army however had a totally different agenda for me.

“See you when you get back in a month or so Josie, enjoy your holiday with Jack, but whatever you do make sure that you don’t come back pregnant.” I joked with my sister as she left to go away for a long holiday with her boyfriend, Jack.”

"Thanks Joey, I’ll try to avoid that but I still intend to have a good time. Take care of things while I am away, and let me know if anything comes up."

Once we were away from the site, all a bit subdued at the thought that our time in Kielder was over, we stopped just outside Hexham, where I was going to leave them and get the train back home, before they all went back to Newcastle. Regretfully I needed to to change back into my boys’ clothes and revert to my life as Lyndsay for the last part of the trip to my home village. My time with the girls as Lyn was now over, or was it?

Lyn learns a lot about what it means to be a girl and lets out secrets of her past

It was to be a time for celebrations, but also for shocks and disappointments for Jane, her family, and her friends.

Life seems to throw changes at Jane, in changes to her body, her career, and family relationships.

It was a cold winters night, the week before Christmas. The sky was dark and mysterious with only the moon peeking through the snow-clouds. All the stores were closed and shuttered, all the streets were empty dark and bare. Nobody in the right mind was out and about on such a bitter unwelcoming night, the only sparks of life were the homeless shivering in shop doorways, wrapped in cardboard, paper, or whatever other items for warmth and protection that they could salvage.

I was just about to escape into sleep when I heard someone approach me. In the short time I had been sleeping rough I had come to learn it usually meant either Police who were normally ok as long as you moved on until they had left, Security guards who were a lot more intolerant brusque and even violent, or other rough-sleepers who were looking to steal the few possessions or scraps of food that I had.

However this one was different, it was a young woman, well wrapped up in warm winter clothes with her long-blonde hair peeking out from under her woolen hat and wearing a pleasant welcoming smile.

It had all come as a big shock and my mind was totally confused. I had been totally normal and content with my life as a boy and man, but since starting to live as Jane, I had become comfortable and happy with that too. A few weeks ago, if I had been told the same news, the choice would have been easy, Jack was who I was and who I would remain however now that I had been living as Jane and settled into a routine as a woman, the choice was not as clear cut.

Jane bares her soul and finds her situation to be better accepted than she expected. She has a surprising and exciting new experience.

“The whole point of me going out with you all for the last few weeks has been to get me to learn how to act and react in situations and to be comfortable in the company of women and understand how you all relate to each other. You’ve all done such a good job, I probably think more like a woman than a man now when I am out with you all. You all make me feel like just another one of the girls, so you should all just act as you would if I was another girl, and there is no need to make any allowances for me. I’m getting used to it all, in fact most of the time I am just getting on with things and how I am dressed and acting is just me behaving naturally, I am not even thinking anymore about what I should be doing.”

Jane learns a lot more about what had been going on, and things start to move quickly. Things also develop in her personal life.

Jane begins to learn more about what it means to be a girl. She gets something to start her off in her quest to solve the source of the information leak.

Jack is posing as Jane to help a friend uncover corruption in the construction industry. and after a lot of coaching and help from his sister and her friends is about to take the major step of his first day working as a woman.

I was up bright and early Monday morning, going over and over things on my mind about how I would settle in at my new job, and hoping that I would fit in seamlessly as a woman.

Jack takes on a new job, but it's a lot more than just the workplace that changes !

I thought long and hard as to whether to go to the funeral before deciding that paying my respects to one of my oldest friends was more important than my pride and possible hurt feelings. If there were any nasty repercussions then it would be something that I would just have to deal with as it happened.

“Oh come on Joe, it’ll be a lot of fun, and you will be a big help.”

“Look, if you five want to make fools of yourselves, that is fair enough, but why drag me into this Carrie?”