Sassy Shoes, Drag Bingo, Karaoke & Overcooked Gammon

Sassy Shoes, Drag Bingo, Karaoke & Overcooked Gammon

Sunday was supposed to be a pyjama day, the kind where you move from bed to settee with absolutely no intention of achieving anything remotely productive. After the emotional rollercoaster of the past couple of weeks, followed by Saturday's Sassy Shoes workshop, I was more than ready for a day of doing very little.

I had a gloriously lazy morning, got showered, put on fresh pyjamas, and settled down with Paul to watch All Stars Drag Race.

That, as far as I was concerned, was the plan for the day.

Except...it wasn't.

As we were watching, we started umming and arring about drag bingo and karaoke. It's on every Sunday and we've been saying for ages that we'd go one week but somehow never quite get round to it.

"We'll only stay an hour."

Six hours later we wandered back through the front door.

Paul had won the bingo.

I'd ‘sung’ karaoke. Twice.

We'd invited three drag queens to come round for dinner at some point.

And the gammon we'd lovingly put in the slow cooker before we went out had become considerably more "well done" than intended.

Which, when you write it down, sounds utterly ridiculous. But such is life at times.

One conversation from yesterday has stayed with me though.

I was chatting to Liv, one of the queens, telling her all about Saturday. The shiny shoes, the alter egos, the fashion show, the music, the giant pink boa…and most importantly, the room full of women gradually relaxing into themselves and cheering one another on.

She smiled and said, "You're basically running a drag workshop for middle-aged women." She's absolutely right.

Well...not literally, obviously. There aren't wigs and false eyelashes involved. (Although never say never. 😂)

But psychologically, yes, that’s exactly what it is.

I have made that comparison a few times before, particularly around creating your Funky Diva persona, but hearing it from an actual drag queen felt strangely validating. Like someone had seen something I'd known all along but hadn't really said out loud.

Because drag, in my eyes, isn’t about pretending to be someone else. It's about permission to amplify the bits of yourself that everyday life encourages you to tone down. Permission to play, to take up space, to be gloriously, unapologetically seen.

I've loved drag for decades. My first experience was at Foo Foo Lamar's in Manchester when I was about nineteen or twenty. We'd go on coach trips, have chicken in a basket, watch the cabaret, then dance until the early hours. It was fabulous. And then of course, I flat shared with Gary aka Grace when I first moved to Nottingham.

Yesterday reminded me why I've always loved it so much. Not just because it's funny and often outrageous, but it's the community. We've only been going to the local shows for about a year as allies but we were welcomed almost immediately. Nobody cares what you do for a living, how old you are, or what you're wearing.

And maybe that's why the karaoke didn't feel quite as terrifying as it probably should have done. When I put my name down there weren't many people in the room. By the time they called me up for my second song, Kiss Me Honey Honey Kiss Me, the room had filled up rather more than I'd anticipated. Eek! I was a bit nervous.

There were a few theatre kids singing songs from musicals. There were people who'd clearly been out since lunchtime enthusiastically murdering all sorts of classics. Somewhere amongst them all was me. I loved it, not because I suddenly discovered I can sing because trust me...I can't. I loved it because I wasn't trying to be brilliant I was just joining in and having a laugh.

I've been thinking about why that felt significant and I don't think it actually started on Sunday. I think it started on Saturday.

If I'm honest, I'd gone into Sassy Shoes feeling excited but with a few butterflies too. Not because people wouldn't come, I already knew seven lovely humans would be there, including wing woman Jenny helping me. It was more that little voice wondering whether reality would match the picture I'd been carrying around in my head for months.

My main concerns were:

·Would metallic foil end up absolutely everywhere?

·Would the practical bit work?

·Would everyone enjoy themselves?

Looking back now, I smile at the fact that I was worrying about people enjoying it. What surprised me most was how completely everyone threw themselves into it. The handbag icebreaker and the bingo game got everyone chatting. Creating their Funky Diva alter egos was amazing – everyone properly got into it. The video interviews were full of honesty.

Then came the fashion show…Women who'd arrived quietly wondering what on earth they'd signed up for were strutting into the room wearing oversized sunglasses, feather boas, their sassy shoes and the biggest smiles.

But the moment that will stay with me wasn't actually the fashion show. It was right at the end.

The music was playing, we all had fans in our hands, everyone was dancing and laughing, while Jenny videoed us and I remember thinking...

"Ooh.This is it." Not because everything had gone perfectly. The lift was out of order, it was over thirty degrees and we were all melting. There were a couple of things I'd tweak next time. But it felt...whole,100% me.

There wasn't a single activity where I thought, "I should probably do this because that's what workshop facilitators do." There was no strategy borrowed from someone else or a framework I'd squeezed everything into.

It was just me and my ideas. And perhaps the biggest thing I was grateful for was those women trusted me. They trusted me enough to create alter egos, to dance, to be filmed, to parade around in shiny shoes and let themselves look a little bit daft, because they felt safe. That's a massive privilege.

Later that evening, after we'd packed everything away with the help of willing hands, Jenny and Diana came back to ours. We cracked open a bottle of pink fizz, read through the feedback forms and chatted about the day. I was physically exhausted (back ache was raging) but mentally buzzing. Paul didn't get home until midnight and at half past one my body was desperate for sleep but my brain was still replaying the day.

Then yesterday happened, drag bingo, karaoke, overcooked gammon and the lovely Liv unknowingly handing me the final piece of the puzzle.

Because I don't think I was ever actually building a workshop. For years I thought I was building a style business with membership programmes and workshops. Then I thought I was creating the FAB Business Club. Looking back now, I don't think it was any of those things. I think I've been building spaces where women remember what it feels like to be themselves.

And the Sassy Shoes Experience was a space where:

·they stop apologising

·they stop worrying about getting it wrong

·they remember how to play

·they reclaim joy

The shiny shoes are just the symbol of all that. The real transformation happens before the foil goes anywhere near them.

It's funny really, my last few weekly musings have all been about letting go.

·The Virginia creeper.

·The burning ceremony.

·Retiring from the things that drain me.

I think all of that had to happen first. You can't fully step into something new while you're still clinging onto something that’s no longer right. This week hasn’t felt like I ran a successful workshop. It’s felt like I finally met the business I've been trying to build for years. And somehow...it ended with karaoke, three drag queens coming for dinner, and a gammon that had well and truly given its all.

I can't think of a better way to celebrate my ‘unsausaging’.