A slight case of overblogging

Yesterday I turned 50, which feels like it should be a bit of a milestone, but in reality has just been an excuse for a lot of cake.

We went away as a family at Halloween, as it was the end of half term and meant we could get a slightly longer weekend away. Three days in a collection of cabins in the Forest of Dean, with Forest Holidays. We nominally had a halloween party on Friday night and a birthday party on Saturday but it was kind of hard to tell which bits were party (having an age range from 7 to 73 makes for rather varied party requirements) but there was cake and fizz and cocktails, and we did an outdoor puzzle game with the kids, and Mike and dad joined me in trying axe throwing, and we had a nice walk through the forest down to the river Wye with a very sulky Matthew and generally had a good time :)

Yesterday I decided not to take the day off work, and instead took in cake to share in the morning, and took my immediate colleagues to the pub at lunchtime (though they wouldn't let me pay for drinks). We had pizza and fizz and more cake for tea, and a generally chilled out and lovely day. Matthew has an inset day on Friday, so Mike's taking the day off too, and we'll go out for a visit to the Botanic Gardens and lunch at Browns. And I've invited some friends round in the morning to help eat up cake, instead of meeting them at a coffee shop (which is my usual Friday routine).

I suggested to Mobbsy and David that we should do a celebration of 150 years between us, given what a good party we had for our joint 90th, but I never did get round to throwing a party this time. We shall try and make it out to the pub next Wednesday evening instead. And next Friday our little coffee gang will be going our to the village annual wine tasting/dinner - organised by the twinning association. And then I think I'll be more or less done with birthday celebrations for the year. Thanks so much to everyone who found me elsewhere on social media (or text message, or card) to say Happy Birthday, it's been very much appreciated!

A short list of clocks which do not update themselves:

• Matthew's bedside alarm clock. Several experimental button pushes to remember how.
• Matthew's travel alarm clock. Fairly self explanatory
• Small clock in the dining room. Turn the time knob, not the alarm one!
• Oven. Doddle.
• Microwave. A bit of poking, but not too bad.
• Bike computer. Putting this one off as it requires a cocktail stick and remembering the right runes so you don't accidentally completely reset it. Write down the odo distance first before attempting!

The electronics (and the big living room wall clock, and the heating controller) all look after themselves, which is just as well, as there are quite a lot of them.

Wrote to my MP yesterday. Still dreading the point when the guidance actually drops, and we have to actually stand up and say "No, we will not comply" at work. (Yes, I'll be saying that too, even though I'm not trans myself - and I changed my record in Employee self service so I now decline to answer the question of whether I'm trans or not).


Dear Pippa Heylings,

I'm writing as one of your constituents, to ask that you press for the new EHRC guidance in the light of the Supreme Court ruling to be discussed in Parliament, and not simply approved by the Minister for Women and Equalities without any further consideration as to its impact on trans people.

When I filled in the consultation I was appalled that the guidance did not give any advice to individuals or organisations who wanted to be trans inclusive, and I am concerned that the feedback of me, and many others like me, may not have been taken into account.

I note that the "Not in our name" petition, on behalf of women in the UK who do not wish trans people to be excluded, has now been signed by over 50 thousand women like me.

https://notinourname.org.uk/petition/not-in-our-name-women-in-support-of-the-trans-community/

As a member of staff at Cambridge University, and a member of the UCU branch committee, I would very much appreciate the opportunity to meet with you, even briefly, to discuss how important an issue this is, and how detrimental to society it would be to exclude trans people from being able to participate freely in everyday life as their true lived gender, in their place of work, as well as in healthcare and leisure settings.

But most important is ensuring that this guidance is not brought into place without government scrutiny, so I beg you again to try and ensure that it is discussed in parliament as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely,

Eleanor Blair (she/her)
[address supplied]

We did finally meet with the university senior management on 10th June, over a month after we originally requested a meeting. It wasn't a complete success, but we did come out of it with assurance that the existing policy on gender reassignment was still in place, and trans people can continue to use the toilets that match their lived gender, that no-one should be challenging people in the toilets, and that any changes to the policy would not happen until after the EHRC guidance is published in the autumn, and would involve a proper consultation, and a full Equality Impact Assessment of the changes

We asked them to respond to the EHRC consultation as an institution, and gave them a deadline of 20th June to communicate the above facts with all members of staff, including information on how to seek advice and support (other than just the staff counselling service!)

Instead they published a statement on Sharepoint on Tuesday (24th June), which did not meet our requests. The unions have put out a joint statement today (drafted last week, but it took a while to get it online) as a result:

https://www.ucu.cam.ac.uk/joint-trade-union-statement-on-the-supreme-court-ruling-on-the-equality-act/

We still haven't met with Senior Management: it's now due tomorrow, in person. I'm gently trying not to panic.

There's still been no message of support to all members of staff and students from the University, and nothing at all from the department. Though I understand they're still in discussions in the background. This is frustrating.

The subject was raised at a recent All Staff meeting (in which people submit questions as text, and senior management attempt to answer them). We were given broad assurances that the university values and supports trans people, but nothing actually useful or genuinely supportive was said.

In the meantime a new EHRC chair is due to be appointed, and they're considering a person with a known anti-trans background. There's an Open Letter available to sign in protest, written by a very good friend and colleague: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe_Y77t7CQqKjdGifNa0lE3HKjDAb1UoJdjuLAbInhIQsRMhw/viewform

I've also seen a good template if you want to write directly: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1865KMfu24JgmwnWmYXaVc3jlzj5uQFEq69hXMxKP6BU/edit?tab=t.0

And I wrote my own version:

9th June 2025
Dear Women’s and Equalities Select Committee and Joint Committee on Human Rights,
Cc: Pippa Heylings, as my MP

I am writing to express my grave concern about the proposed appointment of Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson as the Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

I won't include a string of references here, because I think you will have seen them all already, but I think it is imperative that the next person appointed as Head of the EHRC should not be seen to have a strong anti-trans background. Trans people are currently scared. Scared for their jobs, if they cannot access their workplace in safety and dignity. Scared of being assaulted if they go to the "wrong" toilet. Scared of being outed as trans in public if they try to follow the new guidelines.

And I am scared as a cis woman, a woman who is not trans, at what is happening in our country, and what this means for my friends and colleagues and for trans people in general. For intersex people, non-binary people, and any woman who might be mistaken for being trans. Other women need to feel safe too, but excluding trans people is not the way to do this.

The EHRC needs to stand up for the rights of everyone, and to be seen to do so. I sincerely hope you will take this into account.

Kind Regards,

Eleanor Blair
Great Shelford, Cambridge, CB22

I'm not even going to attempt to get into the member of the EHRC who was quoted as effectively saying that trans people have been misled about their rights under the Equality Act for the last 15 years, and there will now be a period of adjustment, but they should just get used to having fewer rights than they thought they did. The Guardian changed their headline and reporting three times as a result of her protesting about being misquoted, but that seems to have been the gist of it. Not mentioning that the "misleading" guidance came from the EHRC themselves, and was based on the previous understanding of the Equalities Act and entirely consistent with it. FFS

I wrote this for Blipfoto, over four entries, and thought I'd share here too.

Thursday: Welcome to Belfast

Straightforward flight over to Belfast, and good to spend the afternoon and evening with family. I was struck with amusement by this machine at the airport.

Friday: Farewell grandad

No photos from the funeral, but I wanted to share this one from happier days, a long time ago when Grace and Loudon were married at 18.

The funeral was good, as these things go. The vicar spoke well about grandad's life, his work and family and love of flying. The organist for the funeral parlour sang Abide With Me beautifully, for us to join in between the tears, and my cousin David read a beautiful poem about flight. Then we followed the coffin up the street with various family members taking a lift along the way, before a final ceremony up at the graveyard where grandma is buried too. The heavens opened and the wind blew a gale and it felt like a rather epic farewell!

And then, as the vicar put it, it was time for dor the living. There was a funeral tea at a local hotel with the family and friends, and then we moved into the hotel bar, and kept each other company until they closed, and it was good to be there and to share the time and memories with family and to be together in our sadness

Saturday: Five Go to the Beach

Down to Ballygally after breakfast at the hotel. Two of us paddled, and the other three tried to avoid getting caught up in the spring tide, and I didn't do a great job taking a photo but we were glad to be there despite the rain. Then it was time to gradually say goodbye as we three girls headed off over the course of the day to get our planes home.

Sunday: Mother's Day

Matthew was glad to have me home, and was ready to welcome me with a beautiful card and jigsaw. The flowers were a posy from the church, brought round by some of the girls from our street, and offered to me as a local mother, which was rather lovely. A quiet day of games and sunshine and relaxing, just what I needed.

[My mum's present has now gone *back* in the post, as I foolishly managed to get it delivered to my house instead of hers!]

Having been on the Wegovy since November I asked my GP to do another HbA1c test, to see how my diabetes is responding to the additional drug and weight loss associated with it. HbA1c is down from 43 in November to 36 on Friday. That's the first time below the pre-diabetic range (42-48) since well before I was diagnosed in November 2020. Now waiting to see what GP wants to do with this information. (Suspect I no longer need to be on a high dose of Metformin though, which is why I wanted them to check).

My iron levels are also still low-end of normal, but it looks like I can now safely give blood again too, so I've booked that in for the Friday after next. We'll have to see how long it takes them to recover from that!

ETA: It's now the 26th and I still haven't actually heard from GP what they think about the results. I asked for an update from the admin team and just got a "result is normal" text, which wasn't very helpful, so have sent the medical team a request to review. Will see what they say!

The bathroom has tiles! We can use it again, and the bathroom pod on the drive went back. I got a very entertaining graph of the temperature in the pod for most of the time it was there: ranging from 14 degrees max to about minus 2.5 degrees at a minimum. (There was actual ice on the floor inside the pod one morning, from the drips from the shower door being left open). There's some issues with the coloured grout having made everything BLUE, but most of it has come off again. We're just waiting on getting the bath resurfaced (on the 27th) and then I'll get some photos. It's lovely to have the house back together again! Insurance company agreed to pay for the extra electricity and the bath re-enamelling, which is good.

My iron levels are still a bit on the low side, so we're testing again at the end of February, and I'm taking over-the-counter iron supplements in the meantime. They're "gentle" ones, so I'm not getting such tar-like poo as with the stronger prescription ones. I've persuaded the GP to do another HbA1c test at the same time because...

The Wegovy prescription seems to be doing its job. ( weight loss talk )

As a result it seems like a good idea to check my blood glucose control (HbA1c gives an idea of the "average" blood sugar levels over the last 3 months) and see whether I need to be taking a high dose of Metformin as *well* as the weight-loss drug which also treats diabetes.

It was about 8 degrees in there when we turned it off last night, and about 2 degrees inside when I looked at 8am this morning. Given it's -2.5 outside (according to the CL weather station) that's better than I thought. I've turned the heater on in there now the sun's up, and we'll see how we get on!

Oooh, hang on, I've got an actual temperature logger somewhere. I wonder if I can find it!

Still waiting for Higgs to get back to me about the tiles!

Edit: Matthew and I braved the shower after school. It was only around 8 or 9 degrees when he went in, but by the time I got out it was 12 degrees! How to warm the pod up better than the heater: run the shower!

And Higgs did get back to me about the tiles, we've agreed a price for the extra labour/more expensive grout, and they've ordered them. They'll be installed on the 20th/21st/23rd of January. Which means our two week job is going to be nearly 3 weeks! But it will be done and it will be lovely.

Oh and the first batch of paint is on in Matthew's room and looking good, the decorator and I managed to move the bed enough to get at the walls and he put it back on his own :) The plastering is done in the bathroom and the walls are all lovely and smooth. So it's all getting there!