I’ve lived in Birmingham since 2001, and up until last weekend I had never been to Pride, which is one of the biggest of the year.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. About 15 years ago my mum came to visit and travelled down to Birmingham via train. The old New Street Station was small and difficult to navigate, so I asked her to wait in the main arrivals area and I would collect her from there. True to form, mum had other ideas and wandered off, and I eventually found her at the bottom of the ramp (Brummies will know exactly where this is), surrounded by drag queens and having a great time as the Pride Parade was going past. 

It has never been a conscious decision not to go – I’ve been invited many times by friends who are gay, straight and otherwise, but I’ve either been busy or broke at the time. 

Earlier this year, I was given an invitation to join some of my work friends at this year’s Pride, with brunch in the morning and the concerts in the evening down in Smithfields after the parade had finished. I jumped at the chance, and have been looking forward to it for months. 

And what a blast it was!

It ended up turning into a two-day thing. Pride was on Saturday, but two of my friends were travelling to Birmingham the day before. As they don’t know the city, I offered to meet them when they arrived, show them where their AirBnB was, and then we were going to go for drinks. I went into town early and bought a new eyeshadow palette, false eyelashes, face gems, butterfly wings and a t-shirt, then went and collected my friends AirBnB key as their train was running late, and when we went to a bar for drinks and food. We were joined by even more of the team who were staying in the city, and it was SUCH a fun evening. 

The next morning I was up at 6.30am to give myself chance to get ready and do my makeup. It has been a long time since I did anything outside of my usual style, and surprisingly it actually worked first time (although the false eyelashes took a few attempts!). I met my friends at their AirBnB, we walked over to the Ivy and had brunch with everyone, and then began a day of drinking, dancing, music and colour. 

We watched the parade, walked down to the main concert area (stopping in at a few bars along the way), ate some street food, drank a bit more, I saw my friend who I haven’t seen in ages, and then managed to be right at the very front of the stage to watch some of the performances. The main headliners were Natasha Bedingfield, Louise and Heather Small, but I watched the up and coming acts including Louis III, Beth McCarthy (who was fantastic) and Tia Kofi, and then I was done. 

I left just before 8.00pm, which meant that I had been going for about 13 1/2 hours. In my 40’s, my body now reaches a point where it suddenly goes NOPE I’M DONE AND GOING HOME, and that’s it. I made my way through the crowds, managed to grab a taxi and got home…

…and slept on and off for 24 hours. I was shattered, and it has been a LONG time since I did an all day thing. 

Totally worth it. 

What I loved the most was the atmosphere – there was no anger or nastiness, everyone was having a good time talking and laughing, singing and dancing with the music and just enjoying being in each other’s company. I think I needed it – with everything going on in the world it is difficult to be on social media every day and see the anger and hatred that is constantly being put out there.  

And today marks the start of Pride Month, so Happy Pride, everyone!