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Wildblood finally recovers from her wild weekend

Proud as

Kate Wildblood

Friday, 7 August 2009

WOW! Wet, outrageous and wonderful. And other words like that. In fact lots of words like that. Yes as I finally emerge from my Brighton Pride – doing the walk of shame 1pm on Monday dressed as a sailor was, erm, interesting, I can’t help but stop grinning. And grinning and grinning and grinning.

Each year as the sun beats down on us homo’s, it’s often joked God must love us, the sun is shining. Well this year his love was a little less forthcoming. Maybe the recession kicked in and he had to do a little budget cutting with the rays of sunshine but we didn’t seem to care. We were here to party, all Pride like, and as Babs put it nothing was gonna rain on our parade.

There was talk in our house before the festival about the lack of politics on show. I was a little perturbed by the Pride Parade and Village Street Party signs minus a mention of the G.A.Y. word and wondered what how our Pride could help empower those even less fortunate than those living in this fair city of ours? Twinning with a Pride celebration less tolerated than ours – say Moscow Pride – or plenty of visual acknowledgements of those suffering due to their sexuality across the globe would tick my political box I thought.

But come the day Tatchell did his placard best and the presence of the likes of Mind and Switchboard on the parade reminded us that Pride isn’t all about the party. Pride in Brighton & Hove doesn’t make the one political statement, preferring instead to empower those who wish to and I for one feel that after this years festival the funds and awareness raised by groups across Brighton and Hove should see the power flow. Big thanx to all those official events, donations and supporters whose hard work make it so.

So here I sit still urging my body to recover from the big weekend. A weekend that ticked every single one of my boxes. A weekend where community came first. My community, your community, our community. A weekend I’ll not forget in a hurry. Be it because the dancing bus driver, the giant disco ball, the mud wrestling copper, the saucy sailors, the grin on my missus face, the pride of my nearest and dearest, the groove of a 7am dance floor or the tears rolling down my cheeks as a terrace full of gay boys tried to remember the words to ‘All Night Long’. A weekend where we asked Can U Feel It? and Brighton roared back yes! All proud like.

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