Through various online websites that I’m a member of, a walking party was organised to participate in the London and World Pride parade today, walking from Baker Street to Trafalgar Square, and on to Whitehall to disperse. Naturally, I jumped at the chance to participate in this, and with no shift at work, I was free to join in.
There’s been a lot written about the organisation of Pride and the changes to the start time, but that’s not relevant to this blog. In the lead up to the event, I was having a lot of debate as to whether to go in Zentai or in Latex – due to the weather forecast, Latex may have seemed more practical, but as I’m known as ‘ZentaiSpot’ I decided I would go in Zentai. Thankfully, the decision held out , with there only being a couple of rain showers.
We were told to assemble on Baker Street around about 10.15am, and I decided that I’d travel the entire way in Zentai, although with the hood down. We got on the train at West Ruislip, and travelled in to Marble Arch – where we got out and discovered it was pouring! A quick stop at Boots to buy an umbrella, buttons and a few bottles of juice saw us heading for the walk to the assembly point. Spotting a group of puppies sheltering under some scaffolding, we went and joined them and I added the finishing touches to the outfit – putting the hood up, adding the paws etc. After that, we had some photos taken by random photographers, and then on to assembling for the march.
At this point I dropped to all 4s for more photos and remained on them for a bit. My owner and others report that there were lots of bemused looks from people passing by on buses – including a coach party taking pictures, and an entire bus (all of 2 passengers!) taking pictures as well. There were also lots of people from other groups, and random members of the public taking pictures too.
We eventually set off at about 11.30am on a slow walk to Whitehall. Having now got home, I’ve worked out that it was about 3km. I started off on all 4s, and continued this way as we walked down Baker Street, stopping periodically as the group of dancers in front of us kept stopping as part of their act. The one thing that I did notice is that there were quite a lot of people taking pictures of us, and our steward was doing his best to keep things moving.
As the parade route narrowed and widened, I managed to pull my owner to the front of our group, so was quite happily crawling along on all 4s, but not really able to see much. There were lots more stopping and starting, and eventually we reached the corner of Oxford Circus. Standing with the dancers in front of us was Stephen Fry working on a documentary, and having a look at what was going on in the parade. He did acknowledge and say hello to the group, but we didn’t get to speak to him, unfortunately.
We turned off on to Oxford Circus, and the parade route got a bit wider, and again there were lots of people watching and taking pictures. I continued walking on all 4s, behaving like a good puppy *wags* and walking and stopping when told. Again, progress was slow, but there was the odd couple of instances where I had to move quite quickly on all 4s to catch up and narrow the gap with the group in front. Everyone in the crowd seemed to be having a good time, and there were lots of pictures being taken by various people.
We progressed to the end of Oxford Circus, and tuned in to Regent Street, where things started to get busy with crowd – but again, I was still on all 4s. Unfortunately, this was to come to an end at Hamleys Toy Shop (about 1.6km in to the 3km route), due to the Parade pace quickening. I think I did quite well to keep to all-4’s for that duration in one go! At this point I became a bi-ped dog rather than a quadroped, but still kept dropping back in to 4s mode when I was able to. There came another rain shower at this point, and I was sheltering under my owner’s umbrella as this puppy goes see-through in the rain! *whine*
We walked down to Picadilly Circus, and at this point a gap opened up between ourselves and the group in front of us… so myself and a cat that had joined our group (sorry, I don’t know who you were, but if you’re reading this blog, do let me know!) decided to have a quick game of chase, in the parade route. *wags* Unfortunately the ground was a bit wet and slippery and I slid a bit and knocked one of my knee pads off.
This brought us down to the final stretch and the walk to Trafalgar Square – yet more pictures taken, but again progress was slow as we made our way down to the Square and around towards Whitehall. I was, at this point, alternating between 2 feet and 4 feet. As we approached Trafalgar Square I dropped back to all-4’s as the end of the parade was nearing. Whilst in Trafalgar Square, my owner dragged me over to the side to say hello to Scamp who was in the crowd with his other half and some friends. The group eventually headed to a side street just off Whitehall, where we breathed a sigh of relief. As I said earlier, I’ve since worked out that the route was 3km long, and we’d been walking for about 2.5hrs.
After some pictures with our group, it was time for most of us to remove hoods etc. so we could have a drink… and I’ve never been more relieved to see some chocolate buttons and a bottle of Coke! After pictures and a discussion, we all went our separate ways and my owner and I decided to go back to see Scamp and Mark, while the others went back to a house party.
I had a fantastic day out today, and there’s some pictures and (hopefully) a video attached to this blog.
*woofs*
Spot
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