My travelling companions are, as you will know by now, Celts. Pale of skin and easily burnt. So today ended up more or  less a ‘rest day’, a rest from the sun on a day when it reached 100 degrees, apparently. So a local told us.

Being Anglo-Saxon, my skin does lend itself to greater exposure, so while my friends remained in the apartment for most of the day -our early morning beach ramble excepted- under the shade of the balcony awning. Still enjoying the warmth, but not directly exposed to it.

It’s an important point to make. Many Brits will be heading for the sun in the next weeks, and whether it’s a naturist or textile location, remember that you’re exposing more skin to a fiercer sun than at home, and you should always take care to get the factor on everywhere likely to be exposed.

The same applies wherever you are in the world. Why look forward to a much-needed vacation, then overdo it on the first day or two, and end up in bed suffering from heatstroke or sunstroke? Not a lot of fun!

Now that the sun has gone down it has actually got breezy and chilly. We all came prepared with cardigans, on the basis that we will be landing in the UK at the weekend and, well, maybe winter coats would’ve been a better bet, packing wise. I’m sure it will be raining! 🙂

So the cardigans are on covering our freezing top halves. Oddly enough, below the waist, where we’re sheltered behind the apartment’s balcony wall, we’re all fine. So the scene right now is something like that I’ve captured below…times three!

Ella

While Ella’s away I’m supposed to be minding the shop 🙂

But what I’ve actually been doing is spending money on a new look to replicate how I’m looking in RL right now.

Yep…a ponytail and, well, ahem, girl fur has sprouted again, lol. Why? Well…as you may know by now, Ella and I are meeting up in Spain in July, and, you know, I thought I’d express solidarity in the sisterhood! 🙂 Maybe not quite the lady garden shown in the photo, but I’ve got another month to grow it out a bit, lol… Anyway, the absence of it in Vera Playa, according to Ella’s posts, makes me want to be different. 🙂

Pookes

Remember ‘Consuelo’?

Last year, she had appeared to be living with the gentleman, a man of more mature years, who lived in an adjacent apartment. The gentleman in question would come home from work every day, and sunbathe nude for a couple of hours. Last year this routine, for the first time in about five years, was disrupted with the appearance of ‘Consuelo’, who the RL Mr Keng and I thought was wavering between ‘will she, won’t she’ go nude.

The body language appeared to suggest that she was newly living there, and she’d put on a bikini to go to the nearby (nudist) beach. I dearly hoped she would fully immerse herself in the naturist lifestyle.

Sadly, it never happened. I heard today that she found it impossible to commit herself to naturism and the gentleman in question was forced to decide between her and a lifestyle he loved.

In the end, he opted for her, and they moved out! 😦

New people now reside in that apartment, a lady in her 70s and her daughter (I think) in her 30s. Neither have shown any inkling of being naturist yet.

Oh Consuelo! Are you proud of yourself?

Ella

So, ladies, half way through and I’d like your immediate thoughts on naturism and the lifestyle.

Nanni: I love it and can’t wait to try new things as the week goes on. I’ve got this feeling that I can’t really explain properly, like it’s filled in a bit of a jigsaw that was missing in my life, that it’s something I will readily do again. I think that it’s something we must do again.

What has been difficult?

Nanni: Nothing really. I think we came saying ‘no, we can’t do that’, but once immersed in the lifestyle here it all looks so natural and enjoyable, and you think ‘oh, no one cares’, there’s no sense of it being a sexual experience. I mean, we have probably been eyeing naked men up and down, and all penises aren’t the same size, but after a while you aren’t even paying attention to a man’s penis, or looking at a woman thinking ‘oh, her boobs are better than mine’. No one is really giving a damn.

Yet you decided to depilate yourself.

Nanni: Yes. Most of the women here have done so. I didn’t think ‘I need to follow the fashion’. The thought process was ‘I need to experience that feeling…does it feel better, worse, different.’ I’ve….hahaha…is this too much information at this time in the morning…run a razor over it this morning again just to keep it totally smooth. When I get home I’ll probably go back to normal, but while we’re here I’m even doing that as part of the overall naturist experience.

Immediate thoughts, Bebe?

Bebe: When I walked down to the bins this morning (you take rubbish to a communal bin on the street, emptied daily) there was an old man there, pubic hair shaved and some sort of jewellry around his bits…

..that’s a cock ring…I know the gentleman you mean…

Bebe: …a what????

A cock ring. Oh, how you’ve lived a sheltered life. Of course, I had to ask the same question several years ago, too.

Bebe: I’d have thought it was the domain of younger guys, not someone around 70 years of age.

It’s the nature of naturism. People find themselves in remarkable ways. Anything else?

Bebe: I don’t want to sound like I’m looking…but I’ve noticed a remarkable number of circumcised men. Aren’t we told that it’s a small percentage in Europe?

Let me google that…less than 20% in Europe, apparently.

Bebe: I’d say almost half the men I’ve seen are circumcised.

That 20% would include the RL Mr Keng.

Bebe: Oh! Haha…too much information. What I will say is that had he been here with us I would have found the situation much more difficult. It was fine us all getting naked, because if we’d gone swimming at home we’d have been naked in the changing rooms, so us getting naked here together wasn’t weird, although I was surprised when you had your clothes off before you’d even unpacked. But it would have been really, really weird if (Mr Keng’s RL name used here) had been here and he was naked and I was naked. Simply because we know each other, know each other socially. I have to say I’ve not seen many…well, any, if I’m correct, circumcised penises in life, so I was…haha…observing a little. And I think it’s a nicer looking penis, if I’m honest

Yeah, I think that too 🙂

My own observations, the sort of thing I’d be posting on were I not concentrating on my friends’ immersion into the naturist lifestyle are currently twofold. One, there’s a Spanish family in residence in the apartment block. Mum, Dad, an older teen boy, maybe 16, a younger girl, maybe 14, and another, younger son, maybe 10. They all swim in the pool, and the teen girl (not a scene I will be replicating for SLN) is that she’s ‘natural’, while Mum is shaved. I guess she’s just not at an age yet where she’ll be having that ‘Mum, I’m going to remove my pubic hair’ conversation. Maybe she won’t need to make that conversation in time, just do it. And maybe, next year on holiday, she’ll have made that hair choice and surprise the rest of the family. Or Mum will blithely accept their daughter is now ‘grown up’ (an odd thing that removing hair, which denotes puberty, could be seen as growing up). How do mothers and daughters have this conversation? How does it go? I know, in about 12 years time, it may be one I’m going to have. But maybe by that stage the fashion regarding a lack of intimate hair will have changed again.

Secondly, I was observing what was obviously a couple brand new to naturism over the past couple of days. I watched them appear at the adjacent apartment block’s swimming pool, our apartment overlooking it, as they -just like Nanni and Bebe- took their first steps towards public nudity. These events, over the past couple of days, are replicated, below. (as before, I’m having to use my ‘Adam’ and ‘Eve’ alts to replicate it, and have had Nanni log in on her computer, under my password, to set these scenes up).

A clearly nervous couple arrived at the pool area, him in swimming trunks she, in reality, in a sun dress rather than the bikini I’ve posed her in for the purposes of SLN 

Having arrived in swimwear, for him, and a sun dress, for her, they found a corner of the garden around the pool area.

After some time, and with no one else to disturb them, they stripped. I wasn’t particularly people watching them, so I’ve no idea who led the way. I’m guessing it was the male of the couple, it’s almost invariably the male.

But whoever took the lead, the other partner willingly followed, and they lay face down, bottoms bared, breasts and genitals covered, as many newbie naturists do. But having determined that no one was going to disturb them, they opted to -probably for the first time in public, I wish I had seen that moment- go nude in the pool.

I’ve seen this so often over the years. That moment of anxiety and delight rolled into one.

They were still beaming with delight by the time I’d spotted them, in the pool and overwhelmed by sheer, smiling joy.

Lots of hugs and cuddles, some kissing, knowing they’d gone through a barrier of some kind.

The newbie couple take to the pool, delighted to have embraced naturism. Why didn’t they do it years ago, they ask themselves.

Whoops! Apologies for the titling of yesterday’s posts, which said ‘Day 2’ rather than ‘Day 3′. As a result I’ve decided not to utilise a numbering system that was clearly confusing me (maybe the sun’s gone to my head) and just reference the days of the week. And only one post, I think, today (apologies that I didn’t get it posted yesterday, but today…we had a busy day on Wednesday 🙂 ) from me, although I see a couple of Pookes’ postings lined up and ready to go. (Work away, Pookes. Hit the publish button).

All three of us were awake early this morning, so we walked down to a glorious sunlit beach at 730am. We took mugs of tea with us in insulated mugs and watched the very few dog walkers and beach walkers around. My friends wore their sarongs.

Our ritual has been to have two cups of tea (maybe three) while we contemplate what we’re going to do, so the call for a second tea was unsurprising. But….along with the cry for more tea came Nanni’s wish to go back to the beach with cup two. Without the protection of a sarong! Fully nude! Her debut! Bebe squirmed a little but decided that, well, OK, the time had come.

‘You don’t have to if you don’t want to’, I told her.

‘No…let’s bite the bullet. There’s not many people around. Let’s go for it!’, she gulped, clearly nervous.

It’s a shame we can’t get all three computers connected at once to replicate that scene for you. I promise that I’ll get the girls together next week (I’d planned a coffee morning as an ‘after holiday chat’ anyway, to allow them time to reflect on their experiences this week and give me their thoughts, as well as re-enacting the week’s events in what will be our ‘Spanish Holiday Photo Album’.

So…all three of us now totally nude, carrying mugs of tea, made it to the beach without encountering anyone else (it’s a three minute walk, not a hike!)

And the few on the beach barely gave us a second glance as we sat there. It was a lovely feeling to see my two non-naturist friends embrace the lifestyle for the very first time. Nanni was braver, wandering down to the water’s edge and paddling. A nude, male jogger came by, feet away from her. He probably didn’t even glance in her direction.

Not because she’s unattractive, but because it was as normal an event as a male jogger in your town jogging past any female. Totally unremarkable for him. How was he to know it was essentially (Kurt apart, essentially a ‘private’ event on the terrace) her very first time? That she was nervous and uncertain?

Bebe held back a little, but when he’d passed there was no one in either direction for a couple of hundred yards, so Bebe summoned up the courage to make her way down to the  shoreline too. And just as she did, a male appeared from behind me…left holding the cups…to walk straight down beside them and into the sea.

‘It was fine, it was lovely’, said Nanni, afterwards.

‘It was frightening for a moment, particularly when that guy appeared, but the world kept revolving and then I was fine. I’m not sure I wish to sit in a cafe, nude, just yet, but otherwise, no problems. Let’s move this thing forward!’.

Bebe agreed. The moment when the chap appeared from nowhere slightly unnerved them but, otherwise, they enjoyed it.

Nanni referred to it as ‘the magic hour’, when the beach is almost deserted and the sun is rising.

And it’s hard to argue with that.

Nanni and Bebe make their public nude debut on the beach just after sunrise on Wednesday morning

Despite this, neither lady felt ready for the beach in the middle of the day quite yet nor, indeed, the idea of even wandering down to the apartment’s pool area if other swimmers are around.

The remainder of Wednesday was quiet, a reflection on what they’d achieved and how far they’d come in 48 hours. Full nudity from dawn to dusk is now the norm between the three of us.

‘Unknown guy’ appears from nowhere and unnerves Bebe slightly

Working SL from my laptop is problematic, so I’ve not been able to upload all the SL photos I wanted to for this post. I’ll add them to our ‘Holiday Album’ when we return home.

For the remainder of Wednesday we simply chilled at the apartment, reading, listening to music and sunbathing. It clouded over around 5pm, and we imagined that rain might not be far away, so there came a point where we actually dressed! Fortunately, by 7pm, the cloud had blown over, and so the clothes came off again as we caught the evening’s sun again. I’ve pointed out to Nanni that there’s a second ‘magical hour’ when the sun is setting and there are, like the morning, fewer naturists on the beach. So we’ve promised ourselves that we will do that on Thursday evening.

Oh…guess who were first with the clothes off when the sun did re-appear? Hint: it wasn’t me! 🙂

Ella

Yes, I know we’ve missed Wednesday’s postcard out. We were busy yesterday, so I’ve not had time to complete any photos I’d like to use, as that post (which will appear later today) is photo-heavy. I also need to get it published so there’s a day-to-day flow to the posts.

The three of us headed down to the beach, at 730am. The sun was just up, and there were a few people walking the beach or the occasional swimmer. I’ll come to that in our own ‘Thursday’ postcard later, but I couldn’t resist a separate post regarding a beautiful young woman who was doing yoga on the beach. She, unlike our model (me as ‘Eve’ again) was clothed for it, and I’m guessing she had been doing it for some time, possibly from before sunrise, hence her wearing clothes. She finished her routine, rolled up her yoga mat, and then undressed and went swimming. What a beautiful beginning to the day! What a beautiful relationship between naturism and nature!

Ella

edited to add at 830pm. We’ve been down to the beach for a walk, and she’s still there, with her family. Topless this time, but it looks like Mum and Dad and a couple her parents’ age are there too. Whether the presence of others (her parents’ friends) had a bearing on her keeping her bikini briefs on, I don’t know for sure, but I’m prepared to say that that is probably the case.