My mother in law, a woman in her late 60s, has accompanied us on this trip to Spain. It’s her first experience of a naturist environment, but her joining us is something we’ve talked about for a couple of years now.

My husband will merrily go nude on holiday, and at home, but he has been resistant to his Mum joining us. Despite his naturist confidence, ‘I don’t want my mother seeing me naked’. Particularly as it wasn’t to be a two-way thing. Audrey, my mother in law, will strip off casually when we take the children to a swimming pool at home, but nude in public?

So my husband was very reluctant for her to join us. He thought it would limit him, and put us in a position where clothes would be worn when not necessary.

‘I gave birth to him, breastfed him, washed & bathed him for his early life…it’s not as though I haven’t seen it all before!’, Audrey said.

Well…perhaps not, but not as an adult.

We probably didn’t need to worry too much. The fact that nudity is obligatory in all complex pools meant that Granny had to strip off to accompany the older children into the water. Granted, on her first day, Saturday, she wore a sarong for the trip between the apartment and pool and slipped it off at the pool apron to go into the water with the children, wrapping herself in a towel for the return trip.

My husband and I went to the beach in the afternoon, leaving the children in Granny’s care, and when we returned (my husband having pulled shorts on!!!) which our older son found amusing, as he knows we never wear clothes on holiday.

‘Why are you wearing shorts, Daddy?’

‘Yes’, said Audrey, ‘why are you wearing shorts in a naturist location?’

There was a ‘gulp’ moment, not unlike making his nude debut, he told me later, but off came the shorts.

Audrey didn’t remove the sarong she was wearing, but arrived at our apartment (we’re about six doors apart) fully nude.

I had to laugh when my husband said ‘You didn’t walk down here like that?’ as if his mother couldn’t possibly be naked in public.

But ‘that moment’ had been hurdled, and Granny hasn’t really dressed since. Yes, she still wraps herself in a sarong if we’re out on the streets, many experienced naturist ladies do likewise, but otherwise, she has readily embraced naturism remarkable easily. In the confines of the women’s changing room at a pool, I can see that she might be relaxed about it, but I thought she might be confining herself to the pool, or maybe a sea bathe in less busy periods of the day. But no…she’s accompanied me on my nude stroll each morning, has swum in the sea in the middle of the afternoon, when the beach is at its most crowded, and happily got into the spirit of it all.

‘I wish I could have discovered this fifty years ago!’, she keeps telling me. 🙂

Ella