As a naturist, the summer months are clearly the season I’m going to enjoy most. I’m afraid, though, that apart from my trips to Spain this summer has been an almost total washout as far as home naturism here in Scotland has been concerned. May was quite good, but after that the weather descended into greyness and lots and lots of rain. 75% above our normal, which can be wet enough anyway!

As for the rest of the UK…northern England, Wales and Northern Ireland were in similar positions regarding the rain. Our garden is squidgy underfoot, so goodness knows what it’ll be like in the dead of winter. Of course, given the strange weather patterns that exist now (happy, climate change deniers?) the possibility remains that the rain stops soon and we won’t see a drop for weeks on end.

Umbrella L$10 from the Marketplace

Boots : Free from Fab Free’s freebie store (no longer available)

Sinking into the mud!

Of course I’ve been in naturist situations where we’ve been caught out in the rain. Often. But it brings its own pleasures. There’s something lovely about sitting in a swimming pool while the rain torrents down, bouncing off the surface of the water. Why should we care? We’re wet already! 🙂

In Spain, the rain does truly fall mainly on the plain. It can become positively dangerous as it cascades off the mountains and fills the ramblas, and can wash bridges away, destroy homes and such like.

This ‘rambla’, a dry river bed, can fill in a very short space of time when the rains arrive.

But hey! Here I am talking about the weather, sounding like a true Brit!

I started to write this blog entry on Saturday, when we’d had rain every day for weeks. Heavy rain. And sure enough, as I suggested, it stopped on Sunday and we’ve had wall to wall sunshine since 🙂 Once I’ve got the children off to school it even looks as though a bit of early autumnal naturism might be possibly in the sun-trapped patio of our house.

Ella

Following on from the first part of our naked motorbiking posts, did you know SL had it’s own ‘Route 66’ sim?

This post was originally predicated by Harry finding ‘Route 66’ and doing a (non nude) photosession with model Jess (the photos above).

Harry likes to do his own photos, as well as stuff for SLN, and mentioned ‘Route 66’ in an IM to me recently. As the naked motorbiking post was already half-way through completion, I thought it would be remiss not to take the opportunity to add a second post from one of the world’s iconic highways. Perhaps the world’s most iconic highway. So we rounded up my biker friend Karen, who isn’t routinely naturist in SL, being much more attracted to bike sims, but not averse to getting her leathers off, and Harry and her headed out to the sim to capture a few shots.

It certainly looked like a photogenic sim, somewhere you could rezz a bike and do racing down the world’s most iconic highway (see the photos with Jess). I’ve tp’ed into it this morning (Monday) to check it out for myself, and was disappointed to find it gone! Whether this is temporary or permanent, I don’t know. I’ll do an update on it if it should return.

Ella

Nudity and bikes often seem to go together, what with the various biker rallies around the world ‘encouraging’ states of undress.

And in naturism there’s lots of bikers, some being hardy souls who will bike the length of France and Spain to reach the Med.

Two of my naturist friends are a Dutch couple who do that, packing a tent and sleeping bags onto their bike, and taking a few days, perhaps a week, to reach the Playas, because they take a rather circuitous route along the French A7, l’autoroute du soleil (motorway to the sun) and then the Spanish Mediterranean Highway, the Autovia A7, which allows them to stop off near the sea for the night, perhaps managing a bit of a naturist swim (at a non-naturist location) at the end of a long, hot day in the saddle.

I can’t think of any more iconic European motorways than the A7, which also runs directly down the centre of Germany, but it’s not particularly ‘romantic’, is it?

No one is singing songs about the A7 (well, maybe they are, but I can’t imagine it’ll be a standard in 60 years, unlike a song to perhaps America’s most iconic road, Route 66.

Which…as chance would have it…is where the blog visits next.

Ella

Spencer Tunick is in Nantucket this weekend and some photos are emerging on social media.

The original Pic has been pixelated for use on social media.
Nudes near lighthouses? Whatever next? 🙂 That’s a theme we’ve run for years now…

We’ve not done a ‘group shot’ on a boat, though. Until now!

Unfortunately the lag would probably kill off any attempt to recreate the number of participants Tunick achieves, but three avis in a boat, echoes of Jerome K Jerome there, works for us 🙂

Ella

I’d like to offer my hearty congratulations to long-standing SL friend Ringo, who this week told me of his forthcoming partnering to SL boyfriend Ori. Ringo and I became friends years ago when we both were regular attendees at long gone naturist sim Manatee.

Many gay people enjoy the naturist lifestyle, and I’ve long known gay and lesbian couples in real life and SL naturism.

Back in 2013 I blogged what I imagined might be the first blogged gay SL naturist kiss in the blogosphere when Ringo and then boyfriend Cecil puckered up for our cameras (see above). That relationship didn’t survive, but Ringo then found SL love with Ori. My very best wishes go out to both Ringo and Ori. 🙂

I don’t see quite so much of Ringo these days, as he tends to gravitate towards the likes of the 3 Bears Gay (Clothing Optional) resort.

I’ve not visited it, but it comes with Ringo’s recommendation as a fun place for any SL gay naturists. I’ll maybe try and get him to do a report from there in the near future.

Ella

While out in Spain a few weeks back I fell into conversation with a couple of a certain age at the pool.

Before they spoke I was almost certain they were from Manchester, due to both wearing bee tattoos.

The bee is a historic symbol of Manchester.

When a moronic Islamic terrorist attacked the Manchester Arena in May, at the end of an Ariana Grande concert, killing 23 people, injuring 250, many people opted to get bee tattoos to raise money for the victims, and now 10,000 have had a bee tattoo inked onto themselves.

They told me they’d never thought of themselves as tattoo people, being of an age where tattoos were the exclusive preserve of sailors or convicts. But they said that the bombing in their home town changed their mindset, that it was a symbol of defiance, in their eyes, to anyone who would attempt to destroy the spirit of their home city.

As it happens, the Twelve Event includes a queen bee tattoo for L$12 right now (until the end of the month).

Further investigation revealed that there’s a number of bee tattoos on the Marketplace, and our model picked the one shown below up for L$15.

While they’re not for me, it demonstrates that a tattoo can have real meaning, not just something put on after a drunken night on holiday. My conversation with a couple in their 70s, sporting relatively fresh ink, shows that you’re never too old to get a tattoo if some event moves you enough to wear a symbol of defiance. While I remain of the opinion that it’s a fashion trend that will inevitably change, people have different reasons for getting inked, and what they choose to do with their own bodies is a matter for themselves.

Ella.

We’ve covered the topic of naked snorkelling and diving before, notably the semi-nude Japanese pearl fishers, as well as a fantastic naturist scuba dive at Naked Dreams.

I thought it was a topic worth exploring again.

Second Life offers opportunities to do some snorkelling. Clearly, the naturist snorkelling at Naked Dreams (see photos below) are away and far our favourite spot, but a search will turn up several locations in which to do it. The Marketplace also has many snorkelling or diving accessories, a range to meet everyone’s pocket, and the set I’m wearing in the photos (below) cost L$5 from the marketplace, although there’s a free set at the embarkation point at Naked Dreams.

I’ve snorkelled, without much success, I can never get my breathing right, and never scuba dived, but I think that SL scuba might be a reasonable visual representation of the RL variety.

Ella

Dover.

It’s a town in the very south-east corner of England, and has been, for centuries, Britain’s gateway to continental Europe. Despite cheap flights and the Eurotunnel, it’s still a hugely important ferry link to France. In the years BC (before children), we’d take the car over to France and drive to one of France’s excellent naturist resorts, such as Arnaoutchot, 1000kms distant from the French ferry port of Calais. But when you’re young, the 9 hour drive (!) wasn’t so hard to endure, at least on the way down. A couple of weeks of naturist sunshine lay ahead of you. The drive back was more difficult. Back to reality and the English rain!

We did this a couple of times until the trip where Jim pulled onto the hard shoulder of the motorway and declared that he felt himself to be on the edge of falling asleep at the wheel. After that, we always opted to stop over for the night at the half way point and drive on (or home), refreshed, the following day. Happily, the roughly half way mark coincides with another excellent naturist site, le Colombier. 

Images of Le Colombier naturist campsite

Dover played a key role in Britain’s Second World War effort. Back from the ground to air defences, closer to London, lay RAF Biggin Hill, the main base from which Spitfire and Hurricane aircraft would take off to defend Britain from waves of Luftwaffe bombing attacks.

The White (chalk) cliffs of Dover would be made famous by British singer Vera Lynn, (she’s still alive, aged 100!) at a time when the thrust of WW2 was beginning to change. Having, alone, fought off the scourge of German fascism throughout 1940, Britain was now holding its own. Pearl Harbour brought the US into the war, on the Allies side. In January, 1942, the first American troops arrived in the UK. Glenn Miller had recorded a version in 1941 but, in England at least, it’s Vera Lynn’s 1942 version that endures.

The ‘bluebirds’ in the song not only point to a time when the skies are at peace again, but also reference the pilots defending the island, the ‘bluebirds’ being RAF pilots, in blue uniforms.

I’m telling you all this because today, Sunday, a new ‘White Cliffs of Dover’ sim opened, and it’s stunning.

The real life Dover Hall

Ella at the entrance to the SL Dover Hall

Scenes from the ‘Dover Town’ part of the sim

You can teleport to The White Cliffs of Dover, a graphically rich sim in which you could spend hours photographing. SL building at its very, very best!

Ella

Edited to add: a reader has already been in touch to say that there is a naturist beach at the foot of the iconic cliffs called ‘Abbott’s Beach’, and included some photos.

So…as naturism is apparently possible at the White Cliffs, I headed back to the sim…

As promised, I’ve begun an autumn ‘tour’ of the various naturist sims in Second Life, with the intention of bringing up to date reports from many.

What I’ve noticed is that several ‘naturist’ venues have kind of re-assigned themselves as ‘clothing optional’, whereas I see very little evidence of textile beaches becoming ‘clothing optional’. In Second Life, as in real life, there seems to be a new conservatism, with naturism being an easy target to be squeezed and corralled into smaller areas.

One of the last reports I wrote, in June, was about Amoras Nude Beach, which remains firmly, defiantly naturist, (apart from its clubhouse area, clearly marked as C.O.) so hooray to them for that.

Clear signage to note the difference between the smaller clothing optional area and the larger naturist one. I love the bikini top casually draped over the sign!

Happily, I note that Amoras seems to be getting decent traffic figures, but the title of this blog entry, ‘Use it or lose it’, is a reminder that for any SL avatar who identifies as naturist, it’s incumbent on you and us to regularly use the facilities thoughtfully provided by naturist-friendly sim builders. Equally, it’s incumbent on you, the SL avatar who doesn’t identify as naturist, to fit into our lifestyle. Sim builders don’t want to be creating in a void, any more than bloggers want to write into a void. This isn’t, I should add, any reflection on Amoras, more of a general observation on sims, naturist or otherwise, in general. If you like a place, support it by regular attendance.

Harry, our photographer, takes time out to read in the Amoras clubhouse

Harry reports that one of his favourite items at Amoras was the clubhouse, very much resembling the restaurants in French naturist campsites. I didn’t notice this clubhouse when I visited Amoras in June, perhaps I missed it, perhaps it’s new, but Harry enthused about it. ‘You can choose your meal and your drink from the menu. I’d got talking to Rosie, so we sat and had a meal in their restaurant, a main course and dessert, which I thought was a fabulous touch’.

Eline, Amoras’ owner, also provides onscreen notices that give a clear indication the dress code within Amoras. There’s no excuse for not understanding the rules, and no excuse for keeping a pair of board shorts on and presenting yourself as one of those creepy guys who never gets naked, then makes inappropriate remarks in IM!

The impression I got from Amoras when I visited was that it is very much set up to reflect one of Second Life’s great strengths, the sociability angle. Harry was able to spend time simply chatting with avatar Rosie over a meal, and then dance and chill. All of these create the circumstances in which SL friendships can be forged, gentle pursuits and the opportunity to engage with other SL users from around the globe. It’s an excellent sim, photogenic and lending itself to low-key, friendly chat and dancing – an example of SL, and the SL naturist community – at its very best!

Ella

My recent naturist holiday in Spain was blighted by appalling internet speeds, resulting in me not being able to do my usual ‘Postcards’ series. But I had a few naturist experiences that are still worth sharing.

The first features an older couple, in their 70s, on their first(!) naturist holiday.

I got speaking to them at one of the ‘chirinquitos’, the beach bars that dot the area. From Manchester, England, they’d been to the area the previous year and discovered the naturist beach by accident. They hadn’t used it, or felt brave enough to use it, but some research later they discovered that it wasn’t only a beach, but a whole naturist village. As the male of the couple has difficulty walking, they thought it might be too difficult for them to access, but discovered to their delight that the credo that ‘naturism is for everybody’ extended to apartments that were also disabled friendly, a sage bit of planning considering that there’s an older naturist crowd who use the place regularly.

Nervous about their first time, they found the nerves had disappeared within a few minutes. and they were enjoying the sun, spending time on the terrace of their apartment, and had made new naturist friends. ‘I think we imagined it might be for a younger crowd than us’, they beamed, ‘by which we mean people in their fifties, but while they’re here too, there’s plenty of people in their 70s and older! We don’t feel out of place at all. In fact, here in naturism we feel more part of the human race! At home, we’d experience a bit of age intolerance, young people who tut-tut in the supermarket queue because we can’t pack our bag as quickly as them, or count out our money a bit more slowly than they will use their debit card. There’s none of that in naturism. Everyone has time, a friendly word and a smile on their face. Our only disappointment is that we didn’t discover this fifty years ago!’

On my way back to the apartment I happened to pass Dolores, a naturist neighbour of ours, a wheelchair user since birth. She was born in the next village along the coast, a place that’s markedly hillier than the place we use. I know Dolores’ story well. She lives with her sister, who acts as her carer. Now in her forties, she says that moving to the naturist area was the best move she ever made as the area’s largely flat, enabling her to move around much more independently, and in the past ten years the council have been proactive in creating ramps or lowered footpaths enabling her, and other wheelchair or disability scooter users, to be an active part of the community.

She recommends the area to anyone who is naturist and disabled. ‘Our disabilities disappear within naturism. Here, we’re valued members of the community, active in the community, not something that should be invisible or pitied’.

(nb: Dolores’ words are paraphrased from a previous discussion with her, when we invited various neighbours to a barbecue. I didn’t speak to her about disabled access on my most recent trip to Spain).

The conclusion is that if you’re older, infirm or disabled, naturism is both do-able and welcoming.

Ella