The snow yesterday morning wasn’t quite as deep and crisp and even as the photos have, but we had a light dusting nonetheless.

With the children off at various extra-curricular school activities yesterday morning, we took ourselves off to the ‘beach’ that lies just beyond the fence at the end of our garden. I often take a walk, or jog, there with Jim, and I’ve written about sometimes squeezing in some naturist activity, as two friends do, on a ‘tracksuit kind of day’ ; going out for a jog in the hills in summer, finding some mountain stream, stripping off and cooling down in the water.

Yesterday wasn’t intended to be ‘a tracksuit kind of day’, albeit that we actually were tracksuited!

The beach curves around a bay, largely inaccessible to the public except over farmers’ fields. So it’s a de facto private beach. ‘What about a naked run in the snow?’, asked Jim.

I don’t know why he asks these things as he knows I’m usually up for a bit of naturism, even on a freezing cold Saturday morning.

We picked a spot in the distance…not too distant, a couple of hundred yards away, stripped off and ran to it, then back to our clothes.

We chose a spot not too far away to run to less for fear of being discovered, more for fear of it being too cold for us. We needn’t have worried. Yes, it was cold, but so was running in tracksuits, initially. It was also thrilling, exhilarating and exciting, an unexpected naturist bonus at the end of what was a bit of a washout year for naturism due to the appalling weather we’ve had.

I would love to do this again. And weather permitting, i.e. a cold, bright morning with no wind or rain, I suspect we shall, quite soon!

Ella

 Next Sunday, December 3rd, marks the beginning of advent, which in the Christian calendar begins the Christmas countdown, four Sundays before December 25th.

Many of you will be familiar with the advent calendar, in which a day is marked off from 1-25th December and in recent years has been commercialised to include various small ‘gifts’ (perhaps a square of chocolate or mini bottle of perfume : advent calendars reach all depths of purses).

A UK advent calendar from a chocolate (candy) manufacturer will hold a small piece of chocolate behind each ‘window’.

It also spells the beginning of the ‘office Christmas party’ season. I’m not a fan. I work with people, and like the people I work with, but I don’t feel the need to socialise with them. My own actual staff Xmas party was on Friday night and, once again, I didn’t go. Bah humbug? Perhaps. I’m just not a fan of drunken, social gatherings. Particularly those organised at such a late date that they had to be set for November. Or set in plush, exclusive restaurants which offer a plate of turkey for the same price as some employees daily wage! Sheer and utter madness I want to be no part of. Stick the price of a few drinks behind the bar down the road from where we work and…don’t let management come!

Anyway…the advent calendars will now be out around the grid later this week, and there will be a stack of free gifts to collect each day between now and Christmas Day. Keep up to date with our ‘Yule Look Great’ series of posts, which follows the adventures of new avatar ‘Kim’ (an alt I created) in attempting to create a complete look and wardrobe for L$0 in this, definitely the season of giving in SL!

While this series will inevitably include clothes, we’ll also be focusing on gifts that will definitely enhance the SL naturist experience. Some gifts have already been available for a week or more. Brii Underground, for example, has three gifts at its front door, including a wearable Santa hat and two flashing, fluorescent Xmas decorations we’ve already put up at SLN HQ.

Ella

If you’ve not joined SL yet, now is the time!

The grid will be awash with freebies and goodies, advent calendars, boxes under Xmas trees, over the next few weeks, and you can create a fabulous avatar for nothing!

Between now and the new year we’ll be running a series of posts under the title ‘Yule look great! with a brand new, out of the box avatar I’ve created.

Wave hello, ‘Kim’ (no reason for the name, I just plucked it out of the air).

By signing up for SL right now, you’ll have the opportunity to begin the new year with a stunning looking avatar for absolutely nothing. The first thing Kim did was teleport to 7 Deadly Skins, as membership is free, there will be a free gift every day of advent (beginning December 1st), at which point membership goes up to L$1000. So get signed up for 7DS if you aren’t already a member!

I’ve not yet been convinced by mesh skins and bodies, so I utilise what’s called a ‘classic’ avatar. In terms of freebies, these are becoming less numerous as mesh takes over. My main criteria for not making the change (to Ella) is that I can’t tweak the body shape as I’d like. I also feel that there’s a bit of a learning curve getting to grips with the SL controls, and mesh simply adds a further level of learning that doesn’t need to exist. Personally, it’s a case of simplifying the learning process as much as possible. Sure, as ‘newbs’ we all want to look great -and fast- so why not cater for the ‘news’ by making their avatars ‘classic’ as opposed to ‘mesh’ skins?

So…for free, good quality ‘classic’ skins, there’s LAQ.

Kim as she came ‘out of the box’

Kim undressed

Kim with a new LAQ classic skin applied

Kim given some basic ‘reshaping’

We all have our own ideas of what constitutes beauty, so my ideas might not necessarily reflect yours. That’s OK. It’s SL, find your own path! 🙂

I narrowed Kim’s hips, made her taller, and added some ‘gravity’ to her breasts to make her a little (in my eyes) more real.

I’ll be continuing to re-work Kim through advent as freebies appear.

Naturist or not, you will probably want to strip your avatar completely anyway, in order to ‘tweak’ her to the shape you want.

Next, I’ll be sourcing some hair for Kim, preferably ‘Flexi’ hair (it’s hair that moves…once again, I like it more for its realism while rigged or unrigged mesh hair just sits there).

Ella