This morning was the 7th annual North-East skinny dip, an event that more or less concludes the naturist ‘season’ in this country (the UK).

It raises cash for MIND, an mental health charity, and I’ve heard that it was marshalled in a different manner to keep ‘casual photographers’ away, with only official photographers and participants cameras/phones allowed to record the event. Whether this was flagged up in advance, I don’t know, but my source -a veteran of this event- says that the male to female ration was much more balanced this year.

People like to have the likes of this on their ‘bucket list’ (skinny-dipping is on many people’s bucket list) and also like to raise money for charity. Combine the two and you have a winner! But people don’t like to necessarily have their naked self splashed all over the internet or in print, and it’s clear that many people would avoid the event for that reason. Good marshalling, to preserve people’s anonymity makes sense for events such as this (and also the Sydney Skinny, another event that also is firm on photographic rules).

(photos shown from last year’s official photos)

Ella

This photo is, apparently, from Atlantic City in 1939, so we’re celebrating the 80th anniversary of the photo. Topless male swimming had become the norm around 1934, and I’m guessing that Atlantic City was just a little behind the curve, normalising it in ’39, hence the photo.

It’s almost certainly staged in front of a real sign, playing on the fact that the woman is pointing out the info given while the beach lifeguard looks bemused.

In many parts of the world, 80 years on, women are still fighting for equality in this matter.

Ella

Susan has been out and about, taking photos of various SL naturist locations (and more general views). Above, she’s at the Punta Negra naturist sim, and we’ll have a report on that soon.

In the meantime, here’s a small gallery of other, similarly inclined photographers.

Ella

The entire summer was, as I previously reported, a wipeout. 

Poor weather, children needing attending, only one naturist holiday this year, back in June, and relatively little report-worthy naturism in real life to even report on! My most clothes orientated summer for 20 years!

Factor in ‘the builders’ (and the builders over-running on completion) and months have just slipped away with SLN taking a firm back seat.

Back now! And those who contribute to SLN are (almost) all back from their holidays, and we’re all feeling refreshed by having an enforced break!

When I couldn’t write, though, I was able to think about how to develop the blog. I’ve abandoned the Flickr account for SLN, as it was something of a bolt-on anyway, and I’ve spent most of the month, so far, just getting back inworld and seeing the changes to SL’s naturist community, and simply socialising before I go back to the usual routine of having to split a wider SL time into two sections…being inworld….or writing for SLN.

Spare a thought, too, for bits of naturist Spain buffeted and battered by the flooding hitting the region. In the photograph above we can see San Javier, the village outside Murcia which contains the regional airport, one we’ve often flown into, and then driven to our various naturist holidays in a couple of locations on the Mediterranean coast.

In previous bad flooding, we got out with hours to spare! We could see the lightning storms envelop Madrid as we flew homeward. By the next morning some of the bridges we’d crossed on our journey to the airport  had been washed away.

Back to more regular posting from this week!

Ella

I have to apologise for the lack of posts throughout August. Quite simply, a growing family have needs throughout the summer holidays, and between day trips here and there, amusing them on wet days and so on, and then a minor illness to contend with (nothing serious) SLN had to take a back seat.

With school returning, things should return to normal, as far as posting is concerned. Thanks for your patience, everyone

Ella