Another two week gap in the blog posts…. Must get myself a bit more organised, though the gap is largely due to not really making any progress last weekend. However, I can make up for it this weekend as I have made solid progress on challenge number 1.
A quick re-cap on what Hercules had to do for his first labour – he had to slay the Nemean Lion, this beastie had been pretending to be women in distress at the back of a cave, luring men to come and rescue them then devouring them and sending their bones to Hades. Hercules tried slaying the lion with arrows but they all bounced off so he had to resort to stunning it with a club and then strangling it. My first challenge was “non arrestable public nudity” – not as dangerous but one of the challenges I was most nervous about.
Public nudity is a little frowned upon by the general public and in particular the police service – I didn’t want to streak at a football match and get myself into trouble with the law so I ended up doing a bit of google research on naturism/nudism. No obvious options came up but then chatting to a mate Phil about this he remembered that there used to be a monthly naked swimming event at the East End Pool, some more googling revealed that this was still running though had now moved to the city pool to make use of the Turkish baths and the next event was on the 9th of February (that was yesterday – you can see where this is going). I didn’t fully make my mind up to try it until Thursday evening but I duly filled out the online booking form on the Naturist Club website, paid my £10 via paypal, and a few minutes later received my confirmation email with some helpful instructions (bring two towels, don’t bring trunks etc). It was really only after getting the email that I started to think / worry about what this was going to involve – getting my kit off in front of total strangers – and how I might have to explain why I was trying this for the first time (“well… erm… it was a sort of drunken New Years Eve bet….” Probably wouldn’t win me many new friends).
Just after 5pm on Friday I remembered I would have to print a copy of the email as confirmation of my booking, this presented a problem as I don’t have a printer at home, the only ones I have access to are at work. Oh well, I thought, its only a minor misuse of office supplies – I logged on to my email account found the right email and without thinking hit the print button…………. Completely forgetting that unless I’d getting the print setting right the email could be sent to anyone of about 30 printers scattered across three buildings . To say my heart started racing is something of an understatement – 5 seconds of frantic mouse clicking revealed that it had thankfully been sent to one in my building, only one floor down but it just happens to be one that everyone on that floor uses. I’m not sure I’ve ever run so fast in doors but thankfully I was able to recover the email helpfully titled “Your booking confirmation from Nudeswim” and with my name all over it before anyone could get near it – panic over (for a day at least).
The following day was of course the 9th and as the event didn’t start 5 I had the whole day to mull it over – a ten mile run in the afternoon took my mind off things for a while but by 4 it was time to get ready, pack two towels and no trunks, and head into town. I got to the pool about 10 minutes after the doors opened and lined up with about a dozen very average folks as we each had to have our name /ID checked, the chap doing the checking realised I was a first timer and very kindly got someone to show me around. The changing area was the dry room in the Turkish Bath section, all very nicely set out and full off naked people sitting around, chatting and having a drink. At this point I was left to take my clothes off in a screened off area. Walking back into the main area was surprisingly stress free – I stopped to put my clothes in a locker (being very careful not to bump into anyone) and then headed for the pool. We were told we had to cover up with a towel to get between the Turkish bath and the pool as it was vsible to the public. The pool was already reasonably full by the time I got there – about 30-40 people, ranging from late 20s to late 60s, about two thirds men, felt a bit strange but not too weird until I saw the two life guards, a boy and a girl, both in their early 20s, fully clothes . For some reason you feel a lot more naked when there are fully clothed people around!
Getting into the pool without shorts on did feel strange, as did swimming to start off with – you become aware of water turbulence in ways you don’t normally do – but once I’d done a couple of lengths it all felt quite normal. Yes there were a lot of naked people around but swimming is swimming. I spent about 40 minutes swimming up and down – I’d decided that goggles were a bad idea so was going a little slow – and chatted to a couple of the other swimmers.
All was going swimmingly (pardon the pun) until I decided to try out the Turkish baths. Getting out of the pool I noticed that a bloke had just picked up MY towel! And before I could do anything he’d wrapped it around his waist! I needed that towel to get back to the changing area without flashing the public! I quickly explained to the gent that he’d got the wrong towel and took great care to note which side of it had been on the inside!
After a quick trip to replace said towel I had a go in the Turkish bath bit. It was my first time in one (either clothed or unclothed), it was very pleasant, a little odd chatting to naked strangers about random things like buses but still v nice. Eventually it was kicking out time, so had a quick freezing cold shower, said goodbyes to a few of the people I’d been chatting to, put my clothes back on and headed back out into the cold night air.
So that was the first challenge passed (a slightly long post, this has taken ages to type), not nearly as out of the comfort zone as I had expected. The people I met were all v nice, I felt a little bad about being a bit of a tourist at their event. Very glad I tried it though and the conclusion I came away with is that the germans have this sort of thing dead right, naturism is no stranger than ski-ing, golf or bowling.
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