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Losing our marbles: a research project
It may be cold in New Zealand, so too it is here. Three hours south, Bridgetown recorded an overnight low of minus three degrees on Thursday, or so the television weather report said, and the days in Perth have struggled to make it to twenty. It’s hard to think back to those languid days of summer, when the mercury hovered around forty and our lazing on Swanbourne Beach was interrupted only by the occasional dip into the Indian Ocean. It all seems a very long time ago.
We did a blog entry back then on the Swanbourne Beach Olympics, the one where team uniform was described as immaterial and Marty an unsuccessful competitor in the egg and spoon race. A reworked version of the story made its way into the pages of gonatural, a New Zealand nudist magazine, and this is where the story take an interesting turn. A family friend, a nudist for more than four decades, spotted the article and reported to the editor that he was unfamiliar with any previous penchant on our part to enjoy the sun, all over.
He was curious, so was the editor who got in touch and invited a contribution on the reaction from family and friends to our baring all (in words that is, not pictures), publicly. We replied, explaining that it was no big deal, we wrote about it just as we did many other new and novel experiences on our travels, and that it appeared no big deal for readers either.
Earlier on our travels, we blogged about stopping in a place called Balatonbereny, a nudist beach in Hungary, where we made a tongue in cheek quip about the fashions du jour in pubic shaving, and we had in mind that this may draw a comment, but not a peep. The same in Croatia and so by the time we reached Swanbourne we were quite blasé about the whole thing. And still not a peep, so we responded to the request for our tell-all-expose with an opinion that family and friends seemed unfazed and probably just dismissed the reports as further evidence that we had, indeed, lost our marbles.
It may be our writing style, but the editor has persisted, repeated the request and, if only to confirm that we have indeed gone quite mad, we might just oblige. That is, if anyone does give a damn.