Yesterday I went swimming.

 

Don’t worry readers, I’m not going to offer you tips on front crawl, or review the latest in swimming caps. No, It wasn’t the swimming itself that sparked my need for discussion. Instead it was what happened upon exiting the pool.

 

I was feeling nicely proud of myself after completing 30 lengths. In fact, I felt positively athletic and convinced that the remaining Christmas chub had dissolved into the water over the last 25 minutes. Off I sprang to the changing rooms wrapped in my warm towel, excited by the prospect of a reward in the café. However, when I had thought the exercise was the hard bit, it transpired I was wrong. It was actually the ordeal of getting changed afterwards that was more of a challenge.

It’s not that I’m mentally challenged in respect of putting on trousers or anything. I can of course dress myself. Hell, I can dress myself AND my screaming toddler in 5 minutes flat should the occasion so call for it. In fact, I’m a god damn Goddess of getting dressed, even if I do say so myself. So you see, it wasn’t me that was the problem. It was the presence of other people that made things difficult.

Now I’m not what you’d call a massive prude, however I guess you could say I am …. ‘reserved’ in the nudity department. For example, I wouldn’t relish the prospect of a nudist holiday, and all the flapping and wobbling that would inevitably come along with it. However, if I have to whip my top off say, in order to change in the car I wouldn't hyperventilate. I would of thought that there was a fairly British attitude, but it would appear I was wrong.

Wandering into the changing rooms I briefly thought I had stumbled upon a strange naked competition or something. Now I know what your thinking….it’s the CHANGING ROOMS. Of course there are naked women, and this I have no problem with. But shouldn’t there be a sort of time limit on this? A kind of ‘whip it off, whip it on’ scenario. So Why oh why, do some women use female changing rooms as some sort of parade? Smugly they smile as they meander around casually in JUST THEIR BRA. Seriously, who even puts their bra on before their pants? Isn’t it sort of against the law?

 

Or worse still, those who have their bra on, but leave it under their boobs like a bizarre rib belt. As if to actually put it on would be somehow cowardly. ‘COVER UP YOUR TITS’ I thought silently, as I hurried to my locker. Just then, a middle aged ‘voluptuous’ woman sauntered towards me and brazenly dropped her towel by my feet, before proceeding to apply moisturiser to every part of her generously sized body. I wouldn’t have looked, but towards the end she bent over and banged into me, almost knocking me over with her bare arse. Honestly, it's not what you expect on a Monday evening.

 It turned out there was no safe place to look in the entire changing room – even drying my hair in front of the mirror would have left me wide open to accidental eye – boob contact, with any one of the exhibitionists. Where had they all come from? I wondered. A Gok Wan seminar on body confidence? France? It was all very bizarre.

So I took a deep breath and decided to make a decision. If you can’t beat them, join them I thought. I could just whip off my towel and do a little dance. Maybe a lunge or 2? After all, who cares? They will all assume I’m body confident like them and think nothing of it. Perhaps I’ll get a high five, or an invite to their next muff display in a church hall somewhere?

But, despite my best ‘what the hell’ intentions, I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t grow up in a naked house (perhaps I should get therapy for this Freudian issue?), and I’m no Jennifer Aniston in my pants. So instead I had to do the super awkward thing of trying to dress under a towel without falling over or dropping it. No doubt they were all busy judging the ‘poor body conscious’ woman, as I hopped around with one leg in my pants. 'BIG issues' they were probably thinking, shaking their heads sadly and giving each other knowing looks.

In fairness, I probably drew more attention to myself by doing this than I would of done if I had just gotten on with it starkers. But Hey – at least I could sit in the café afterwards, and enjoy my cappuccino without risking sitting next to someone who had just seen my bare bum 2 minutes prior.

 

Maybe one day I’ll get brave enough to stop caring? When my arse and tits are finally officially on the floor (only a matter of time) and my days of being body conscious are a thing of the past. I'll wake up and realise that I should see my body for the machine that it is, and feel no shame. One day I may indeed relish the feel of the breeze on my bingo wings....

 But until that day, I’ll keep the naked times at home.