Isn't sunbathing uncomfortable?
Years ago I could sprawl out with a book under the sun for hours.
That was before all the warnings of skin cancer. Not that I would have listened in my youth. If you went abroad on holiday, you had to come home with a tan to prove it.
This week the weather decided it was summer. Perfect timing because I was between writing projects. I could stretch out in the back garden, as in days of yore, and tan my pasty limbs to a walnut hue and become a handsome hunk. Or perhaps not.
I picked a book from the ready to read pile, put a sun lounger on the decking at the back of the house, positioned strategic cushions, tilted my Manchester United baseball cap at the correct angle to shade my eyes – and sprawled.
Ah yes, this is the life. Cool drink to hand, a narrative to capture the imagination and an afternoon stretching towards dusk. Except I couldn’t get comfortable.
I once read volume two of War and Peace on a beach in the South of France, turning periodically to get every bit of my body the right tone of teak.
At the time I noticed no discomfort. Perhaps it’s an age thing?
My body still tans easily but now has aches and pains I never knew were possible, my bad back has started twinging again and a sun lounger, I found, was not as relaxing as I remembered. Once I got down on it I found it very difficult to get up again. After an hour of pain I switched to a canvas chair but how do you turn over in a chair?
Another hour and I gave up and went indoors where it was cooler and far more agreeable for sprawling. I’m too old for a tan.
It was only later when taking a shower that I noticed the two hours in the sun had caught my front and turned it the colour of beach rather than teak.
Unfortunately, my back remains white. I look like a half done kipper.
