Our Lives
After a holiday abroad exposed me to a new way of living, I decided to wave my old life goodbye and embrace a much more natural one.
With my beach towel and bag in hand, I slowly shuffled my way over the sand to find the perfect spot.
‘I think here’s good,’ I said to my husband, Steve.
But as I laid out my towel, I had a quick glance around and gasped.
‘Oh my God,’ I hissed to Steve. ‘Everyone’s naked!’
I was 33, and we’d flown to Costa Calma, Fuerteventura, for a bit of downtime from our hectic lives.
However, sunbathing in the buff hadn’t been on our holiday agenda.
Only now, Steve whipped off his trunks and said: ‘Well, if you can’t beat them, join them!’
It was typical of my husband to be an extrovert. But as a curvier woman, I wasn’t very body confident, so I hesitated.
‘Come on, Karie, give it a go,’ said Steve. ‘You’re on holiday, you’ll never see these people again.’
Realising that I was the one out of place in my swimming costume, I decided to be brave.
Mustering up every ounce of courage I could, I pulled down the straps and wiggled out of my cossie.
The sun was beating down by now, so I decided I’d better stick some more sun cream on.
Oh goodness, I’ll have to put it everywhere, I thought.
When we’d left the hotel that morning, I never imagined I would be sitting on a beach massaging factor 50 over every inch of my body.
At first, whenever anyone looked my way, I instantly wanted to cover up.
But after an hour, I began to feel more relaxed. It helped that I was surrounded by sunbathers of all shapes and sizes.
Clearly you didn’t need that perfect beach body to go naked.
By the end of the day, I barely even noticed that we were all in the buff.
Steve and I enjoyed it so much, we went back for more, spending most of our holiday in the nude.
The experience relit a spark in our relationship that had been missing for a while too.
Then just before the end of our holiday, we were wandering in Costa Calma when we spotted a gorgeous white villa with huge windows and a pool. The ‘for sale’ sign outside it stopped us both in our tracks.
For years, we’d dreamt of finding a place overseas we could easily escape to when we needed to relax. And this place seemed too good to be true.
Before saying another word, I picked up my phone and called the estate agent.
‘The villa’s still available,’ I told Steve, excitedly.
The following day we arranged to have a look around.
‘It’s just perfect,’ I said. It had five apartments, so as well as being an escape for us, it was an ideal money-maker too.
We put in an offer, and to our delight it was accepted.
Back home
