I’m getting so excited about my forthcoming holiday – it’s going to be epic. Normally I’m a quiet vacationer – I have such a busy life full of work and other pulls on my time that my idea of holiday heaven amounts to utter relaxation when I’m away you know? On my last holiday I managed to read 8 books, get thoroughly pampered and I relaxed within an inch of my life. The plan is a little different this time – six giddy girlies heading off for a few days to celebrate my milestone birthday and looking at the itinerary, there won’t be much relaxing going on! There will however be lots of laughing, lots of shopping, and plenty of memories being made…I can’t wait.

There’s only one day in the four that we’re away where we’ve got time to chill around the pool – always makes me a bit wistful when I recall skinny trips where I didn’t need to worry about choosing a swimsuit with the type of engineering designed to contain and flatter quite so much body.  I use the word ‘flatter’ in it’s loosest possible term obviously – it’s black which is as good as it’s going to get. The asshole in my head is going to have a field day from the minute I put it on but you know what, he can stick it up his pipe…I’m totally going to style it out and give the impression that I’m one of those lucky people who don’t care what other people think.

There’s nowhere to hide in swimwear is there? I remember I took a trip a few years ago with a guy I’d been seeing for a few months – I was a big girl back then but not in the same way I am now. Even so, I’d spent the days and weeks leading up to the trip agonising over what I was going to look like on the beach. It didn’t even occur to me what he was going to look like – rookie mistake number one. Afterwards, when the trauma of seeing him in a thong for the first time had receded, I made a mental note to expand on the ‘no speedos’ rule which we’d discussed before the trip. He tried to justify it by insisting that we were in Brazil, and everybody in Brazil wears a thong.

I’m here to tell you that they don’t. And in any event, fifty-year-old butt cheeks flapping in the breeze like pillow cases on a washing line are N.E.V.E.R going to be a good look. It’s the one time I’ve felt confident that nobody was looking at my ass since the one next to me was the one putting people off their lunch. But kudos to him – he didn’t care. He was living his dream, and wearing a thong on Ipanema beach was it. Incidentally it was our first and last trip together, in case you were wondering…I’m all for live and let live, but I’ve got enough on worrying about what people will think about me without further complicating the equation.

With a bit of luck there might be a hairy-assed bloke in a mankini lounging around the pool at our hotel in a couple of weeks’  time to take the attention off this middle-aged fat girl in a swimsuit…I can live in hope 🙂

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