The sun dance kid

For the past week in Italy, every afternoon i have a fight. Not with Luca but with a sun-lounge. Each day i don my bathers after lunch and open the two wood framed glass doors from my bedroom that leads onto a rooftop terrace where there is a cute and beckoning blue above-ground pool and plenty of space to sun myself.

In the corner under the white plastic outdoor table is the sun lounge in question. Its stripped blue, green, yellow and white and screams..."come lay on me...sun your self on me"...

So i take it from under the table folded up and take it over into the sun where i quickly remember that the ground is bloody hot and retreat back to the shade. The funny thing about that is iv forgot how hot the ground is every day and do my silly little dance with sun lounge in hand from sun to shade like a stupid dog.

I lay it on the ground, it should be easy. All i have to do is flip the leg part down and push the head part up. So i repeat the plan in my head " OK...FLIP LEG PART DOWN, STRAIGHTEN LEG, PUSH HEAD PART UP, STRAIGHTEN LEG.." EASY!

As i start its all a bit stiff, nothing wants to budge. I finally flip the leg part down and straighten the leg... GOING GOOD...with one knee in the middle of this thing I'm pushing with all my might to push the head part back when the leg part flips back and hits me in the back of the legs making me go ass up....hang on this was not in the plan!

This would all be so much easier if i could just sun myself on the blow up floating sun-lounge in the pool but i cant. Because wasps keep dive bombing the pool and every time i hear a noise i freak out, flip of the floatie , splash into the pool screaming and cursing. Making me look like a even bigger idiot and not really helping my tan.

So i persevere and in a fit of frustration with some frantic pushing, flipping and cursing its ready...I DID IT!
but i wasn't concentrating so i don't really know how i got the bloody thing up....Anyway i take the bed over into the sun( with my thongs on my feet this time...who's a clever girl then)
I position myself full frontal to the sun as a little diddy..."burn baby burn" cruises through my head making my foot tap.

You see i do this little sun dance every day because i dare not go down to the lake where all the beautiful brown Italian bodies lay in their incy teeny weeeeeny bikinis until i am as brown as one of my auntie Susan's chocolate brownies.
Two years ago when i was here on holidays( coming straight from a Aussie winter to a european summer...you get where in going with how white i was...it wasn't pretty) i underestimated the power of a great tan. Ignorantly going to the lake side, putting down my towel, taking of my dress down to my bathers, sitting on my towel only to see all around me...ALL...THE...TAUGHT...TIGHT...BROWN...BEAUTIFUL...BODIES...it was like a horror movie. As the camera panned frantically around me and then zoomed in on me on my towel i realised i looked like a really white princess Fiona ( from Shrek, not the Swedish royal family) with my green bathers and not so taught tanned body. The resemblance was uncanny.

I layed there at the lake for a good hour and even made a walk to the lake for a swim, to save face, to pretend to be all brave and comfortable in my skin, until i put my dress back on vowing right then and there to never come down to the lake( lago Maggiore ) if i was not tanned to the s**t house!

So here i am on the terrace sunning myself so i can look like all the others. I know that's a terrible moral to the story. To conform to insecurity to " look like them, to fit in ". Maybe i should just strut down to that lake in my new black ( not so green ) bikini and be comfortable in my skin......but it took me so long to put that bloody chair up and I'm looking more like a milk dud rather than a chocolate brownie...so I'm just going to stay here OK?