No strings

This is a women only post. Men are welcome to read – but comment at your peril.You won’t understand and you’ll only say the wrong thing.

Two weeks in the Douro region, in July. We will be staying in an old Quinta, with pool and tennis courts. I am looking forward to it. Mostly.

Apart from the baring of flesh bit.

There will be ten other people there. Ten people that I know. Not strangers. That would be so much easier. I really couldn’t give a toss what a stranger thought of my buttocks. But friends are…different. I want them to think well of my arse. It’s only natural. Isn’t it?

Call me delusional, but I’m clinging to the hope that a new bikini will divert attention from known trouble spots. If I can locate a two-piece of poolside perfection, its contents might be …overlooked.

Okay. I admit it. I need a chuffing miracle. One that slims my thighs, tautens my tummy and bolsters my bossom, airbrushes my stretch-marks and vanishes my cellulite. A full latex bodysuit in the style of Elle Macpherson would work, although it could be a tad sweaty under the Portugese sun – and can you imagine the nause of peeling Elle off when you needed to go for a pee? Unless, of course, I just did it in the pool. But I’m sure Elle isn’t a pool-pisser. She’s far too polished for that.

Bikini selection is fraught with danger. The only hard and fast rule is not to wear white. I know from experience the effect of water on this colour is never good, if you’re of a modest nature. Which of course, I am. Or hairy and lumpy.

I am not ready to completely throw in my beach towel and surrender to the sensible one-piece brigade. Swimsuits always look so…functional. I admit a bikini that slides down to my ankles when I dive into the water is not ideal…but I’d rather be fishing out my knickers from the pool bottom than forever looking like I was competing in the school swimming gala. Goggles and rubber cap, anyone?

Women’s magazines trumpet the perfect swimwear solution for every body type. Apart from mine, that is. They talk about pear-shaped and apple-shaped. But what about gourd shaped? In fact, to be honest, I’m a market gardener’s wet dream – thighs like marrows, an arse like a couple of pumpkins and my up top region can resemble anything from a couple of walnuts to a pair of honeydews. I look like I’ve been thrown together by a blind greengrocer.

And the preparation?

It needs to be planned like a bloody military campaign. I still have time to shed a few pounds and tone up all areas of flab (yeah, like that’s really going to happen - pass me another slab of Camembert, Camille). There’s my hair to sort out – and that’s just the stuff on my head. A friend was telling me the other day that there is a local wax-woman – she’ll visit you at home and strip you bald in a matter of seconds. I tried to make myself sound knowledgeable by asking if she did Brazilians. My friend replied that she wasn’t sure, but she didn’t see there’d be a problem with a Brit.

I’m always terribly self-conscious poolside. I hold my stomach in so tensely, it’s a wonder I don’t pass out with the effort. And my back aches with the constant striving for perfect posture in order to minimise belly roll. Whenever I emerge from the water I am compulsively checking for escaped pubes and wayward nips – it’s supposed to be bloody relaxing. By the end of the afternoon, I’m ready for a proper holiday! Over the years I have developed a rather cunning strategy of befriending people more swedgy than myself and sticking to them like toffee. Conversely, any lithe bodied stunners that come too close get short shrift and pushed headfirst into the foot bath.

Oh it’s all too depressing. Perhaps we should cancel the holiday? Maybe cruising the Norwegian fjords would be better? At this moment a cagoule sounds deliciously tempting...