Just recently I have been seeing flashes of flashers as I fast forward through the adverts on anything we’ve recorded on Channel Four; also, there have been newspaper photographs of nudists being interviewed on morning television shows. I haven’t watched the Naked Village programme or seen the interviews – can’t say I’m that interested in films of naked people (with the possible exception of Brad Pitt). But, of late, you cannot get away from seeing snippets of them! This particular lot of naturists are currently enjoying their “fifteen minutes of fame” owing much to the fact that they live in a Hertfordshire village called Spielplatz (German for playground – watch out on the see-saw!), which was founded as a nudist colony in 1929 (as I discovered in the Mail Online). However, this information is by-the-by, simply a bit of background to set the flavour for today’s blog post…

This morning, while Chris and I were still in bed, the telephone rang. Now I would have let it ring but Chris is conditioned to jump up and run to catch it. I heard it ring first (Chris is, as you must know by now, a tad deaf) so, with a little urgency in my voice, I said:

“The telephone is ringing.”

Rather naughtily, I wondered if Chris would jump out of bed and rush up the stairs, as per normal… because he was stark naked at the time. He did! But the caller had rung off by the time he reached the telephone.

“Darling,” he called down from the top of the stairs, “it was an Australian number. Perhaps it was Mary trying to get in touch. Do you want to come up and check?”

Well, what else could I do? Unusually for me (considering the coldness of the season), I had discarded my convict-style onesie during the night in favour of my birthday suit. Mindful of the men in orange working on the sea wall repairs below, I ran as-quick-as-a-flash up the stairs; there before me was the unusual sight of a nude Chris sitting cross-legged at his desk (modesty preserved by the angle of his crossed legs). I don’t know why I should find that funny but I laughed like Calamity Jane when she saw ‘Wild Bill’ Hickok dressed as a squaw (my favourite bit of the film).

“What’s so funny?” my husband asked.

“Nothing,” I replied, trying to keep a straight face.

Time was of the essence – the caller, perhaps my dear sister, would be waiting for a return call – and Chris repeated the number aloud so I could check through our address and phone book. All the while, as I bent over to look through the book on the kitchen table, I kept having mental images of the nudists from Naked Village. At last I found the number, not Mary’s but our friend Roland (the Bird man from Brisbane); it was a mobile number, too expensive to call abroad on the regular home phone service – it would be better to call it through the Skype phone service. And while Chris, still nude, sat at his desk and made the Skype number arrangements I stood in the doorway to the kitchen and looked at my refection in the slimming mirror at the end of the hall. Yet again I was laughing like Calamity Jane.

“Oh dear,” said Chris, knowing that I would be thinking about writing my blog sometime soon.

Presently, Roland picked up his receiver.

“Hello, this is the Naked Village,” I laughed.

There was a pause while Roland’s brain computed, then he chuckled. Of course he knew it was me; on occasions I am Scottish Janet, Doctor Finlay’s housekeeper, or Suzy Wong from the Chinese laundry – why not the Naked Village?

Chris just said, “Oh dear!”, and patted my bare bottom as he passed by.

Below are some of those images that flashed through my mind…