Beach Life Salon, Appley Bridge

Beach Life Salon. This is one of those places where lovely ladies, make themselves look even more lovely, by having their nails filed, painted and polished by even more lovelier ladies. I realise this could be a sexist opinion, written from a particular male point of view..... but, if there were only women in the world, would women still bother to look so pretty?
I doubt it. I am just glad they do.......

Anyway, I was just mentioning the place because I go in there from time to time to use the sunbed, (I know, I know .... vanity... skin cancer .... I should know better.... but I don't). Whenever I go in there, the staff do something which is really unusual, especially where young girls and middle-aged men are concerned. The girls look up and almost without exception..... they smile.

Seriously.
Pretty young girls doing something as extremely 'uncool' as smiling. It makes my day. It really does. For a fleeting moment I think...... is there a chance....? what if I pull my stomach in a bit...? Maybe I shouldn't wear slip-ons? Maybe I should dig out my Brut and 'splash it all over'.....?

I pay my £3, or whatever it is, and try and keep my composure as I attempt to saunter in the direction of the sunbeds.... (at this point, the price of the sunbed session could have cost £30.... I really wouldn't notice.... or care...).

I strip off knowingly, acutely aware of the hareem of minimalistic-black-clad beauties busying themselves only a few short, almost non-existant, feet away.

I glimpse at my body in the mirror.... and thank god there is a lock on the door.

I put the token in the slot.... 30 seconds till take-off.
I pull the headphones out the socket... I don't want music to take me away from here... to distract me. I want to enjoy... relish... taste... each second of ... our partial intimacy.

For surely that is what it is?
They know I am naked. They know I am trying to make my body more attractive to the opposite sex....
There it is. That word. This is surely our partial intimacy....
10 seconds to go.

I crawl in the coffin-cold box, rest the tiny eye shades on the bridge of my nose and pull the lid down. My body is freezing, my buttocks are clenched and I momentarily feel like it was all a bad idea. Then I hear, feel and see a flicker, flicker, flicker...
Lift off.

What do I think about, for the 6 or 9 minutes in which I lie and fry...?
Well, actually, having read my introduction, not what you would think.
The girls, (ladies actually), quickly fade way. The world too, quickly fades away. And I am left with my thoughts.

So many thoughts.
Ideas half-done, projects half-baked, people half-loved...
A life half-lived.

The warm sunshine soothes me... the fans brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr lulls and laps my seashore... somewhere down the beach I hear giggling... I am not alone. I belong here.

Then blackness. Instant blackness and fast-encroaching cold. My £3 is over.
I rush to dress.
I smell differently.
Is it me?
Or do sunbeds bring something out of you...?