My husband is currently sporting a kind of red, burgundy, purplish look on his neck, arms and shoulders. His face isn’t so bad, he wears a cap and generally the level of dirt stops the sun getting to this area of skin. The remainder of him is white and if you were as lucky as I am to see him in the shower, not for anything exciting, I’m just passing him the little one. You’d be forgiven for thinking he was wearing a pale pinkish colored vest, but it’s just his skin. Yes, my husband absorbs the sun like no one I have ever met (on certain body parts at least) and the past week of lovely weather has provided him a head start on his annual tan. He’s overjoyed at this and will spend meal times comparing arms with me, which has the result of highlighting how freakishly pale I am.
He calls me his little goth, I tell him he knew this about me when we got married. The reason for this term of endearment is because I repel the sun, I have nice healthy pale skin and I kind of used to be a bit of a goth. I rarely catch the sun, it might on occasion cause a few freckles to make an appearance on my very tired face, but it’s equally possible these could be bits of chocolate, biscuit, that sort of thing and I just need a wash. I might get a bit red during the day on my shoulders but that’ll soon go once I am back inside. I will never ever in a million years tan on my legs. That’s just a fact. I might get the bright idea to slap on a bit of tinted moisturiser once or twice a year but I soon regret it when I can’t smell anything other than burnt digestive biscuit all night.
The first born has lovely glowing skin, he’s like his Dad and his Grandma, another sun absorber. I am avoiding saying ‘worshiper’ here because they don’t lounge around in the sun, they garden and potter around and the tan just happens. The girl, unluckily for her, is like me, but has spent the past week pale with rosy red cheeks, even after an endless amount of hours riding her bike, playing with the sprinkler and running down the compost heap. I think the little one will be like the boys, he’s already glowing and he lives in the shade.
I think my husband goes to work just to top up his tan, he’s a gardener and one time he proudly informed me it’s been declared, by some very wise ladies who were touring the gardens, when he’s out and about trimming the bushes (wink wink) it’s just like the diet coke advert. Apparently they then picked up their sticks and went back to admiring the flowers.