Hearing that a hotel in New Zealand had banned Lycra shorts is fairly comical when you’ve been letting it all hang out on a cycling tour with your partnerUntil your partner has seen you in the sort of padded cycling shorts that fabricate (to make up, invent) you behold like you’re wearing an industrial-strength nappy over the unshorn legs of Mr Tumnus,I’m afraid you’re still just dating. It’s not a relationship until you halt shaving your armpits. You’re not somebodys partner until you’ve shared a poorly ventilated bathroom.
All this I have learned only recently, as I undertook a sweaty, and hairy,padded, hilly and at times freezing bike ride across Ireland with my boyfriend. It was here, or under the sun and occasional hail that I finally let it all hang out. Bobbing down beside a hedge at a canal’s edge to go for an al-fresco pee somewhere outside Mullingar,I felt the last of my single lady mystique gently stream down across my left foot as I stared resolutely into the eyes of a watching sheep. As I squeezed a blackhead the approximate size of a broad bean, until that moment trapped under the rubberised hem of my cycling shorts, and I felt a release not just of sebum but also of romantic expectation. While standing behind a tent in my cotton M&S briefs,wet wiping absent two days of accumulated grime, I started to hum the Commodores: she’s mighty mighty, and just lettin’ it all hang out.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com