Feel The Burn

The comments on yesterday’s post seemed more concerned with my sunburn than my ugly glasses.  I hadn’t noticed the sunburn so I took another look at the photo.  I don’t think it is sunburn; I’m sure I would have remembered because I’m careful about being out in the sun i.e. I never am, if I can help it; and I always cover up.

My reluctance to be outside stems from my first year in South Africa.  I had a day at the Vaal River, and I came back looking like a tomato sauce flavoured gingerbread man.  As a child, I went golden brown in the sun; at nineteen, I looked like someone had peeled the flesh from my body and toasted it.  I spent four days in bed, imitating Leonardo Da Vinci’s illustration and begging for death. 

My mother tried to help, advising me to take baths as hot as I could stand, because that was a sure way to kill sunburn – heat my body even more.  There may even have been a point during my delirium when mother dear slathered me in butter.  I’m surprised I wasn’t hospitalised.  An interesting sidebar: did you know that old wives’ tales won’t necessarily make you better and may, in fact, prolong your agony, no matter how well-intentioned your bonkers mother may be?  Lucky for her I didn’t feel the need to step on a crack and break her back.

I never went out in the sun again without hat, lotion and a skin covering of some sort.  I think my pink arms in the photo are caused by the sun shining through the overhead canopy, under which, you will note, I am carefully sitting, legs pointedly in the shade.  Look at my legs: they give milk a bad name.  At this point I had been living in South Africa for about five years, and I look like I just stepped off the boat.  I was in South Africa for fourteen years altogether, and I never once had a tan.

Check the woman to my right: she is also pink, especially her hair.

I thank you all for your concern; it is much appreciated.  Once again, I can only apologise for the glasses.  Now there’s something that should have burned.

Related articles

• Best remedy for sunburn (apart from not getting burnt in the first place!) (childraisingtips.wordpress.com)
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• Ease Sunburn Pain Naturally (newworldreallife.wordpress.com)

Joke 315

Thanks to Siggi of Maine for these. 

These are classified ads, said to have actually been placed in a British Newspaper; I’m not convinced, but I hope they are real.  It does happen: when we lived in South Africa, the Hub missed the chance to buy a Ferrari for one Rand.  It was a small ad and he thought it was a misprint (well you would, wouldn’t you?).  The story was in the paper a few days later: the husband had cheated and the wife, who had the money and knew she’d have to give half to him, sold the car and gave him fifty cents. 

FREE YORKSHIRE TERRIER.
8 years old.  Hateful little bastard.  Bites!

FREE PUPPIES.
1/2 Cocker Spaniel, 1/2 sneaky neighbour’s dog. 

FREE PUPPIES.
Mother is a Kennel Club registered German Shepherd.
Father is a Super Dog, able to leap tall fences in a single bound.

COWS, CALVES: NEVER BRED.
Also 1 gay bull for sale.

WEDDING DRESS FOR SALE …
Worn once by mistake.

FOR SALE BY OWNER.
Complete set of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 45 volumes.
Excellent condition, £200 or best offer.
No longer needed, got married, wife knows everything.