I hope that 2021 proves to be better than last year for us all, though life is not going to get easier for some time to come yet. These are my reflections on a year that I'm pleased to see the back of and how it affected our life as nudists, with hopes for a better nude year to come.

Here in southern England we're in lockdown under the tightest restrictions our pathetic, single-policy government has set out. They won an election to 'get Brexit done' and were found out almost right away for not being competent at that, let alone the other issues we've had to contend with. As of 11 pm last night the UK is out of the European Union, the final formalities took place then, they even got Big Ben out of the mothballs its been in while repairs are taking place on the Elizabeth Tower (why, we're all supposedly at home?!!) Empty symbolism reigns here.

On the upside though we live on the coast, with nude beaches nearby, one that we can walk to, it is an hours walk either along a shingle beach(sand and rocks at low tide) or if the tide is high we can walk over the 500'/150m cliffs after a 20 min walk through town. Lockdown meant that we could go out for daily exercise, which on warm and sunny days we interpreted as going somewhere to be naked outside. It is a 25 min walk from the nearest parking spot, so previously we've seen very little presence of 'authorities' there, unless its Border Force looking for cross-English Channel/La Manche dinghies full of migrants or the coastguard, and it is not overlooked by settlement. There are very few access points down from the cliffs, we walk from the eastern point of town along the shore, after the first point we often walk nude, or to a path alongside a glen(local term for small seasonal stream) through ancient woods. The path was used by other types of smugglers, among others for hundreds of years - brandy, wine, wool etc and widened to the width of a small vehicle during the second world war to allow defence forces access to the coast to lay and maintain mines. The land behind the nudist beach is a country park, maintained by the local park for conservation and recreational purposes, its a rough track so its only used by quad bikes from the council and people on foot.

We didn't want to go to the main nudist beach as we expected there to be lots of people there. Between the town and the main nudist beach there are some low raised areas created by old cliff falls, they are 5-10 m/ 15-30' above beach level. When the tide is in the beach is underwater but this raised area is fine. If the times were right we'd go in the morning and get cut off by the tide for several hours in our own little nudist paradise away from all the pain of the real world. During the last winter what had been a small pond had been infilled by fine shingle during a few of the big storms. I knew of this from a winter walk so I suggested that it would make an ideal spot for a few nudist friends to meet regularly, its large enough to be socially distanced. Public nudity is legal in the UK, provided it is just as genuine nudists would expect it to be. In practice very few people attempt to be nude in built-up areas aside from on WNBR type events.

I have worked throughout the year, from March when we first entered a state of lockdown I was going to work about 2 days a week and working from home as well. My hours vary and I have long swapped shifts with colleagues when I know the weather should be good so as I can go to nudist places. I rarely need to use video for work from home purposes so I work nude here, as we live nude year round unless its very cold. As I worked at home much more this meant that I was nude for much more of 2020 than other years. There are positives that can be gained from a crap year if other circumstances are in your favour!

It got warm here early last year and by mid-April I had the best all over tan that I've ever had at that time of year just from UK sun. We've often gone to warmer climes - Canary Isles etc over winter for a nudist break, but that didn't happen over the 2019-20 winter. We often saw other beach walkers pass below us but very few saw us, and far less walked along the level we were at. But we saw far more wildlife than we normally do at the busier main nudist beach, or indeed at the main town beaches. Nothing out of the usual, just more seals, peregrine falcons, egrets, grebes, foxes and many smaller birds that we didn't recognise, we're about 40 miles/60 kms from France and there were many recorded sightings of birds that don't come to England very often. Later in the summer we saw many huge shoals of mackerel or bass causing the sea to boil as they enjoyed feeding frenzies of smaller fish, the mackerel were in turn hunted down by dolphins, tuna and small whales. The next day the beach could be covered in places with a silvery sheen of dead whitebait, driven ashore by the larger hunters in the sea, nature is tough without Covid-19 type pandemics.

As the year went by we found more textile walkers passing us on the beach, then some were walking along at our level. They usually seemed very surprised to find a small group of nudists along their way, usually they'd come from the main nudist beach and were headed towards the town, they were usually holding a phone and obviously following a walk, but no small groups of nudists beyond the main nude beach had been expected from their maps. Some seemed intimidated by our nudity, sadly, we just carried on as we had been - chatting, sunbathing, reading etc. As I said before nudity is legal and we've all been going there for many years to be naked and were not going to stop because the pandemic had brought many more people out into the open spaces. A length of coast of about 4 miles/6 kms has historically had nude people on, not just what was the officially recognised nudist beach. The local council withdrew support some time ago when the health and safety aspects of maintaining access were reviewed in financial terms. Local nudists have maintained the access path for about 20 years. So we're well used to textile beach walkers passing us along that bit of coast, often our nudity has no obvious influence on those textiles using the same beach. Both nudists and textiles peacefully co-existing in a clothing-optional environment. During the high summer season in the past we'd noticed large groups of textiles (maybe 20 or so) arriving from a caravan and camping site about 30 mins walk away. They often came no further than the end of the path down from the cliffs, they'd obviously come to see the nudists, a tourist attraction! This has put off shyer nudists but many long-time nudist users of the beach are not going to change where they go, over the years many textiles will have seen them nude, so a few more won't make a difference. We've often pointed out to the obvious new nudists that its much more peaceful if they walk for 10 mins or so along the beach, far fewer textiles who've come to gawk dare venture into the heart of the nudist population there.

We occasionally went to the main nudist beach if the high tides were such that access to our spot for the year was impossible, or we'd have had a walk home in the dark by the time the tide was low enough. There were more people there than we'd seen in recent years, both nude and clothed, but there was always space for us to find a spot safely distanced. Personally I missed the social nudism I enjoy there in other years. We've been going there long enough to know many of the regular nudist visitors, so its possible to spend a couple of hours wandering along the beach and stopping to chat with various friends. All done while completely naked, our belongings safely left with other friends, to me there is no better way to spend a sunny day than nude with friends like that.

Since we've lived here our social nudism has been mostly beach-based, we still visit nudist clubs and resorts but not like we used to when living in the big city we came here from. We've made a good circle of local nudist friends at the beach, with a few others at other local nude beaches. We usually attend nude swims in the winter months as a way to socialise naked when its cooler. We also do nude yoga and walk with organised nudist groups, one of the nude swims is very good at organising nude visits to galleries, gardens, restaurants etc. We'd been looking forward to a nude evening at a bowling alley which would have happened just after lockdown kicked in during the spring. We'd got used to spending time in winter socialising with friends in our homes for nude meals or watching films etc. Our social lives have become fairly nude focused, a long-term goal of ours has been to spend more time nude each year, both on our own at home and socially. We've managed that for quite a few years now. This year we have been nude much more than ever, mostly because of working at home, but we've been nude socially less. I have been nude at the beach more than for a number of years, but our social nudity overall has gone down a lot, swings and roundabouts during a very unusual( I hope!) year.

I think my nudist highlight of the year was a weeks stay at a nudist club. We usually have a few nudist holidays each year, ranging from long weekends at clubs to a couple of weeks at a nudist resort, we usually aim to remain nude throughout our stays, we love being naked fulltime among 50-several thousands of other nudists. We were blessed with the last full week of hot weather of the summer for our nude holiday, it was strange having to queue up for everything and to sit at separate tables all of the time, when normally we'll make a big effort to meet new people at nudist clubs, we'll never have too many naked friends! It was different this year but the week of permanent nudity was wonderful. It was nice for a change to be among just nudists. We love our local nude beaches and in other years its usually +95% nude at them. We didn't experience it ourselves but friends recounted stories of textiles telling them that it should not be allowed for people to be nude in public, the usual excuse of 'not in front of children'. We did pick up on a higher incidence of 'looks' when people stumbled on our small nudist haven at the beach. It didn't make us feel uncomfortable, but a wider acceptance of our choice to be nude would help, as we accept them in their clothes! But this is a very divided nation, as others are too, there are far bigger problems that we face collectively than the 'issue' of public nudity, our natural state to be in.

So, my 2020 was more naked than any year I've lived through, but I didn't spend as much time nude with friends as normal. If my working patterns revert to being at work more I cannot see how I will continue my aim to be nude for longer each year. I could live with that provided we can get back to real social nudism, as I knew it prior to 2020.

How was 2020 for you other +50 nudists here? How do you hope 2021 will be for your nude life? We were lucky in that we live near to nudist places. If it helps those of you who don't have similar on your doorstep, we lived in cities for a long time where home nudism was all we enjoyed mostly, unless we travelled out of town.

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