And now, over to Kelly

So guys, I promised you something a little different today, did I not? Thanks to 20SB I've handed the reins of my blog over to this crazy lady by the name of "Kelly" for the day, and I in return have hijacked hers. Enjoy!

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Hello readers of Adventures with Bex!

I am invading Bex blog to reflect on summer as part of the 20SB Blog Swap #9 - thanks for having me Bex!

Introductions make me awkward so I'm just going to leap on into it...

I love summer! Oh boy, do I love summer. I spend the months between April and September wishing it would hurry itself up because I can't wait to feel the kiss of the sun on my bare skin again. However, like some sun addict that's been locked away in winter, I end up OD'ing on it. And in a bad, bad way.

I live in Australia, where I've heard a couple of times that our rays from the sun are apparently harsher than most others around the world, and I have white skin, very white skin.

I lived in the States a few years back and loved only wearing SPF8 sunscreen, if I even put any on; by the middle of summer I was this beautiful cocoa brown colour. I think experiencing that may have been what lead me to forget that I am not invincible to the power of the sun.

A couple of years ago some friends of mine came to visit me in the November and after the wet and cold winter we'd had I was looking forward to some serious sun time.

I took them on a 3hr trip up the coast to show them my favourite bay and the Nambung National Park; I packed a picnic, some towels and the sunscreen - I planned to put it on when we got there. It was an absolutely glorious day, I remember thinking "I really am in God's country" on that drive. I had this top on with flimsy straps and when we stopped at the wind farm I pulled them down and tucked them inside the boob tube part of the top, figured it would totally minimise the tan lines - this was the point I should have applied the sunscreen.

Onwards we went to Hangover Bay (seriously, if you ever find yourself in Western Australia head north and find this bay) where we head down to the beach to check it out; the wind had picked up as we hit the coastline so we decided not to get the picnic out there but wait until we hit the Pinnacles. I didn't think we'd go down to the beach for so long if that was the plan so I decided I'd put the sunscreen on when I got back to the car - in relation to alert levels I had reached amber, like that light was going to flick red very damn soon and I'd be in panic mode.

The beach was stunning. The water was beautiful greens and blues whilst the sand was blindly white. The boys fell in love with it like I did and decided to wander up the beach. As I picked up shells and wrote in the sand with my toes I felt my skin getting warmer and had a thought of "maybe I should've put sunscreen on?" except when I looked down I was still about as blinding as the sand (in hindsight I was probably blinded by the sand).

Once we returned to the car an hour later, I was feeling a little tender and I asked them if I looked red, Boy 1 responded with "you look a little pink". He slapped some sunscreen on me at that point and we drove to the Pinnacles so I could show them how awesome I think they are. We got out of the car a couple of times, including to have our picnic, and each time we all noticed I was definitely escalating from "a little pink" to all out "holy motherfucking Mary I feel like I'm being stabbed by millions of tiny needles". But, not being one to acknowledge how bad the damage was, we kept exploring until the rain came in; the sky was slate grey, the rain was cool and I was red, like red-raw red. Like you-couldn't-miss-it-even-if-you-tried red.

My skin tightened on the drive back to Perth. I could hardly move by the time we got home.

For the remainder of their 5 days in Perth I struggled to wear a top, thanks to the ingenious idea of removing the straps I didn't give myself any unburnt skin for my bra straps so it was excruciating pain to leave the house. Thanks to the heat I was radiating, you could've cooked an egg on me for a good 4 days after this little day trip. I could hardly wear a top, I definitely couldn't expose any of my skin to the sun for days and as soon as we would walk into the house they were having to remove my top and bra off me so I could proceed to walk around the house with a towel tucked under my arms.

We tried aloe - even straight from the freezer that shit wasn't cold enough
We tried some special burn cream - I don't even know if that did anything but leave weird crystals on my skin
We tried hot showers - Boy 1 swore by this method "hot water will draw the heat out! Cold water will trap it". Maybe it works on mild burn... I had I-should've-gone-to-the-hospital type of burns.
We tried yoghurt - some bright spark suggested that it would help, it only helped with making me smell like a carton of sour milk within 5 minutes and no one would come near me
We tried bags of ice - Boy 2 (after 3 days he was the only one who would keep trying to help me get rid of the burning feeling) went to the servo and bought a bag of ice which we then put into a shopping bag and I laid, very gently, on the floor while he sat on the couch and held the bags on my burning skin
We tried tomato - I smelt like salad for the rest of the afternoon

The whole experience was god awful. And I think it won't happen again every year except the only thing that has changed is that I make sure I'm wearing a top with straps, at least that's some sort of learning from past experiences right there...

I love summer!

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