Food and fitness crimes of the past year scream at you as you try on a tide of garish swimsuits, writes Kate Holmquistfrom inside the changing rooms
I'm standing half-naked in the unflattering light of a so-called changing room the size of a Portaloo where the mirror is punishing me for every food and fitness crime I've ever committed. The mirror speaks: you look like a floppy deshelled bivalve with cellulite. You didn't join a gym over the winter, did you? You didn't honour your promise in the changing room last summer that you'd spend the following year on a Madonna-style course of fruit, veg, yoga and weight training, did you? For goodness' sake, woman, you didn't even bother to fake-tan and depilate before you came to see me!
Oh my. It's the annual excursion to buy a swimsuit. We've been at it eight hours now and this is our fourth shop. So I am moved to confess. Forgive me mirror for I have sinned; I was unable to transform myself over the winter from middle-aged average Slummy Mummy to Yummy Mummy.
The muffled cries from the cubicles on each side tell me that I'm not alone. Why would I be? I have more sense than to try on swimsuits with only 18-year-old part-time sales assistants to guide me. I've come with my support group - two friends of varying sizes. Swimsuit purchase is not an experience to enter into alone.
I've tried on tankinis and trusty black one-pieces with tummy-panels and interior scaffolding to rival the Golden Gate bridge. I'm not swimming in daylight this summer, that's it. I pick my crumpled clothing off the floor, dress and help my thin friends instead.
They need somebody to run back and forth between the changing room and the racks, finding size 38Bs to replace the 36s that don't fit and seeking colours that might possibly be flattering in the grey-yellow operating theatre light of the changing rooms - bright pink? Mediterranean blue? Surfer orange? Swimsuits don't come in normal colours. They come in obnoxious Hawaiian and Tahitian hues with all the subtlety of plastic flowers on a newly dug grave. They don't enhance the average pale skin tone with its map of moles the size of saucers and stretchmarks like treadmarks.
These swimsuits are made for about six supermodels in the world - after they've been airbrushed.
Hearing one of my friends moan in frustration, I pluck a tissue from my bag and open the curtain, ready to boost her ego and dry her tears. Big mistake. I've opened the wrong curtain and it's somebody I've never seen in my life trying to adjust a swimsuit that does not fit.
Why, if they are charging €80 for a bikini and €200 for something that covers more, can they not give us proper changing rooms with properly numbered doors? An alarm system wouldn't hurt either. Why do they have these curtains that have gaps in the sides that anybody can see through? Behind me, a queue has formed of women holding fistfuls of swimsuits and they're tired of waiting.
Having chosen the wrong curtain, I whisper to my friends in an attempt at audio-location. They take ages to answer. They're terrified that when they do answer me I'll rip the curtain open and give the queue a visual. So I don't touch the curtain.
I just whisper, discreetly, "I'm here if you need me. Another size? Another colour?"
"Another body?" comes the reply.
It's really hot in here, especially for those of us who are fully dressed. The 17-year-old male changing room attendant has switched on a fan to cool us off, but it's no match for the high-voltage spotlights blasting down to reveal every flaw.
You may think it strange that a teenaged boy is the one chosen to pick up flimsy bikinis from the floor after they've been tossed away by women in a fragile state of mind, but we're in a surf-sail-kayak-mountaineering emporium where the changing rooms are unisex.
We reckon that if we can't find bathing suits that looked halfway decent, then at least we could buy boardshorts and rash vests to cover them up with. We've been in the fashion stores where any number of glitzy, sequined cover-ups are available, but they look like bedroom wear. They may be fine with a pair of stilettos on the Costa Smeralda or poolside in a five-star hotel, but they look like whore clothes on any normal northern European woman in daylight.
A word about boardshorts: men are vulnerable here too. There is a certain age beyond which anyone, male or female, looks silly in brightly coloured surf wear - even if this baggy style does cover a multitude. Unless a man wants to look like Borat in a unikini, he's expected to wear baggy shorts in ridiculous kindergarten colours.
While my friends try on yet more swimsuits, I'm searching in vain for a place to sit down. I lean against the wall, thinking that the St John's Ambulance Brigade should man swimsuit changing rooms during the month of July.
Then, a goddess appears from one of the tiny stalls wearing the perfect solution to beachwear: a wetsuit. She looks fantastic. She's not a day under 45. She strolls up and down (even though there's not much strolling room) and fancies herself in the communal mirror at the end of the tiny corridor, blocking everyone else's vision. This is brilliant, you can hear her thinking, this is a black all-in-one girdle!
You go girl, I'm tempted to say. She may have found the solution. Don't holiday in a hot country where skin exposure is a requirement. Holiday in Ireland where you need clothing from ankle to neck - bodyboard optional.