Story 79 Background.

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Hi from Susan.

            You have already seen in earlier stories that Joseph discovered a camping ground that was clothing optional. This ground is supposedly set in the Te Henga Valley, backing onto the Regional Centurial Park. This is completely fictional, and as far as we know, there is no park like this in that area. Many years ago there was a nudist club near there, but that was only open to club members, I believe, but this has become a wellness retreat now. Certainly nothing like camp written about in these stories.
            The original goal of this story was just to introduce the camp and set the scene for the stories that will follow. I wanted to just describe the camp layout, letting you know the location of lakes for swimming, the mainstream, the playing field, the main admin block and the arrangement of camp sites. The reasons for this will become clear when we reach some of the other camp stories. For many years that was basically how the story was left.

            But then, much later in 2012, we began the second series of camp stories, which will be found at the beginning of Volume Eleven. Here Greeshma gets involved in some rather naughty fun herself. We decided to go back to this earlier series and give her a slightly sexier role here. That is why, in the second part of this story, we find Greeshma going swimming topless. As Shanti told Joseph, she had stepped out of her usual comfort zone to do that.
            The main theme behind this second part was Greeshma actually going topless and then Joseph coming to terms with it. I think the little conversation between Shanti and Joseph helps here too, as she tells him Greeshma is not just his mother; she is a woman like Lizamoa. If topless is ok for Liz, then it's ok for Greeshma too. Joseph seems to see the reasoning of this, but we can see he is not entirely comfortable with it.

            One sideline character was Shanti's father. He has appeared a couple of times, but his only really important scene had been in Story 77 Mothers Know Everything. At that stage he had become very sick, and it was obvious he was going to die of cancer. In that story, Greeshma moved there to help Shanti's mother, Mary, to look after this sick man. It's a bit sad, but this is part of us try to present our fictional characters as real people with real lives.
            The sickness of Shanti's father is based on a real event that happened at this time. Reshma and Shandra's mother and Allan's stepmother became very sick with cancer. We all knew it was bad, but for a few weeks, she seemed to recover. She wanted to visit her sister and family in Wellington, so Allan took her down there.
            But the trip, as easy as he tried to make it, proved too much, and she went quickly downhill after that. In a way, this theme in our stories is in memory of her.

            Kia Kaka - Kia Kaha.
                  Be safe - Be strong.
                        From Susan.

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