Ice Skating

Took the family ice skating in Coventry today. It’s the first time we’ve all been ice skating together and the first time Emma and I have been in about twelve years.

I was quite impressed by Coventry’s (relatively new) ice rink, although compared to Bradford’s rink, it’s very dark due to the fact that there is no natual light. Still, I suppose that is the norm in most of these venues, based on what I’ve seen of olympic footage. I also thought the music was a bit too loud (cripes! I must be old!), because it was very difficult to hold a conversation.

We picked up our hire skates and then took to the ice. Murron got straight on, and, although she had a few tumbles, she wasn’t put off. She just picked herself up and set off again. Looks like her roller blades have been good for her.

Emma and I tried to take Philippa round between us, but she started to get upset about a quarter of the way round, so I lifted her up. No sooner had I done so, that one of the attendants (a bloke on skates) came straight over and told me I wasn’t allowed to carry her. As soon as he approached, his wisdom was borne out, as Philippa’s weight made me top heavy and I fell flat on my arse. Doh! Gave him the great opportunity to say ‘told you so’, but to be fair he resisted the temptation.

He then asked me to remove my baseball cap, because you’re not allowed to wear them on the ice rink. Apparently, you can ‘have someone’s eye out’ with one! So, the metal blade things attached to your feet aren’t any danger then?!

Emma went round a couple of times and then she and Philippa went to sit down for the rest of the session whilst Murron and I carried on, occasionally skating around together and occasionally on our own. Murron was really good by the end of the session and didn’t fall over during the last few minutes.

Towards the end of the session, I was getting back into it and was trying to do the technique on bends where you cross your right foot over your left foot in quick steps to maintain your speed, but couldn’t quite get it right. The same attendant bloke skated up alongside me again and I was waiting to be berated for having dangerous socks or some such thing, but instead he actually said that I was skating well and could see that I was struggling a bit to try to do the step-overs on bends (sorry, don’t know the technical term). He said I should buy some skates like his and pointed out that the blade was shorter on his skates and therefore made it much easier to do those steps, because you don’t have a long blade to get in the way. For a short time, I did actually think about it, but given that I last went over ten years ago, I couldn’t really justify buying ice skates.

Having said that, if Murron enjoyed it as much as she said she did, she and Daddy may be making a few more trips in future, so maybe…

I’ll have to take her skiing next. At least I’ll be on familiar turf then; or should I say Dendex?