Other Corners of the World

Oooft, I have missed skating.

(For the newer readers, I used to be a roller derby referee. Roller skating - quad skates - was a big part of my life for the back half of my twenties and my early thirties. I drifted away from it after I moved up to Inverness, but I’ve loved roller skating since I was a little kid, so while I don’t really miss derby these days I do miss skating.)

I’m still on my ice hockey kick after the Olympics and one of the knock-on effects is being really aware of how much I miss skating. I’ve been meaning to check when the public ice skating sessions are and try to convince one of my skating buddies to chum me along to a session for ages, and this weekend I finally did it. And it was great!

I haven’t been on any sort of skates since before the pandemic and I think the last time I was actual ice skates was in Princess Street Gardens just before Xmas 2013 when my then girlfriend decided that would be a cute date idea and then spent the whole session clinging to either the edges or my hand! I wasn’t sure how well it would go, but after a slightly wobbly start it all came back to me satisfyingly fast. (My buddy was even rustier but also got the hang of it eventually, we did a fair bit of skating round holding hands like kids because she’s had a stressful week and was getting into her head about it. That was pretty fun too. We had a lot of fun reminiscing about ice discos from our teen years.) The ice was a mess so I didn’t dare try crossovers or anything too fancy. (The kids team had practice that morning, and I don’t think they bothered to send the zamboni out between sessions as we got there at the start of the session and it was pretty roughed up already.) The rink skates are super rigid so my feet are a bit sore from that - actually I ache all over from nearly 90 minutes of skating, but I had so much fun. My buddy gave up after the first 45 mins of so and went and got a hot drink and heckled from the sidelines while I went zooming around gleefully with a big stupid grin on my face. I was high as a kite, all the good endorphins. We’re going back - or at least we’re going to try the rink at Aviemore instead. I cannot stop grinning!

( I do not need my own ice skates. I do not.)