**Disclaimer (sort of): If I've used a picture with you in it and you REALLY object, just tell me (spoilsport) and I'll take it down**
I'm going to cheat a little bit I think and begin at the start of my skating journey which was actually more than a year ago, in a distant land called July 2011....
As many reading this will know, the rink I skate at closed for two years for a major £2m refurbishment, reopening in early June 2011. Just before the rink closed, I had signed up for Learn to Skate (SkateUK) classes, but only managed one six-week block before the closure. Back then, I struggled to stand up and was definitely a barrier-clinger.
When it reopened, my friends and I decided to give skating a go again, and went maybe three times in one week we loved it so much. At that point, I tried signing back up for the lessons but, as expected, it was full due to demand.
Then in a stroke of luck, or maybe fate, on July 1st, I was sent a story (I'm a newspaper reporter in my other life) about a coach at our rink, and it was mine to cover since it was on my patch. I'm not awfully keen on using names in this blog, so let's just call him Coach A.
Then my newsdesk sprung this on me - they wanted me on the ice, to have a mini lesson with the coach so I could do a first-person report on it.
My first thoughts were something like this:
But I did it, it was great fun, if a little bit "freak-out time", and it made me decide I definitely wanted to do this, and from there we go. My personal diary from the time seems to suggest the skating bug had bitten even then. I said: "I've been five or six times since the forum reopened about three weeks ago and I can't seem to get enough of it....I had a 10-minute lesson, mainly staged for the camera, and now I sooooo want to learn. I honestly don't think there's any better feeling than when you're on the ice."
I now have lessons with Coach A, and recently passed my Skate UK 10, so am officially onto bronze for 2013. Big challenges ahead!
So here we go with the picture thread.
These are from that first "lesson" - I like to think I've progressed from this (at least, I hope so!! Look at the toe pushing):
In December 2011, Coach A went away for a while, so on his last day
, we all dressed up with "Coach A School of Skating" uniforms. I'm sure he appreciated it really ;-)
December was also a time of great Christmas-themed parties. There was the day we almost actually froze to death with a visit to York outdoor rink:
And the ice skating club's Christmas party:
There were early attempts at backward crossovers:
Into April 2012, and I went to my first skating camp, at Braehead in Glasgow:
In April, I also turned the dreaded 30, and celebrated 80s-style on ice, as you do:
In June, the skating club held a jubilee-themed party. I don't have many pictures from this one, but I did enjoy a hilarious drag-related crash with a friend:
In August, another friend turned 60 and, of course, partied on ice. I have no pictures of me at this party, but I think this one of friends sums up how much fun we had:
Moving into October, and what a mixed bag of good and bad that was. On the one hand, the fabulous Mark Hanretty came to our rink to run a class:
On the other hand, this happened:
Yup, that's the two broken bones. First time I've ever broken a bone.
Really no fun at all.
But although I'm still unable to move that wrist (hopefully should know why soon!!), apparently I'm braver than I gave myself credit for because I was straight back on the ice before my cast came off, and felt normal enough to join in when there was a Dancing on Ice Christmas skating class help at our rink in December.
Would just like to point out that the following photos are courtesy of iceskatinginfo.com:
The lovely Karen Barber, Dan Whiston and Andrei Lipanov, who ran the class:
And Dan showing us how it's done:
And that, folks, is my year in skating. I sincerely hope that I can do this at the end of 2013 and it'll be just as eventful, minus any bone breakages!
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