*A year in pictures - 2014 edition*

Not one to break tradition, here's my skating year in pictures for 2014 - hope you enjoy!

I'd love to see some of your favourite pictures from your skating year so please do share them in the comments or on Facebook.

I actually haven't taken many skating photos this year (maybe partly because I've had a lot of time off the ice due to injuries). Must fix this in 2015!

At the end of March, I got a fantastic opportunity (through the work I do) to go to the Dancing On Ice live tour's opening night and also the after party. I took along a friend and we had a great time. I have so many pictures from the night but here are a few of my favourites:

Dancing on Ice highlights video

I promise to write a more meaningful post very, very soon. Maybe even tomorrow (no promises though).

In the meantime, have an extended version of my Dancing on Ice live tour highlights video - this time with added Torvill and Dean. Enjoy:

Straight from the red carpet...

As I said in my previous post, I was lucky enough recently to get the opportunity to interview most of the Dancing on Ice stars, their professional partners and the king and queen of skating themselves, Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean following the opening night of this year's Dancing on Ice live tour.

As both a journalist and a skater, it was a fantastic evening for me overall, and to get to meet the great Torvill and Dean was absolutely the icing on the cake.

Me and a friend with the legends themselves

But it was also inspirational to meet some of the stars as well as the professional skaters - because when you think about it, they're a bit like us "adult skaters" really, aren't they? They've come into this tough sport

Dancing on Ice Live review - The Final Tour 2014

I was lucky enough to be invited not only to the opening show of the Dancing on Ice Live Tour this week in Manchester, but also to the red carpet after party event, where I was able to meet and interview most of the celebrity skaters, their professional partners, and even the ice dance king and queen themselves, Torvill and Dean. 

As a journalist in my "real life" this was a great opportunity, but as a skater, it was a REALLY, REALLY GREAT opportunity.

I'm going to bring you my interviews and comments in a separate post, as this one will be pretty lengthy anyway once I've included pictures etc, so this post will be purely a review of the show, but I will leave you with this exciting news:

Everyone loves a bit of Dancing on Ice

Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone...

You only need the light when it's burning low, only miss the sun when it starts to snow...

Of course, I'm talking about Dancing on Ice.

I don't know about the rest of you, but when this show first started, back in the olden days (2006), I LOVED it. I wasn't a skater then, which may have had something to do with it, but I still feel there was something very, very watchable about people getting onto the ice for what was often the first time, falling over a lot, making clowns of themselves and then finally emerging from the cocoon a beautiful, gliding, crossover-ing butterfly.

But as the years went on, whilst I was still glued to the telly every Sunday evening, it lost a bit of its shine for me, and I think it was in part to do with

*Going for Gold*

South African gold-medallist runner Oscar Pistorius puts much of his success down to inspiration from his parents. When they made the intensely difficult decision to have both of his legs amputated when he was just 11 months old (he was born without a fibula in either leg), they wrote a letter explaining their decision, for Oscar to read later in life.

In that letter were these words of wisdom: "A loser is not one who runs last in the race. It is the one who sits and watches, and has never tried to run."

I don't know about you, but I could do with having that tattooed somewhere prominent.

I sometimes think I should be ordered to write lines. 

I must not compare myself to others
I must not compare myself to others
I must not compare myself to others

Just because someone else is doing a certain spin or jump doesn't mean I have to be, but I do sometimes forget that. I'm sure I'll have strengths in areas where they're weak and vice versa - everybody is different. Measuring your own progress is what counts. It's easy to look at someone else and ask why they can do a Salchow and you can't, but does it matter, as long as you're still making progress, working hard and enjoying yourself?

I'm back in that place at the moment - where I love skating and can't seem to get enough of it and feel like I'm making progress - but there's one trouble. The wrist. There have been complications, it seems. The bones are healed - beautifully so, apparently - but the docs think I must have either ripped my ligaments or tendons to shreds, or done something equally debilitating, because this damn wrist still moves barely an inch. I'm still holding out hope that a different consultant will have a different opinion, but the ones I've seen have essentially told me to get used to life with a disability. Not exactly chuffed, but if that's what it'll be, then que sera sera - I'll just have to deal with it. 

But have you ever been given a mystery Christmas or birthday present months early - and been told you can't unwrap it until the day?

I feel a bit like that. Let me explain...

I never thought I'd say this, but Keith Chegwin and me, we're like peas in a pod. Coming back to Dancing on Ice this year