Windmills of the rink

To cap off a busy weekend, my family decided to go ice-skating today. I can't really begin to stress what an unusual event this is, since, as a rule of thumb, my family rarely decides to do anything together. As individuals we tend to pull in too many distinct directions to ever form a cohesive gestalt. Aside from the ritual of Sunday dinners, which are really a testament to my Mum's steely will more than anything else, I think the last time we banded together to do anything was when I persuaded the clan to join me at the movies for the release of Spider-man 2 on my birthday (testament to my steely will), about 18 months ago. Due to certain physical limitations we didn't manage to get everyone to the rink, but that still left an impressive number of us on the ice (10 or so).

I've only been ice skating a handful of times in my life, and, at a rough guess, the last time was around 17 years ago. I remember not faring too poorly on my skates (memory playing tricks perhaps?), and approached the event with little in the way of trepidation. I should have known better. Let me kill the suspense. I suck on ice. Big time. As I skittered across the frozen surface (being lapped by irritatingly graceful three year olds) I tried and failed to work out what I was doing wrong. I thought there might have been a problem with my skates, but after trying on my third pair I realised that that was little more than wishful thinking on my part. No, I realised as I frantically windmilled my arms around in a desperate effort to remain upright, I was the problem. I just couldn't quite get the hang of it, although I do believed I showed some very slight improvement after ninety minutes or so and our time in the rink had nearly expired. In the end I pulled off my accursed skates and revelled in the sensation of having sensation in my ankles again. On the plus side, I believe I coped better than my youngest brother. Although I wasn't around to witness his performance, that he stepped out of the rink having earned the nickname "Bambi" told me everything I needed to know.

Later on, we discussed what we should do next as a group. The two options that were presented were to either go skiing (at Edinburgh's dry ski slope), or to go to South Africa (the long talked about family holiday). Funnily enough, after at least one vociferous veto on the subject of skiing, the trip to South Africa looks like the more likely option.