Roll with it

On Sunday I dusted off (and they really were quite dusty) my roller skates. I've had these since I was 14, so getting on 11-12ish years, when our school (well whole city really) went through a roller skating stage. Now back in the day (aka the mid-90s) many places got in with the new-fangled inline/roller blades style action, but St Albans wasn't like that - oh no, we were old school! We shunned the inline wheels and went for the two wheels side-by-side at the front and back, as nature intended. Everyone had them, from the old women with blue rinses, to the smallest newborn baby. Obviously I had to get with the program and buy a pair. At the time me and my friends would whizz around on our bewheeled feet, oblivious to the many dangers that we faced, i.e. cars on roads and general steep slopes, and we lived to tell the tail. We even went to the occasional roller disco, which aren't proper roller discos unless at least one person break and appendage, in my opinion. A lot of fun was had rolling around in general.

So basically after all these years (well with some uses and wheel/bearing upgrades) I decided to give skating another go. I went down to Kelvingrove Park, which has some flatish surfaces, but also rather too many hilly bits. The last time I'd put the skates on was about 3 years ago (also in Kelvingrove Park), so I was a bit nervous to start with. I can skate okay, but still when I pick up a bit of speed I rather worry about whether I can stop again. After I bit I gained more confidence, but refrained from trying to speed about too much. It has also been raining a bit, so the surfaces were quite slick, which means that you have to be a bit more careful - especially when encountering wet leaves on the ground. I didn't skate for that long as it started to piss it down, but I enjoyed it and will try to go out more regularly from now on. Maybe I'll get back to the stage where I can skate backwards (properly) and do jumps and stuff.