New blog! Tales from the Rink
It involves: knee pads, beer on the floor and an octogenarian on roller skates
Readers, hello! After an excessively long post-Christmas break (sorry) the blog is back.
So, this year, like last, I’ll bring you news about where we’ve been and what we’ve been up to, our trips out and visits to places we like. Sound OK? Good.
Next week I’ll tell you all about our visit to the Lion King musical in Manchester. Spoiler alert: it was brilliant.
There’s also going to be a new section in the blog, called Tales from the Rink. Basically I started learning to roller skate at Wigan Roller Rink a week before my 41st birthday. Why? It’s a good question. Read on…
Tales from the Rink #1
Wigan Roller Rink is a roller skating venue par excellence and scene of me and my 9yo’s first roller skating lesson at the end of January.
Why did we decide to embark on this hobby, which it seems will inevitably land one or both of us in A+E? A few reasons. Firstly, some children were chosen from my daughter, Maeve’s, class to go rollerskating and she wasn’t picked. She was v disappointed so I said I’d take her instead.
Then my brilliant colleague, Sam, often goes in-line skating with her daughter Elvi, who’s a wheelchair user, whizzing round Battersea Park in South-West London with their group, Wheels and Wheelchairs, and it looks like lots of fun.
I also remember tales from my mum of roller discos in the 1970s at Bolton Palais, slipping and sliding as she tried to go up and down the stairs to the bar on four wheels, and figured it would be as much fun now as it sounded like then.
Plus I’ve seen some super pretty roller skates on Instagram, so if we even manage to learn to skate I’m going to buy myself a pair.
We went for our first lesson three weeks ago, and it would be fair to say we were both like Bambi on ice, legs everywhere. My daughter was gripping onto her instructor’s arm for dear life and I was tentatively inching across the rink, resembling a tortoise on wheels.
Then up whizzed Tom, a sprightly gent on skates with head of white hair, who firmly took hold of my elbow and started pushing me along crying ‘C’mon girl, get a bit of speed up!’
After this terrifying encounter (in reality we were probably not quite skating at walking pace) I was intrigued to find out more. ‘I skated till I was 12 then stopped’, he told me. ‘I got back on the rink in my early 70s with my daughters. They were horrified and said ‘dad, get those skates off, you’ll kill yourself’! But within 10 minutes I was zooming round the rink, it felt like I’d never been away’.
Tom, it transpires, is 85. I know, right?! He coaches newbie skaters like me three times a week at various roller rinks around Greater Manchester. What a way spend your retirement.
As I came off the rink I saw my daughter at the far end, she’d gained enough confidence to let go of her teacher’s arm and was skating slowly, but with some style, the length of the rink towards me. I was so proud! What a great achievement.
We got home, I purchased knee, wrist and elbow pads for us online, and back we went the next week for our next lesson. Except as we queued up outside one of the employees came out of the rink, picked her way across the pot holes lining the car park, stood on her tip-toes and yelled to the line of people: ‘Sorry, no lessons today, the rink’s covered in beer from last night!’
Covered in beer?! Like, how? Turns out Wigan indie band The Lathums had held their homecoming gig at the rink the night before and the fans had got stuck in at the bar, meaning the rink was too sticky to safely skate on.
Queuing up to get our free ticket for next week I asked the young man who was handing out passes, and clearly horrendously hungover, how it had gone. ‘Brilliant night, it’ll pay my wages for three months, but I’m knackered’ he replied. Good work.
Our second lesson was last week (after a break for a week cos we went to see Strictly Come Dancing at Manchester Arena) and we made some progress. No Tom, but we did see Paula, a new teacher with a smart white fleece, a perky ponytail and lovely pink lipstick, who helped me start to glide a little on my wheels. Maeve also managed to skate (slowly) across the rink by herself, and her teacher, Holly, came to tell me how kind she’d been to a fellow newbie who had been very scared. Proud.
More from Tales from the Rink next week, when I’ll try to take a picture. Been too scared of smashing my phone to take it onto the rink so far!
That’s it from me, hope you’ve had a good week. Thanks as ever if you got this far, you are, of course, my favourites.
See you next week,
Jenna