It’s almost Christmas, the time of the year for eating, having fun and staying with the people you love. It’s also the time for injuries and making a fool of yourself – that is if, like me, you live in London and you’re absolutely incapable to stand on an ice-skating rink. What’s worse for Londoners is that there’s no escape: according to TimeOut, there are nine ice-skating rinks in town. Yes, you read it right: NINE. So of course I had to end up being dragged to one.
I was one of the first people to enter Somerset House’s ice-skating rink this morning AND definitely the first one to fall. But, since being hopeless on an ice-skating rink is not fun enough, here’s my top five of the lovely people you’ll meet while you’re skating (and you’ll wish some of them fell head over heels too).
- The annoying show-off: On every ice-skating rink, there’s always at least one person trying to remind you (as if you didn’t know that already) how graceless and clumsy you look. They will try everything towards that goal: they will moonwalk, skate backwards, in the worst cases even pirouette. Today a woman in her sixties was doing a techno dance walking backwards. As if my embarrassment for my inability to stand wasn’t enough.
- Merciless passer-bys: They sit comfortably outside the ice-skating rink, sipping their mulled wines, taking pictures and laughing at all the poor fools that keep falling. Why don’t you get in and show us how good you are, you idiots?
- The hopeless fool (like me): That lovely little person who will make you feel better about yourself just by existing. As soon as such a person enters the rink, his or her only chance of moving is crawling or sliding. The poor fool will forget centuries of progress towards walking upright. This particular specimen though tends to be friendly towards its fellow crawlers and will pronounce sentences such as: “Yeah, I understand, don’t worry: I gave up too,” to other hopelessly injured people for the whole one-hour skating session.
- The merciful pro: A.k.a. life-savers, merciful pros will take you by the hand and help you enjoy a second of fast and elegant ice-skating. Until you make them fall too with your pathologic lack of balance, that is.
- Loud school kids: Of course, ice-skating is not painful enough without seeing a bunch of five-year-olds skating gracefully in front of you and shouting: “Look, Miss, I can do it!”