It’s that time of year again. The heater’s back on, the Uggs are out, the days are getting much shorter, the nights are drawing in…okay I’ll stop, but you get the point. Autumn’s here so winter isn’t just coming, it’s officially next door. But rather than head home to my warm and comfortable bed after work, I’ve been given the task of having a little skate round the Natural History Museum Ice Rink, which is parked just outside of the museum every year.
Despite having agreed to have a glide along on the ice I’m a bit concerned for two reasons; one it’s cold and my nose has decided that it wants to stop doing it’s job of allowing me to breathe and two, which really should have been number one, I can’t skate. Yes, I can’t skate and I can’t rollerblade. And rather than pick a friend who can actually skate and keep me from cracking my head open, I’ve roped in my friend and old work colleague who on the ice is equally as rubbish as me. Yep, we’re going to fall.
So after collecting our skates from the kind gentlemen at the desk, who seem surprisingly chipper despite being surrounded by random people’s shoes all day, we strap our skates on. Exchange a few remarks of how we pray we don’t fall, but are ready to give caution to the wind. March towards the rink, and then the fear kicks in. Yep, we’re definitely going to fall.
But against all law and reason, surprisingly we didn’t. The whole 45 minutes we may have wobbled (a lot), waved our arms about like we were attempting to imitate a bird’s mating call, but we didn’t fall. Mainly thanks to 3 fearless 12 year olds who took it upon themselves to show my friend and I the way of the ice. Once we made our slow crawl around the rink to the practice rink (the kids’ rink), we emerged 20 minutes later and had gone from petrified 20-somethings who were clinging onto the side bars for dear life, to vaguely balancing ice skaters who had made it 50cms off wall.
It was a success and all in all I had a good time. By the end of it I had Kool & The Gang’s ‘Get Down On It’ as my theme music as a glided jaggedly around the rink. In my head of course.
Get your back up off the wall! Dance! Come on!”
Yo_yO
Follow me on Twitter @YoYoinDisguise
Opening Times:
Natural History Museum Ice Rink is open from
31st October – 10th November 2013
Monday-Friday: 11.00-21.00
Saturdays and Sundays: 10.00-21.00
(Sessions usually begin on the hour and last roughly for 50 minutes)
Adults: £13.50 peak/£11.50 off-peak
Children and Family price available on the website.
Follow on Twitter @NHMskating