Get a life

We skated on The Broad Walk in Kensington Gardens on Saturday morning. Lovely place. Much nicer than “The Beach” in Hyde Park. Much quieter, wider, smoother and with a nice little hill…

Spent the afternoon at Decathlon in Surrey Quays. Came away with a pair of Rollerblade Lightning 03’s - which are probably a little over the top considering my lack of skill ;) but they were the most comfortable and smoothest skates I tried. Also got all the pads, a helmet and a rucksack. I don’t expect to get much coding done in the evenings this week :)

Miche did the spontaneous thing this week. After hearing “Bring me to Life” on the radio once she bought the Evanescence CD. Cool stuff. Very nice sound. Kind of All about Eve meets Skin from Skunk Anansie on vocals with a nice rocky Linkin Park kinda guitar thing going on.

We had our last inline skating lesson tonight. Lots of recap on what we’ve done before, and lots of practice. The crossover turns are quite comfortable now in either direction, which is nice, and we did some simple slalom - note to self: buy 6 day-glo cups. We were renting the skates for the duration of the course and today we had to give them back :( This means that we have no skates :( :( Which means, we can’t sneak a quick skate in on Saturday morning before we do all the other things we have planned for the weekend :( :( :( Sunday we shop for skates.

Finally got around to seeing Matrix Reloaded on Sunday night. Then picked up the Animatrix yesterday. Before I read any reviews or blogs on the subject I thought I’d spout off on my own… (Contains spoilers and future plot speculation…) Initial reaction at the end of Matrix Reloaded was one of disapointment. The effects were good, but I’d found the pace somewhat sluggish in places, the main story was a little thin and I didn’t like the downbeat ending.

Skated in Victoria Park, lunch at The Crown, Matrix Reloaded and a pizza at Strada. Top day ;) We skated in Victoria Park this morning. It was pretty good. Lots of wide, quiet, paths with reasonable tarmac and nowhere near as busy as Hyde Park. Practising crossover turns, skating fast, balancing on one foot and looking for kerbs to jump off of… Stopped for lunch at The Crown. Food was good, if a little pricey.

I used to have pretty severe problems with my shoulders and right arm. Mostly mouse related; I think. When it was really bad I had a lot of shiatsu, which worked well and helped remove the residual tension in my shoulder. Now I seem to be able to keep it all at bay by drinking lots of water… I don’t actually think it’s the drinking itself that helps. It’s all the movement that goes with it.

Just watched “28 Days Later” on dvd. Very cool. Very British - very non-Hollywood. Scary film. The best bit? Seeing the London streets so empty. If you live or work anywhere near London you’d know how impossible those empty street scenes were :)

As promised this week’s lesson had us doing crossover turns and the start of skating backwards. Crossover turns aren’t actually that hard. Once you get used the the idea of doing it. Just lift the outside leg up during the turn, move your weight in a bit, wait until you start to fall over and then step across yourself onto the other foot. Note this is just what it feels like, it’s probably completely wrong ;) It all felt far easier if I rolled my turning skate onto the inside edge.

Lesson three was on Monday. We did ‘going faster’, uneven surfaces, moving curb dismounts ;) and parallel turns. I got on well with both. It’s just a balance thing, which is good. The movements feel like they’re useful practice for skiing. Especially the parallel turn edging, you can really roll your ankles quite a long way on inline skates. Next week is cross over turns and skating backwards. This will be interesting because these are things I never managed to do on roller skates or ice.