Pupil becomes teacher . . .

Oh, I love days off work, but Monday's just have the edge. The joy of waking up on a Monday morning, and being able to turn over and go back to sleep . . .

I had a lovely day, bar having to go to pick up a magazine subscription from the Royal Mail holding office this morning. They managed to pick up my parcel four times, before equating the name on the card with the name on the package. D'oh!

After that, I met up with a friend and we had a quick lunch in Muswell Hill (I love Starbucks hot panini's!) and then on to Ally Pally for the afternoon session.

It was a little busy - goodness knows where all teenagers had come from. Actually, stupid question - chances are that they were bunking off school. Although maybe I am getting a little cynical in my old age and they were just college students on a free afternoon . . .

It was my friends first time on the ice since she was 13, when she had skated for about half an hour in Germany. I did the step by step guide to skating - standing in the right posture, stepping on spot, walking forward etc. She is a little unsteady which of course is to be expected, and found it difficult to pick up her feet (I remember that feeling!) but by the end, her feet were beginning to step on the ice, and definite progress was made. She is not confident enough to skate on her own yet, so it was also remarkably good practice for my backward skating as her guide! She had a little tumble at the end and bashed her knee a bit, but I think that will be okay, and altogether, I think she made a really good start. We'll wait and see if she will brave the ice with me again! Poor girl - she must have got sick of me saying "Bend your knees", "Weight forward", "Bend your knees", "Arms out" and "Bend your knees" again!

Apart from that, I did a little practice today. As it was a bit busier than normal for a working day today, I did all forward motion stuff - forward stroking, forward crossovers (this are feeling more fluid now when CCW), forward chasses and some edge work. I tried a couple of 3-turns with no success (so what's new?!) but I am off work tomorrow as well, so can spend all day on these if I so wish.

After skating, it was such a nice afternoon that we walked from Ally Pally down to Crouch End - the birds were singing, the sun was out and for the first time this year, it feels like Spring is on its way.

All in all, a good day!