Why do we love ice-skating so much?
With feet feeling as though I had walked in five inch heels from Bromley to Brighton and hands so cold they may as well had been clinging onto a twister ice lolly, I stood in the centre of the Natural History Museum Ice Rink already plotting this article. To put it simply, our obsession with ice-skating is perplexing to me.
It’s not to say that I find ice-skating abhorrent- in fact, I have gone ice-skating once a year without fail for as long as I can remember. I, for one, however, am not disappointed that these treacherous rings of doom are shut for the majority of the year, saving me a lot of money and injury.
Let’s begin with the very pinpoint of my dislike for ice-skating: the price. We pay an absurd fee of £15+ to follow each other around anti-clockwise for forty-five minutes, or until the novelty wears off and we realise the deafening mundanity of this action, causing us to trudge off the rink early with our heads hung in shame. Which part of the experience is costing me so much? The ongoing loop of Mariah Carey blaring from the speakers, the twenty-three-minute queue just to get onto the rink, or the rather fetching boots that evidently belong on a Milan runway?
With an unmerited amount of pride, I can confess that I have not fallen on the ice in recent years. This, however, is not achieved with a matter of ease. The second I step onto the ice, the hourglass begins. It’s only a matter of minutes- seconds even- until they are released. The very goblins and imps themselves: children. They race around the rink, swooping, hissing and cackling as they watch everyone fall to the ground behind them. For me, ice-skating is not a relaxing past-time. No. It is a battle. A battle between my reflexes and these devilish creatures who know no fear. They, unlike me, are yet to learn the dangers of ice-skating.
And yet, as I write this article, I am reminded of the amusement of ice-skating. The laughs shared as you watch your friend skate straight into a barrier, the excuse to wear an excessive amount of clothing (i.e. two pairs of gloves, three jumpers and four pairs of socks) and the cheesy smiles in the very photogenic pictures taken for Instagram are just some of the reasons why we love ice-skating. The memories we create in this wintry setting are near impossible to recreate at any other time of year. Therefore, I will continue to bear the boots, and the careless children and the appalling playlist.
After all, what would ice-skating be without them?
