Evening trendsetters !
Well there we go – I've had another Typically British Experience!! On Boxing Day (am still curious as to the origins of this expression – I thought that somehow being up on this half of the world would make it instantly clear and obvious, but as yet I'm predictably none the wiser) Charlie, Steve and I went with Allison and her tin lids (Josh and Ben – buggered if I know which is which though) down to Richmond Park to have a bit of a wander around. My word, that was a long sentence. Yeah so we went to this park, drove around a bit and saw a bunch of deer. It was really cool actually! I was pretty staggered to see a patch of parkland that size in London.
After a brief stroll around and a nibble we wandered back to Steve's place and fired up some mightily awesome home made pizza. And after that…
Along to Hampton Court Palace for some outdoor ice-skating ! It was sooooooooo wicked. For starters, it's the first time that I've ever been skating in an environment where you were wearing warm clothes anyway (i.e. Mount Thebarton in Adelaide, where you'd roll up in t-shirt and shorts, then put your jacket and gloves on when you went inside). Plus just being able to skate outdoors was a bit of a neat thing as far as I was concerned.
I say “being able to skate” – that's a slight embellishment of the truth. As anyone who's been around to witness my forays onto the ice can attest, my motion is less of a graceful skating action and more like what you would get if you fired an epileptic giraffe from a catapult. I managed to get away with only falling over once, and didn't take anyone else out with me. Come to think of it though, the flailing arms and wild swaying back and forth is usually a decent cue to other punters to get the hell out of the vicinity.
I think the last time I went skating was the musical/sporting extravaganza known as FUCS on Ice (that's Flinders University Choral Society, for those not in the know). Sadly I can't provide a link to the photos from that auspicious event, as they seem to have broken their website. There doesn't seem to be one for Mt Thebarton either actually – has someone pulled the network connection plug out of Adelaide ?
