The long hot summer rolls on, even though it is technically Autumn. As the temperature rises outside, the Man of the house and I have cooled off by watching ice skating on television.
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There is some irony in this. Both of us are, at the moment, incapable of walking any great distance, let alone leaping and twirling on ice. The Moth is still recuperating from a fractured pelvis; and, in attempting to keep home and garden together while he was in hospital, I gave myself sciatica.
So with respective groans, we sank back onto the settee, cool drinks in hand, fan humming overhead, and admired the grace and beauty of what was on the screen.
At first, I could barely watch it. The prospect of somebody going flat on their face – or, more often, their backside – after throwing themselves headlong was a bit too exciting for me.
But I soon began to admire the way they picked themselves up – often almost before hitting the rink – and carried on as though nothing had happened.
Sometimes they would fall again, and again, but always they carried on to the bitter end, their courage being rewarded by great cheers from the crowd.
I noticed that it was the male skaters who seemed to fall the most often, simply because they threw themselves with such force into the difficult moves.
But the female athletes threw themselves into it too; a brilliant young Russian skater fell four times in her set piece, and even the commentator had difficulty in watching.
The Moth and I became acquainted with skating terminology, and could nod sagely at each other and say “Quad toe loop followed by triple axle” or “Triple Lutz” admiringly, without having the least idea what we were talking about.
Matters became really exciting when the Pairs competitions began; the male skater would throw his female partner so that she twirled several times before hitting the ice on one skate, and gliding gracefully away backwards. Should she fail to do so the resulting fall could be spectacular.
Spectacular is the way to describe figure skating – not only are the participants top athletes, but they have to create a spectacle, from the piece of music to which they skate, the choreography of their performance, to the dazzling costumes they wear.
Ice skaters are among the few who can wear skin-tight garb successfully; and also manage (in the case of the men) to skate in what looks like formal evening wear.
The women look as though they have dropped from fairyland; occasionally with floating draperies that must make it difficult for their partners to see where they are going.
Keeping one’s balance while holding another human being aloft while temporarily blinded and trying not to suffocate with a mouthful of chiffon must be difficult indeed.
It was heartening to see a couple of young Australians out there in the cold climate competitions; training in our heat wave conditions can’t be easy.
I can remember going skating once in Sydney. We hired skates at the rink; as usual, there weren’t any to accommodate my large feet.
I had to squash them into a pair two sizes too small, so that I was in acute discomfort for the hour’s duration; even so, I looked as though I was wearing a pair of boats.
That didn’t save me from falling over hard and often. Every time I did manage to stay upright and skate a little way, the Moth, who had less sense of balance than I, would hang onto me and knock me over again.
For sixty minutes we provided a real hazard for the regulars, who skated around us at high speed with expressions ranging from mirth to disgust.
The experience was so humiliating that we never repeated it; but it left me with an abiding admiration for those who not only mastered the art, but took it to levels of breath-taking accomplishment.
Of course, most started young; ice skating is not a sport for the elderly, but some of the pairs clock up skating relationships of fifteen to twenty years.
After watching a particularly sensuous duo, the Moth remarked to me that it must be difficult for their respective partners in real life to watch such intimacy on ice.
“I shouldn’t think anything’s going on,” I replied. “They’d be too exhausted to be having affairs.”
Watching their heaving bosoms as they wait for the judges’ score, I think that’s true.
But the sheer beauty of the French couple who skated to the Moonlight Sonata had to be seen to be believed. Not a sound was heard other than the music and the clean swishing sound of skating blades cutting the ice, so absorbed was the audience.
That beauty extended into our living room, stuffy in the afternoon heat, where the Moth and I groaned in unison, giving each other the encouragement to rise again.