NYE and the start of S.E.D.J.

Tonight it is New Years Eve and I'd like to wish you all the best for whatever you're doing tonight and for the whole of 2012.

2011 has been a great year for [LILAC] and 2012 is hopefuly going to start well with Skate Every Day in January getting things moving.

If you feel like helping me kick of S.E.D.J. 2012 then get down to Stockwell for about mid-day tomorrow.
Whatever happens have a great NYE and see you out there in 2012.

[LILAC]

Lunch-time Spot Check - S.E.D.J.

On the ride into the office this morning I wanted to check out a potential spot for some lunch-time S.E.D.J. sessions.

I'd ridden past it a couple of times and it's just as good as I thought and only a 5 minute skate from the office.  With time being my most precious resource it's nice to have options. I guess we'll soon see what the "bust" factor is soon enough.
[LILAC]

Getting Ready for S.E.D.J.

Starting to stock up on all the essentials. Curbs don't wax themselves y'know?

A Challenge to the Winter!

We skateboarders like to think that we are somehow inherently creative people. Maybe that's why skateboarding chooses us and asks us to keep testing ourselves,forcing us to make decisions as to how we are going to use our boards to interact with the physical environment, in a way that challenges us and so bring us feelings of achievement and pleasure.

Creativity is just another word for the ability to have ideas.  But where do ideas come from? Maybe the idea is always there, it's just waiting for someone to tune into it so they can find it, you know, when your subconscious train of thought suddenly changes track and pulls into the station marked "Inspiration".

I suspect that my train of thought has been suffering at the hands of cerebral industrial action and severe delays thanks to unscheduled engineering works. Why do I say this? Because of my latest idea, that's why.

As a reaction to me getting less and less time on my board thanks to increased family, work and parenting commitments, I have come up with a winning idea... at least it felt like that at the time.

If you're not skating much, the answer is to skate more right?  The dream is to skate every day.  So to be realistic I figured I'd do it for a month.  I'm writing this in the start of December and December means Christmas and loads stuff that's going to make it impossible, so I settled on January. Bollox! So I'm going to... Skate Every Day In January!

January is officially shit.  It's gonna be cold, probably wet too... but maybe, just maybe skating every day will somehow brighten things up in the depths of a British winter.

So I'm going to skate evenings, weekends, lunch breaks at work, before work and probably quite a few stolen late night sessions at a covered curb spot. Hopefully I'll have people to skate with and I'm going to try to keep people informed of what's going on via this here blog.

Will my body hold up (currently encountering knee problems from getting over excited at the Stockwell Winter Games)? Will I run out of boards? Who will turn up to skate at these stolen 20 minute sessions? Will it inspire me to skate every day for the rest of my life? These and many other questions, some yet unknown, Will surely be answered in what is historically one of the most depressing months of the year.

Well, I've said it now, roll on January 1st.

See you out there.

[LIALC]

Feverish, Damp and Unhinged - Welcome To Stockwell

I've said it before and no doubt I'll say it again and again and again, I fucking Love Stockwell Skatepark!

Don't worry, I'm not going to start with the reminiscences of the skateboarding day trips in to London as a spotty teenager, no-one needs to hear that again. What I will say is that one more time the locals of this rough jewel in London skateboarding's crown have proved how to have a full-on session come Competition/Jam on a wet December Sunday.


The Stockwell Winter Games 2011 - I'm sure there were those who thought the whole thing was a waste of time and effort and maybe they were right and we are all just a little unhinged. Yet by the time we left the park and headed for the pub, all the obstacle building and organizing and skating in the wet felt very much like effort well spent.

Having 80% of the park too wet to skate just focused everyone into what was left.  When you have a good 20 or so people all skating the same thing at a feverish pace what you get is bodies and boards flying everywhere and a really good time.

Full-on back slaps to Toby, Johners and Hariett for putting in the effort to make this all happen, also to Martyn, and Harrison for helping with the obstacle build a while back.

Here are a few grabbed snaps of the day and evening, they're not remotely representative of the skateboarding that went down but they make me feel like it's more of a valid blog post. 

Keep'em peeled for more Stockwell Games events soon.... (I have no-idea if that's true, it just feels like a nice way to end).

[LIALC]