S.E.D.J. Day 19 - A Second Visit to Meanwhile Two.

After my success last night I had great hopes for this lunch-time skate at Meanwhile II/Royal Oak.  What could I re-learn.  Nose-manuals are now a reality for me, what else could I add to my arsenal, my gun cabinet of tricks.  I'm feeling good, the sun is out and when I get to the park there are four other lads skating and following the obligatory exchange of nods I got on with skating.

I got my legs back in working order with a few ollies, some grinds and disasters on the quarter  and then a little bit of mucking about on the original bowl section section.  Then it was time to start work in getting back my front-side pop-shuvits on the bank.  I was probably about ten minutes into the skate by this time.

To my left: The New and to my right: The Historic

Off I go. Doing my version of concentrating on learning a trick.  I don't do it like some people.  I see people who will drop in or throw their board down, sort their feet out, compress and try the trick.  that always seemed a bit monotonous and not particularly fun.  My version of that would tend involve a couple of tricks and end with an attempt at the trick I'm trying to learn. You can probably guess that quite often it would go wrong before I got round to attempting the trick I was supposedly learning.

I started doing my usual routine, but after a couple of glances at my watch I realised I was going to have to focus.  To cut a long story short... I was setting close, both feet on but steeping of or zooming my board, it was just a matter of time.  Yet again, I'd been beaten by the clock and needed to get back on the bike and back to the office.

It's my own fault.  i should have just gone full robot-mode and bagged the trick.  I'll know for next time.  Day 19 was a dry skate with strangers.  I was fully expecting to be skating a wet park so I'm happy with the way things worked out and I know that FS Pop-shuvs are within my grasp again soon.

Day 20 is set to be punctuated with showers throughout the day so I'm hedging my bets.  Miles end at about 1:20pm.  If it's dry I'll skate the park, wet and it'll be the mini-ramp. Let's see how this one goes then?

[LIALC]

S.E.D.J. Day 9 - West London Modern Classic

I have an admission to make, today was the first day of this Skate Every Day in January that I thought maybe it might be nice not to skate today.  I can qualify that.  I was back to work today so I had to timetable this skate around work and try to squeeze it into one hour.  That's travel time there, park bike, skate, get back on bike, travel back to work all in an hour.

Having been out skating yesterday for 6 hours finished off with a 14 mile ride home, my legs were definitely telling me to give myself a day off, we're only talking about day 9 here, not even a third of the way into S.E.D.J.

So with giving up not really being an option I was getting ready to plan my exit from the office when I get a mail from my mate Phil asking when I'm planning on getting there so he could meet me.

Prockie.

This news was music to my ears.  The reason being that this is the only skate spot I've been mugged at.  It was actually me and my mate Howie.  It was years ago on a week day and Howie was taking photos of me skating the old wooden quarter/bank set-up that used to be here.

Well, it's a flat bank yeah?

Next thing we know there are to lads with kitchen knives suggesting that it might be beneficial to our health if Howie gave the guy waving the knife at him his camera and my guy wanted Howie's camera bag, that I had.

Another shit photo of the park.  Can you tell I was in a rush?

The upshot being that not long after Howie and I are sitting on the tube on our way home, without camera or bag, and were going over what just happened, we notice that Howie had a couple of slashes in his sweatshirt and a cut about an inch long in the peak of his baseball cap.  It was at that point we both realized we'd made the right decision not to put up any more of a fight than we did.  To this day I still feel guilty for letting that fucker get Howie's bag.

What exactly did I think this shot was going to offer the reader?

For a few years after I gave Meanwhile II (to give it it's proper name) a wide birth, and if I did go I'd go when a bit of a crew was going down.  Of course these days this whole area feels far less edgy but that old incident still popped into my head a couple of times since last night, when I decided it would be today's skate.

You have no idea how offensive this photo smells.

One thing from back in the old days that hasn't changed is the smell.  The smell of Death!  This park has always attracted street-pissers who manage to produce some of the worst smelling puddles in the developed world.  Seriously, I'm not overstating the case here, the Smell Of Death comps that kept this place going for years were named after that aroma. I'd assumed it had gone, I was wrong.

I think I took this one accidentally while putting my jacket on.

Getting to see skate friends that I've not seen for ages is an amazing side effect of S.ED.J.  Getting a half hour skate with Phil was brilliant.  The fact that I skated like a one-legged scare-crow with inner ear problems is beside the point.  I still had fun skating with a mate.

Now I have Day 10 to look forward too, and I am: looking forward to it I mean. Tomorrow is another Car Park Training session in Kingston.  I'm going to be there from 10 pm, maybe a little earlier, so if you want to session front-side slappies with me you know what to do.

[LIALC]