Today the 4th of February Sven-Martin and I started out for an ice skating journey. It
was two or three in the afternoon, and the sun was shining yellow orange through some clouds.
Not really cold, but frisk on your face so that you are awake, and would not want to take your gloves off.
We stepped on to the lake, the fourth time I have stepped on to Storsjön, past the ice-block/play area,
put on the skates to our ski boots and were off. At first I was fairly cautious, and avoided
carefully the little cracks in the ice in which there is a danger of getting your ice skates stuck in,
and in such a case, your body is thrown forward with your speed yet you are still stuck in the ice,
so it would not come out so well. Sven-Martin zoomed ahead of me.
Soon though, I was comfortable with skating, and
grew quickly used to going 'against the grain' of the cracks. They were easy to see from the
snow which had come into them. And I got a hang of the technique, staying with SM for the most
The wind was against us as we set out to the left, making it
cold on my face.
We stopped a bit to rest and enjoy the half-cloudy day. I saw a hover-boat,
or what those things are called which move on a small cushion of air. Then we saw a what do you call it, a
boat on rails, on ice skates, with sails, sailing on the ice. SM told me that it was the
fastest something a while ago, faster than the 60kph cars, it could go 100kph. Then I heard,
and felt a thump, like the sound that ice drills make as they plunge through, a soundwave under
the water. SM explained, and I asked a bunch of questions, that the ice does that because it
is contracting, and so... I think it was that the ice contracts in the cold, leaving some of those
cracks for me to avoid. No danger, the ice is one, two even three or more decimeters thick. Last time I was
ice skating on Storsjön, when we went back for it was a little risky, it was less than 1 decimeter thick. But I couldnt look down
into the black depths of the lake then.
We then turned back. My hips were getting a bit tired
by then, but as we came back it proved to be much easier. With a light Medvind (also the name of the ice skating path on Storjön
which is not as good as the open lake now) wind with us, and flat ice (it was bumpy in other places)
it was really like flying. Just step, fly, step, glide along. Look after cracks. No effort,
none noticeable. We aproached where most of the other ice skaters were, near the half-done
Medvinden ice track. The sun had gone into the thicker clouds near the horizon.
Yes, and then that was done, we walked back to the car parked in SM's job's garage, now I was
feeling just the right level of tiredness. We drove home, I ate a stut a tortilla like thing,
with messmör and ost. Then went for a sauna bath.
That is all for now,
Nathan