I went skating on Saturday for the first time in three years. I like skating; there’s something about gliding along without exerting a lot of work that is serene and peaceful. And every year, I try to go; but due to people not being interested, never getting around to it, or just plain being lazy (skates are bulky to carry around) I haven’t gone for a few. The great thing is that muscles have photographic memory, so I still remember how to skate even after taking a several-year-long vacation from the ice. My muscles however, are like those seasonal workers that can’t find paying jobs in Newfoundland so they decide to move to Ontario and help sell consumer electronics to people who need to fill the foundations of their Christmas tree.

Saturday was also one of those days where the City of Toronto celebrates its Cavalcade Of Lights. There were more lights this year (but I bet used less energy thanks to LED lights) and live music as always. We arrived around 7 just as Suzie McNeil started her performance. Her performance was pretty much the same as at Beach Fest; she did her singles, Bohemian Rhapsody, that song that she sold-out to Bell for (she tells the same story every time) and Silent Night. After skating awhile, we decided to go off to dinner because certain people didn’t have skates and didn’t want to wait in line to rent them. So we treked back to the Eaton Centre, Rishi bought a pair of skates, went to Pickle Barrel for dinner and then went back to Nathan Phillips for some more skating. By this time it was 11. We missed the fireworks, the skate rental place had closed, and they had turned all the lights off. The ice was still there though, so we put on our skates again and skated (and rested) some more. At the same time, we were sharing the rink with some pickup hockey players, who were clearing the accumulated snow off the ice. They were gradually encroaching on the leisure skate part so eventually we decided to just call it a night. Good timing too because the predicted winter storm was just about arriving.

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: cavalcadeoflights, sports, toronto, winter