Out With The Old...

Today was one of those days where I was constantly reminded that, as much as I fancy myself as a professional skateboarder (I wish!), I am in fact a husband and a father and have to prioritise that before everything else.

I work shifts which usually involve a four day week. These four days can be any of the seven, but I always have at least one day off mid-week. This suits me as the kids are in school and the adults are in work which makes for empty skateparks and empty streets.

After getting up early, I had spent a good deal of time in the house because I was expecting a few important deliveries that I had ordered over the weekend. In that time it was only fair that I did my bit around the house, so four loads of washing were despatched and the mountain of dishes I'd left from the night before were taken care of along with some miscellaneous other household chores.
That was the husband part of the deal taken care of for the day...

There was a knock at the door around 11am and I received a small package containing some new bearings, followed a couple of hours afterwards by another knock and the delivery of a larger box containing a deck, some independent stage 10's and some bolts.

The skate fairy had paid me a visit, more details on this to follow in the next blog...

Having waited in the house until half past one in the afternoon, there was no chance that I was going to travel any real distance and as I had not yet received the wheels to accompany my new set-up, the best option for a skate today was to take the Vallely out.

Slight problem. After returning from Edinburgh in the car the day before, I had left said skateboard in it's boot and the vehicle in question was parked at my wife's place of work!

As I don't currently own a file I walked into town anyway to get one in order to grip my new deck.
In the meantime, I agreed to meet my wife and my son Kyle at the skatepark after he had come out of school. She went off to pick up his BMX and we rendezvoused a while later at the park.

My son Kyle attempting skateboarding for the first time.

Once Kyle and my trusty Vallely board arrived, I was anxious to get some filming done, so I took ten minutes out to get it done while Kyle rolled about on his bike. Once I had captured "the magic", I sat down and had a rest while Kyle surprised me by taking an interest in my board and trying it out for himself.

I had originally bought him a small set-up a few years back, he went through the obligatory sitting-down-and-messing-about phase, but soon lost interest. But, today was different. He tried to push himself standing up from the outset, and after a bit of coaching, he was rolling around and taking his first tentative steps to becoming a skateboarder.

He took to it very quickly and after figuring out how to roll around, he was keen to take it up a gear and hit the little street section behind the quarterpipe. I didn't get to skate again today, once he had the board, he was keeping it. "Good on him" I thought as I watched him skate.

He then surprised me by saying that he wanted a board of his own for his birthday which is coming up next month. So, after a long walk home we started looking on the internet for potential shredding machines for the wee guy.

I'm overwhelmed by all of this. It means we'll get to spend much more time together and it feels like I'm now leaving my mark on the world, a legacy of sorts.

For today's video I thought I should really take the time to get gnarly (well as gnarly as I can get anyway!), I thought I owed it to my board as it's going to be taking a back seat for a while. Frontside 50-50s and Bertlemans were the order of the day, with a bit of Kyle's first attempts at skateboarding thrown in...

Work. Life. Balance.

So, I had three days off work and put them to very good use travelling to a few spots and rediscovering skateboarding. These first steps have been very satisfying so far and I've achieved what I've set out to do on each occasion.

Going back to work means no skateboarding however, and I have to return to being a gas engineer until Thursday. A few rest days are always needed in both work and skateboarding though and they sit beside each other quite comfortably.

An attempt at a Saran Wrap, Cramond, 2008. Not landed on this occasion, but I could pull it off at times.

 Work is an essential part of my life and as much as noone is entirely happy at their job, it brings opportunities, either financially or otherwise. My work allows me to travel far a fair bit and with every destination I now see new possibilities, new places I could travel to on my days off. With my board. 

The trip to St. Andrews reminded me of how much fun it is to do freestyle (now widely referred to as flatland). It can't be denied that the street skating of today has it's roots firmly planted in freestyle, but at the time it seemed that it was just a quirky sideline to the "proper" skateboarding that the guys on the big boards did.

What was it about these little boards with no discernable shape and their tiny little trucks?
 

 Primo Desiderio invented the "primo slide" which involves sliding one edge of the board along the ground whilst standing on the other.


While there was undeniably a lot of skill involved in freestyle skateboarding, it was only a small minority that entertained it. I wasn't one of them. For starters, you needed a special board. The massive "pigs" and fish-tails that we rode at the the time just weren't suitable, they were far too heavy and bulky.

But, if nothing else, the main reason was that having a second board, just wasn't financially viable when it was your parents that bought them!

Nowadays I buy my own boards and I've had my eye on a freestyle deck. As I already have freestyle trucks (indy 101s)  in the shed, so it would be an easy way to get a new arrow in the quiver.

I've never owned a freestyle setup but it's probably best to go for a nu-skool complete setup first as I can already sense that the Vallely board has it's limitations. We'll see what happens on payday...

Powell Peralta Kevin Harris "Mountie" freestyle reissue deck.. WANT!

When I produced the last video I forgot to include this, an attempt at a stationary frontside 360. Was fun trying it, but it will take a lifetime to master freestyle I think...

A good time, not a long time.

 Leaving Dunfermline was a struggle in itself today. I woke up feeling a bit rough after a few beers in Edinburgh at a pub quiz with my brother Sean.

Nonetheless I'd promised myself that I'd go to St. Andrews today and was anxious to get up and out in good time to make what was so far the longest trip I've done.

Unfortunately there was a great deal of housework to be done before I left. I thought it only fair that I took care of some of the laundry and despatched a couple of loads of it. I'd somewhat shirked my household duties over the past couple of days, so i thought it best to get it done.

The bus was really straight forward, just over an hour, didn't even really notice it.

I edited the footage and cobbled together my last blog entry while the drum was spinning and cooked a hearty breakfast in preparation for some "shredding" today, what actually prevailed was a bit different.

No sooner had I zipped up my rucksack, it started chucking it down in Dunfermline. I don't mind rain, but you can't (or shouldn't) skate in it.
A colleague of mine once told me "we're here for a good time, not a long time", very wise I thought.
With this in mind I walked to the bus station anyway not knowing whether I'd actually get to skate at the other end of the journey, because, well, you never know, you might not get another chance!

There's loads of great architecture in St Andrews, not just churches!

Being a skateboarder seems to give you some kind of sixth sense when it comes to predicting the short-term weather. We know, for example, that the kerb dries quicker than the pavement and that slabs dry quicker than tarmac. I dunno if it's an acute sense for atmospheric pressure, but we also seem to know if the clouds above are actually going to produce rain or are merely threatening to do so.

The bus took me from Dunfermline (raining and wet), through Glenrothes (raining and wet), Kettlebridge, Cupar, Dairsie and Guardbridge (unsurprisingly all also: raining and wet).
On the approach to St Andrews however, my spidey sense detected that, although it wasn't raining, it was still wet and I should seek out some concrete. It seemed to work and although most of the time I was walking over soggy tarmac, I eventually found a spot of hard, smooth slabs right on the beach (you'll see it on the video) and did a bit of flatland...

There were reminders everywhere of St Andrews being the home of golf, this building reminded me of skateboarding. Looks awfully like London's south bank doesn't it?

 Was thinking about freestyle today... and ollies.

Today's vid features just the foundation of freestylye: the manual. I'll delve deeper in freestyle in future though.


I also figured I'd have to get back into ollies pretty quickly too. I don't have the leg strength I used to have hence some pretty weak ollies (apparently weak ollies are a global problem!), but I know someone who can help with that.

A footnote: it was only when i came to edit the footage I noticed I was wearing my Gil Scott-Heron t-shirt whilst the main prop in the vid was a bottle. It wasn't rocket science to make the connection and add the soundtrack. I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed making it ...