Getting my skate on

I haven't skated for about two years, I can't believe it's been so long but I was out of the country for 6 months and away from Sheffield for nearly 9.

But I heard that here was no formal training session today as there was a bout, the hall was still booked but only premin and new skaters would be there - and I knew none of them (I'd met two but didn't really know them).

So, a chance to skate but with no pressure and no having to see people I didn't want to see!  

I went (having to borrow a helmet and wheels from Maid), and I enjoyed myself.  I didn't do much, just skated about, helped a premins, did some weaving timing, and mucked about!

I'm don't think I'll be going regularly for a while (I can't do Tuesdays at all), but I might pop in every now and again.

End of the affair

After three years and three months I think my love affair with roller derby is coming to an end - it's really hard to write that, and it's taken me a few months to come to the realisation.  But it's got to point where it causes me more upset and stress than happiness.

And it's supposed to be my stress relief and hobbies are supposed to be enjoyable aren't they?

Over the last few months I've not been going to training much, firstly because I hurt my shoulder, then due to being in Stockport, then China, then Christmas - now I've run out of excuses! I went last night and lasted half an hour before falling and really hurting my thigh, and then going home.

Things have changed so much within the team that I don't feel I get the friendship and joy I used to feel when seeing my team mates.  

Firstly a few people have left; Maid, Siege, Jane, Fleur, Bob (although Bob is reffing and Jane should be back in two years), and they are some of the people I regarded as real friends (not just team mates), and I miss them on track.

Secondly because of my poor attendance and drop in fitness I didn't make the a team (I also decided that I wasn't prepared to let derby eat my life in the way being in the a team would). This meant that the other few friends I have on the team, Cherry, Lethal and Luna all moved up to a team and I feel even more left behind.

I've always been proud to be in the b team, and Le Threat and Mel are there with me but because I've been off for so long I know no one else on the team and really have no reason to be friends with them (other than being on the team; I didn't learn derby with them and I'm over 20 years older than most of them!!)

I refuse to accept that due to my age I can't play a sport anymore, there are lots of older derby player (maybe not in my team, but across the world there are).  And anyway, there were people in their 50s doing Tough Guy at the weekend!!

So, where do I go from here?  Firstly I want to have a good chat with Christina (sorry!), she's always been good at helping me get things straight in my head.  Then if I'm leaving I need to stop payin £32 a month and join the gym instead (£18).

I don't feel I get a work out from skating anymore, and want to do more exercise, but can't afford both team subs and the fees.

I've started a yoga class and I'm very much enjoying it, and I've rashly signed up for a 12 week Chinese course (I picked up the course book today - terrifying!).

One of the things that I think has been stopping me from leaving is the fact that I'd get thrown out of the FB group, and although that might not seem like much, lots goes on there, much of it non derby - and I'll miss that.  For instance people post jobs, or events, or things we can do as a group - and if I'm not in the group I know I won't get to hear about things as much.

Anyway, I'm going to have to decide soon - the fact that I've not been at training will mean I won't get rostered for bouts - and bouting is the only thing I actually enjoy.

Over 40 Jammer

Photo © Jason Ruffell

I've not been that bothered about reaching the big 40 - in fact it was a fun year, and so far my 40s have been good (okay, so it's only a year and a half in, but it's still good). I've certainly not hidden my age, in fact if anything I tend to shout it from the roof tops a little too much. Maybe that's because I've been told (and I do believe) that I don't really look my age.

I've been lucky, I've always had good skin, I've never smoked, I've not had kids, and I'm reasonably fit and healthy - all adding up to making me look younger than I am.

I couple of months ago I joined a 'Derby over 40s' Facebook page, and kept an eye on the goings on, and a while back it was announced that one of the Manchester team members was about to turn 40 and would like to arrange an over 40s bout - well, I had to be in didn't I!!

It finally took place this saturday, luckily in Halifax so not too far from home. Everyone playing was over 40, and we'd come from wide and far - they'd split us into two teams; the sexy southerners (mainly made up of Portsmouth, Birmingham and Northampton), and the naughty northerners (Manchester, Edinburgh, Furness, Leeds and me).

I bloody loved every minute of it. Marryk benched for us (and as usual he was great), and Bravo from Manchester did line-ups. In the changing rooms before we started everyone kept asking who was a jammer - and it seemed that no one was - so it looked like it was me and a couple of others who didn't mind doing it!!

10 minutes in we were about 50 points down, by half time we'd taken the lead - and I'd jammed LOTS - and scored a large proportion of the points!

Photo © Jason Ruffell

We went into the second half on very close scores, and with less than two minutes on the clock the the final jam started very close, with someone else jamming - and we got a power jam!!

We ended up winning 204 to 168!!

I don't think I've played that well for some time - scoring a LOT of points, and not a single trip to the penalty box.

The only downer of the day was that I didn't win any of the awards, I know it sounds conceited, but I know I played well and many people who came to watch (Siege, Bob, Mel and Tom) were all convinced that I'd win best jammer, or at least MVP - oh well, I know I played VERY well, possibly the best I have for some time. One of the announcers even came up to me afterwards and told me that I was amazing!!

It was awesome, I loved it, and want to do it again - I've started making noises about starting an over 40s travelling team made up of girls from all over the country. Watch this space!

Just to add, the day ended with an amazing vegan Japanese meal at Maid's house, Maid, Steve, Bob, Mel, Tom and I - a lovely end to a lovely day.

Bouting x 4

It might seem that I haven't really mentioned roller derby much recently, it's not that I've not been doing it, it's more that I seem to have been doing it non-stop!!

For the last four weekends I've been playing in a bout!  I'm not going to go over each bout, but suffice to say it's been busy, mega fun and exhausting!

Leeds on the 13th April :-

Intraleague on the 20th April:-

Hull on the 28th April:-

And finally this weekend at home:-

I'm exhausted! Thank Bob it's a bank holiday this weekend so that I get two days of decorating!!  Our next bout is May 18th but I don't know if I'll be on the roster as it's an Allstar bout (all the above, except the intraleague, were Belles bouts).

Oh, and I also have to share that last night at the after party three of us had a 'squat off' - who could squat in derby stance for the longest - I won!  5 minutes 10 seconds and I could have gone for longer (although by that stage I was shaking!!).

Poem 28

One of the boys (Bear) rashly posted on his FB wall that he'd write a poem for anyone that liked the post - things got a little out of hand, he had to call a stop to it as he said his brain was hurting!

Luckily I got in just before the cut off, here is mine (sorry about the bad language!)

Thank Fuck this is My last POEM
the lady i'm writing about has been decorating her HOME
although to be fair its mainly the KITCHEN
when it's all finished it will surely look BITCHIN
when she's not wandering around the cooker with a Roller in HAND
you can find her on the flat track looking rather GRAND
either it's blocking or jamming for SSRG or being a CRUCIBELLE
you can be sure she will give them TOTAL HELL
I doubt her Moto has ever been YOLO
and she sure does take a mean PHOTO
ask her nicely she will take your PIC
she's asked me to warn off Phally flashing her his DICK
She loves nothing more than a bloody good QUOTE
she also once auditioned for the stage play DEEP THROAT
all these fucking poems have taken their TOLL
so this is the end I hope you like it MS MOLL

POEM 28 thankfuckitsfinished

Good Vibs

Pip puts me to shame, I wish I had half her vision and drive. Her father died of cancer a while ago (about 18 months I think), and since then she's pledged to raise £10,000 for two cancer charities Macmillan and one related to the particular cancer her dad had).

She's organised pub quizzes, bake sales, and last weekend the mother of all events.

Good vibrations this weekend was an amazing night in Sheffield. At Skate Central she assembled a fantastic line up; SSRG intraleague mini bout (of course the Death Leopards won!), a bar, three DJs, two bands (including Carmen Ghia and the Hotrods), roller disco and vintage themed market.

All money raised going to the charities. She hired out her own dresses, had merch made, sold advertising space in the programme - you name it she did it. And she has a full time job.

The woman is amazing.

The night raised over £3600, and everyone had a fantastic time. I don't know what she's planning next, but with all the work that went into this event, I hope she has a break first.

Bouting and vomiting

This weekend has been a real mixed bag - Saturday was awesome, we had a bout.

The Belles (including me) were playing Nottingham in a rematch, the last time we'd played was last year at our first ever bout (we won).  So the tension was high, and we were all very excited.

The day went really well, by the end of the second half we were winning 114 to 66, but we'd been taking things easy (not holding their jammer back as long as we should, and not being as defensive as we should have been), our bench and line up manager gave us a talking to.

© Jason Ruffell

We won the second half too - but our penalties were amazing, Pip ended on five majors!! Siege and I spent most of the second half sitting on three minors each.  I'd been doing a little jamming but that had to stop.

At full time we'd won 218 to 158.

But the score wasn't the highlight of the day for me.  For me the highlight was the fact that Emma and Gee had brought Iver and Imogen over for the day.  I'd missed Imogen's birthday, and so it gave me the chance to give her her birthday present - I was more excited than her!

I'd been given permission to give her her first pair of rollerskates, with pads and helmet of course.  Since she'd seen me in my kit, it was fab to see her wearing hers, and she was grinning from ear to ear! I'm told she even wanted to sleep in them that night!

© Jason Ruffell

But the weekend declined rapidly after that for me. Zommers and I went home to get changed for the after party, but whilst she was having a shower I started to feel really ill.  I went to bed instead of going out - thinking it was just exhaustion or a mild case of concussion as I'd hit my head during warm up.....if only it had been.

At 9.30pm I was vomiting - winter vomiting bug had struck and I felt like I was dying.  Poor Liz had to put up with a very pathetic phone call, but I made it back to bed, sleeping a little until the morning.  Obviously no skating for me on Sunday, and work is looking dodgy for this week (if I gave the bug to any of our clients it would kill them).

Masked ball

I have to admit that I hadn't given it much thought or really got very excited about it at all, for the last week I've been exhausted and really feeling run down. But there was no way I was missing a maskarade ball, especially one organised by the team.

Zombie was excited enough for everyone, she'd even been wearing her dress round the house (and looking amazing in it too)!

So, Friday afternoon we both spent the afternoon getting ready, make-up everywhere, stressing over shoes (I'd bought a pair on eBay but they didn't fit, but luckily had got a back up pair, Zombie had borrowed a pair from another skater, but they didn't fit and in the end she had to wear a pair of her own that didn't really go!) and having a laugh.

We were actually ready early, so ended up sitting around waiting to go to She-rarr's!

The ball was at Crookes Working Men's Club, a massive venue that I honestly didn't think we'd fill - but we did! There were loads of us - normal (non-derby) people too! And some of the costumes were awesome. Although the theme of the evening had been the film Labyrinth, most people had just dressed up in posh frocks and masks. But there were a few people who'd really made an effort.

Zombie pulled, but bizarrely he disappeared (which in her drunken state meant she got rather upset about), but for me the evening was about dancing.

It was a bit odd as my main skating friends (Bob and Siege) didn't come, but I still had a good time. Afterwards I had hoped to go straight home, but felt I should make sure Zombie was alright (she was very drunk), and she wanted to go to town.

When we got outside it was so cold and most people didn't have coats (I did), but we managed to walk to Crookes High Street and get a taxi down to town. We didn't stay long at Boneshaker (which is a shame in a way as the music was awesome), luckily Zombie decided she wanted to go home, via the chip shop!!  When we got outside it was actually SNOWING!! 

I think the whole evening was a great success, everyone seemed to have an amazing time and I'm pretty sure we'll be doing it all again next year!  Some photos from the night -

Zombie in the spare room

By Spyda-man on Deviant Art

I've had a lodger now for a while, and I wasn't sure how it would go, having Zombie move in really was a bit of a test as I didn't know if I'd mind the loss of privacy and having to consider someone else in the house.

Over the years I've shared houses before; in Hemel Hempstead, and for the three years of university when I first came to Sheffield. But I guess this was slightly different since it's my house.

This weekend two little things happened that confirmed to me that I do like having her around - firstly on Saturday we were both very excited about our first public intraleague bout and spent the day getting ready. We were in Meadowhell when it opened at 9am - quick run round Primark, a coffee and had my eyebrows threaded (how girlie is that!!).

We then went home and made ears for ourselves and our team mates for the bout, and had some lunch - but we were so excited that we were bouncing off the walls! We had to go down to the new Derby Store opened by the boyfriend of one of the girls - very exciting to have a shop in Sheffield where we can try on skates.

Afterwards we went home to get ready - sitting on her bedroom floor putting on nail varnish - I felt like a 14 year old again!

I'll tell you about the bout in another post, but the other little thing, happened the following morning when Zombie came in (we'd been out VERY late) - she came into my room, and like a teenager she got into the bottom of my bed for a chat - it was great!

Two little things, but to me they are special. I've shared houses before, but never with anyone that I've got on with so well - I'll be sorry when she gets her own place and moves out.

Fun but tiring weekend

This weekend has been lots of fun, but totally exhausting! On saturday we held our very first public intraleague - and to say I was excited is putting it mildly!!

Unlike our usual bouts, this one was an evening event with a DJ, a bar and lots of dressing up! The build up had really played on the two teams being against each other - Death Leopards (including me) and the Steel Panthers.

We had t-shirts made, and each team had a flag. Zombie and I had made cut out leopard ears to go on everyone's helmet and we had leopard make up too.

It was really important that the public had a good time, as well as a chance for us to have a good time and let off stream the event was hopefully gong to be a way to raise money.

The turn out was brilliant, lots of people who'd never been to roller derby before, and the bout was AWESOME! By the end of the first half the panthers were winning, but we just lulled them into a false sense of security to take the lead in the second half - the scores were pretty close all the way through but the Death Leopards were victorious!! I have no idea what the score was as it really didn't matter - it was just for fun!

Afterwards we had queue jump tickets for Corporation - and things get a bit hazy for me!

I drank a ma-hoo-sive amount of Jack Daniels and did a lot of dancing! I vaguely remember going home!

The plus side to sticking to Jack, and not mixing my drinks, is that I didn't have a hangover at all - up at 8am the next morning, brunch at 11, skating at 4pm - and I even stayed for the boys session!!

Weekend of derby

Another weekend filled up totally with roller derby - not that I'm totally addicted to it at all?!? (I think it's a mixture of loving the sport and loving the exercise).

The weekend started for me on Friday night getting to Liverpool after work and meeting Kate. I haven't seen her since the beginning of the year, so she'd missed my 40th, and so as a birthday treat we went for a massage. I've had lots of massages over the years, but nothing to compare to the amazing experience of a Thai massage - having someone walk on my back and kneel on my thighs is very bizarre but incredibly relaxing!

Saturday morning was nice too, breakfast in a fantastic cafe in an industrial unit! Then Kate went off for a yoga class in Manchester and I met with the rest of the Belles for a bout.

I love bout day, but even more so when things go as well as they did this weekend - at the end of half time the score was 101 to 48 to us! I didn't jam much, I seem to be turning into a pretty good blocker (having a big arse is such an advantage in this sport!), and our walls were amazingly strong. Although the Chicks seemed to get lead jammer more often we definitely won due to a better knowledge of tactics. You can really see that we have played our last few bouts (and we practise) against A teams.

It's a shame we couldn't stay for the after party, but we had a coach booked to get us home - which was a scary experience as the driver was a bloody lunatic! Over taking in the dark on Woodhead - at 40 years old I had my first experience of travel sickness.

Yesterday the derby continued! I had an average breakfast at The Grind cafe with Liz (the company was excellent, the breakfast was average!), and then off to practise.

Since I arrived early I helped out with the carbon session, they are on to learning to scrimmage so I played at being jammer - their walls are really strong (although a few too many multiplayer blocks!).

Our session afterwards was great, for the first time we played in out intraleague teams, but for me the real fun of the day was the boys session.

Nuke took the session and it was a lot of endurance and footwork - I've not sweated so much in a long time!! The boys are great to skate with, and at one point when my body was screaming at me to give up Paul took to shouting at me 'Come on Moll, you can do it'!!

It's a shame that Peter wasn't able to skate, but I'm really pleased that he attended and watched the whole session, even doing some timing (he fell over earlier in the week and had hurt his arm).

So, I got home last night smelly, tired and happy - walking on Tuesday might be a challenge, but it was totally worth it.

Splitting up is hard to do

Sheffield doesn't feel like a big city, but it is, and therefore there were always going to be a lot of girls who wanted to play roller derby - so our team grew bigger with each intake of skaters. So much so that we ended up with two full teams, and a large numbers of skaters who were either waiting to get the experience and skill level to join a team, or were working towards minimum skills.

When teams get as large as ours there is usually a split, and often it's the B team who go their own way, but since our B team has been changing regularly (too regularly in my opinion) this never happened.

But a split has come, and in my opinion the timing is terrible - two weeks before our first public intraleague bout and one week before an away bout for the B team! In both games we know that some of the players are leaving, possibly very soon (they haven't said when).

When the new team announced, on Facebook, I looked, but in my heart knew there was no chance of me going anywhere. It's going to be so difficult for everyone, friends will be leaving, possibly both the A and B teams (and certainly the intraleague teams) will change substantially, committee members are possibly leaving......it could be a very stressful time.

Having decided to stay, I feel a lot more relaxed about it all. We have a new chairperson, who I originally ought might drive me to distraction, but who seems very level headed and to have everyone's interests in mind.

I'm taking on a staff role with the league, but not joining the committee (that would be a recipe for disaster!), I'm hoping that on the next roster I'll be made a crossover player (meaning I can be rostered for both A and B teams), and I'm very much looking forward to the intraleague in a weeks time.

We have a bout this Saturday, I'm not sure I'm ready for it, but as always it will be fun, and win or lose I'll be happy to be out on the track.

So, lots of change, hopefully no upset - splitting up can be hard, but also very exciting!

Hot pants

As you'll know if you've ever met me, I've always been blessed with a curvy hourglass figure - big hips, small waist, big boobs!

It means that I also have what can only be termed 'ample' thighs (read 'massive'!).

This means that hot pants are an item I've never had in my wardrobe - not even since becoming a rollergirl!

But we have a public intraleague bout coming up, and since I've already given in to the fact that I'm going to have to wear leopard print (our team are the Death Leopards), when the opportunity to make out own hot pants came up I thought 'fuck it, why not'!

So a few of us went over to Maid's on Monday evening where she had for together a load of shiny stretchy material and both her sewing machines!

Zombie's are amazing, and as she's our captain Mel had the marvellous idea of putting a shiny 'C' on her bum!

Mine aren't finished as we ran out of time, but they are actually more shorts than hot pants (but still show more leg than I've ever before!), they will be shiny black with green leopard print down either side and I'll be wearing silver leopard print tights or leggings underneath.

I know there will be lots of other girls there with smaller bums than mine, but I don't care, I'm proud of my curves!

Feeling crap

I hate being ill, I'm crap at it and when I'm not feeling good I really shouldn't go out.

Today that was well illustrated at a bout - I have a horrid head cold, and attempted to skate in a bout - big mistake.

Second jam out I had a terrible jam and as a consequence was taken off the jammer rotation, and actually didn't get that much track time.

I'm sat at home now feeling sorry for myself - I must go to bed and hope that I'll wake up feeling much better.

Bonnie Scotland

I love Scotland, it's just unfortunate that on this trip I've not actually seen any of it.

We left Sheffield at 6pm on Friday and will get back tonight at about 3am - and most of the time in between has been spent in a hostel or in a sports arena.

Photo by Jason Ruffell

As it was a tournament we'd been able to take 20 skaters of we wanted to, since there weren't enough A team players four B team were asked to attend - one of them me! Although it was unlikely any of us were going to play, only if one of the main team got injured (which we didn't want).

It turned out better than I expected! One of the A team didn't come, so a place was free (without anyone getting injured) and they asked me to fill it.

We were staying in a hostel, my Bob they've changed! Four of us sharing a room with our own shower room and toilet, clean and spacious; and cheap (although the team had subsided the cost of the whole trip).

Our first game was to be late on Saturday afternoon, then on Sunday morning and if we won one of those again at Sunday lunchtime.

The venue was amazing, a massive Victorian building with load of sports halls and arenas inside, not sure what it had originally been but at some point it has been a transport museum and a music venue. We even found a podium!

Saturday over ran and our game was moved to Sunday morning - so potentially three games on one day!!

The tournament organisers had arranged for teams to have an hour with their physio, Jonny - we took advantage of that and I have a sneaky suspicion that they were trying to break us! (only joking!)

He had lacrosse balls which he made us lie on to work muscles - I have the bruises to prove it (I don't think I did one of the points correctly and so have a big bruise in my hip).

On Saturday evening we were knackered (I think the adrenaline from thinking we were going to play, and the waiting around, as well as getting in late the night before was too much), but one of our best skaters is moving away so we went out for a meal to say goodbye. Then a reasonably early night for all.

Sunday was such a buzz for me!! Although in both games I was sat on the bench for most of the time I was just happy to be there! Derby is a team sport and I completely understood that we were there to win if possible, so when we started losing I understood that we needed to field our strongest players - I made myself useful by redoing people's numbers and watching the game to learn stuff.

Photo by Jason Ruffell

We lost both games, but we were always the lowest seeded team, and we played well. We even introduced the use of the Hokey Cokey as part of our warm up!

We could have left after our last game but we stayed to see the playoffs and the final - amazing bouts well worth seeing (although we missed a bit of the playoff by going in search of chips).

We left Glasgow at 8pm - getting back home at about 1.30am - knackered!!

The trip wasn't as successful as Dublin (either in terms of skating or team building), but it was amazing to be part of the A team (if only for a weekend). I've learnt loads having been given the opportunity, especially at the Wednesday training sessions in the run up to the weekend. I know I'm going to find it hard to go back to Tuesday training - but hopefully it won't be for long :o)

Stepping up

As you'll know, I've been a Belle since the team started (September 2011), and very proud of the fact.

But in the last few months I've been feeling that my skill level has peaked, that training on a Tuesday is no longer pushing me, most weeks I don't even work up a sweat, and with new people (people who have recently passed minimum skills) regularly joining sometimes I feel I'm not learning as much as I want to (although that's my fault not theirs).

Going over skills is great, but I'm often left wanting more.

For the last few weeks I've been getting it! Myself and three other Belles have been asked to make up numbers for an Allstar team at a tournament this weekend.

So this meant a temporary training change to wednesdays. I've been loving it!

The sessions start with an intensive warm up, followed by some REALLY hard endurance - which I love.

15 seconds each of mountain climbers, plank, get up lie down and fast lap; then 30 seconds, 45, 30, and 15 - followed quickly by laps of stepping, fast laps of teams breaking through and walling, wrecking ball drills, 2 minutes as jammer......and then some scrimmage.

But there's a problem with all of this - next week I'll have to leave it all again and go back to Tuesday training. I'm really going to miss it.

It's made me even more determined to make sure that I get picked as a crossover for the next roster (end September), so I can more regularly train on a Wednesday.

But first we have a tournament to win! Although if I'm honest I don't expect to play much, if at all.

Zombiessssssss!

I've always been more interested in vampires than zombies, but who would pass up the opportunity to take part in the making of a short zombie film??

So when the team decided to make a promo for the next bout along with our boys team, and the theme was zombies (the boys) vs. rollergirls (us), I had to be there.

Not only did I want to be in the film, but also photograph the shoot.  I was given a small part, where I had to attack a zombie with a baseball bat! And John came along for the shoot to take photos.


I can't begin to tell you how professional it all was, not just the filming, but the make up and the costumes too. For the shoot I was in we has four zombies, their leader 'Dr Blocktipus', and myself and Maid of Steel as the two rollergirls.

Lots of hanging about, lots of amazing photo opportunities, and lots of fake blood -loads of it! Anna who did most of the make up also made the blood and apparently the main ingredients were beetroot and glucose.
John got some amazing set piece photos, and loads of behind the scenes stuff.

We spent a few hours shooting in an amazing abandoned graveyard on the other side of the city - with kids on trail bikes screaming past every ten minutes!  I got bitten to pieces, and by the next day my legs were extremely swollen - but I wouldn't have missed it for the world, and the next evening went back for more.

Friday night the filming moved indoors, which was good as the weather turned nasty again (our night in the graveyard was the one evening that week when it didn't pour with rain!). The House Skate park in Neepsend allowed us to hire the park from 9-11pm.

We arrived at 8pm, and started makeup and set up - much to the amusement of the skateboarding kids! We then spent the next few hours filming, and in my case taking photos (John was working at an event so couldn't attend). We ran over a little, but the guy who runs the place was so lovely, even making us all tea and bringing it out on an old skate board!

I'm so pleased with the images, my last shots taken with me lying on the floor with four zombies advancing on me!  More photos to follow when they've been officially released.

You should watch the film, it's F**KING AWESOME!!

Weekend of exercise

With all the excitement of the zombie shoot (that post will have to wait as it's a secret!), I was tired on Saturday, but I certainly wasn't missing the opportunity I'd been given.

The All Stars were scrimmaging against Leeds, and earlier in the week had asked for an extra skater to make up numbers - I volunteered, and my name was picked out of the hat!!

My first experience of skating at A team level - and it was hard! Although it was meant to be a scrimmage, it was run a lot more like a closed bout, very serious and playing to win.

I got loads of track time, mainly as a blocker, and I loved every minute of it. Leeds won, I have no idea what the score was, I didn't care! I'd held my own pretty well with the All Stars, and even got some praise from their coach.

Needless to say, I was in bed early.

Which was certainly necessary, because on Sunday morning at 9am myself and four other rollergirls ran the Race for Life 5km around the city centre! I'll admit that I didn't run it all, I walked some of the hills, but I certainly did better than last time.

John, Violet, Erica and myself went off to the Rude Shipyard for breakfast!

As if that wasn't enough, after a brief nap, I went to the Sunday training session! Although I didn't do the scrimmaging at the end as I had arranged to see Mickey so that she could give me some exercise advice (how to strengthen my right shoulder).

By the end of the day I was really beginning to feel the strain, another early night.

Fantastic weekend

It's going to be hard to describe how amazing the weekend has been, this might end up being a long post!

The team had been asked if we'd like to play a bout against Dublin, a double header, A and B teams. But in the end we could only get enough Belles to go - so off we went!

Firstly, on Friday it rained, not just a little - biblical proportions! Trains across to Manchester were cancelled and it looked like we might not be going anywhere.

But Colin to the rescue! With minutes to spare he drove us across the Peak District in a department minibus.

Our hostel in Dublin was great, right in the middle of Temple Bar, clean and with free toast and tea for breakfast. We arrived, dumped our bags and went off to the rock bar which sponsors the Dublin girls. I had one pint and didn't stay up late.

We had a bit of time for wandering and coffee on Saturday morning, as the bout was not until 4pm. I've been to Dublin once before so felt confident wandering on my own. We had a coach booked to take us out to the bout.

The bout itself was a bit of a shambles, inexperienced referees and non-skating officials meant that the scoring was all over the place ..... penalties not being called (or called incorrectly), scores either not being counted or being added to the wrong team - I've never played a bout with so many time outs!

The scores were a bit of a mess but with about 6 minutes to go we needed 26 points to win, but the final score showed us losing by 2 points.

We played really well as a team, I was happy with both my blocking and my jamming, and I got a good amount of track time. I even had a couple of power jams too.

But wait, we'd congratulated the other team, but an official enquiry was going on due to scoring irregularities.

Then the official final score was announced - we'd actually won by 2 points!!

We then went on to win the after party! Lots of dancing and drinking going on - although I only had one pint due to my hatred of hangovers and lack of funds. Although despite my sobriety I was still dancing. Our bench and line up managers decided to give out awards to best jammer, block and most valued player on the team - and I'm so chuffed, I got most valued player!!

Sunday was a lot more relaxed (and thankfully no hangovers!), breakfast in the hostel then I spent the best part of the day walking the streets in the rain!

Lots of street art and other interesting things to photograph. Some of the others went to the leprechaun museum, which I have to admit did look fun, others went on a boat - I just wandered around and went to cafes!

But Bob wasn't feeling well, and by the time we got to the airport in the afternoon she'd been throwing up for sometime. Although she suffers from travel sickness, this seemed so much more than that, and at one point I was concerned that she wouldn't be allowed on the plane - by the time we got to Sheffield she was very pale and still being sick - we had to get her Mum to come and pick her up.

Ice Cream

Aside from the playing of the sport, as a rollergirl I get to do some truly ace stuff! And today was no exception.

About 10 of us were chosen randomly (we also had to be available in the day), to visit the Our Cow Molly farm to make our own ice cream!

Obviously it was a publicity stunt, but it was also great fun.

After trying a few of the flavours on offer, three went to watch the cows being milked, and three went to actually make the ice cream.

I was making, along with Maid and Glam. We helped with the ingredients (I put the chocolate chips in!), and the mixing, and even got to lick the giant spoon! It was like being through the window on Playschool!!

We made 'Amber's Chocolate Orange' of course.

Afterwards we all got to taste the results - and very yummy it was too! And the remainder went on sale in the ice cream parlour- and sold out in a few days.

A couple of days later it made it into the local paper (The Star), including my photos.