When Hollie met Penny

Anybody that knows me will inform you of my physical impairment. I have little balance, always seem to hurt myself and regularly fall over. A couple of years back I went out for a hike in the snow with two friends from school, managed to slip on the pavement that was not actually covered in any snow and fell into a bin that tipped over on my way down. My friends, being the lovely people that they are, laughed for about 20 minutes, while I repeatedly attempted, and failed, to return to my feet. This impairment has been an on-going battle throughout my life, one that I put down to the fact that my feet are relatively large in accordance with my height. So when I asked Lisa yesterday if I could borrow her skateboard for a trip to Virginia Waters, I was extremely surprised when she said yes (they obviously don't know me well enough yet). Dowse happened to mention that she had never walked around the entire lake before, so we decided that this morning we would get up early and kill two birds with one stone; Dowse would walk around the entire lake and I would break my leg attempting to skateboard.

The day turned out to be somewhat of a miracle, I believe I should thank Dowse for this as she was in fact a very gifted supervisor. It really did feel as though I was out with my mother, though in all honesty that was exactly what I needed. At times I was slightly overconfident and thought that, being my first skateboard attempt, I could glide down big hills, Dowse was not so confident and kindly told me that flat surfaces were probably more within my reach. Being stopped by the police and spoken to about my skateboarding skills was most definitely the low point of the day, apparently you're not meant to sit on the board, who knew?

The lake, however, was as beautiful as always and the walk consisted of lots of photo taking, chats with fellow walkers and dog owners, and of course the brief period of being completely and utterly lost. A moment in which asking a couple for directions caused them to have a slight domestic about which way they should be sending us... Oops. Having the time to try something new in the fresh air during the summer months is blissful and overall I think we had a very successful and productive morning.