skating on thin ice

just a few more winter pix while the fun lasts (day 8 of the first proper winter we had here since arrival in 1993).

here's the setting of our local ice rink, also known as the Large Human Collider, or LHC:



Here is phase 2 of the LHC, with two rings joined to a figure of 8. By now there are three rings, with the third joined to the distal ring, going out towards the right hand side:



and here's yours truly, skating on thin ice:




PS Health & Safety advice: this is on a flooded field, so there's no danger whatsoever. It strikes me that the official police advice "keep the children off the ice" is about as sensible as "just say no to drugs". Instead of teaching children what is safe and what isn't, they go for the "don't do anything that may be fun" line and set themselves up for failure.