Happy birthday to Me! (daft photos inside)

I thought you'd enjoy having a giggle as I was hit by some sort of inspiration to take some photographs to celebrate turning 48 TODAY!

So I bought some doughnuts, then couldn't find the candles. Instead I had a weird prop to pose with.

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As I started taking photos that I thought would be exceptionally cute... using the countdown timer on my phone, it reminded me of times gone by, when we couldn't see the photo until it had been developed. By Boots. On proper film!

Yet, despite the incredible advanced in technology, I still couldn't actually take a photo I was happy with.

Finally, I realised that maybe you'd simply enjoy the behind-the-scenes goofy process of me waving a doughnut around and leaping. I managed to make Emily giggle anyway.

Life is for living, in all it's imperfect moments.

Hi, I'm Mel, the slightly awkward, goofy founder of The Skate Sanctuary. I'm still the same person I was at 28, now with slightly tighter boundaries and more carefree attitude (mostly thanks to HRT). And even though I run a roller skate retail and coaching not-for-profit business, I still really LOVE roller skating.

Can you believe in the above photoshoot - the loosest of terms for what actually happened - I actually forgot to include my roller skates. I was mostly planning to have them in the background, but still forgot lol.

Have you noticed that sometimes when you roller skate, you can be keen to get to the next milestone, that you forget to look around and appreciate how far you've come? My best tip is to appreciate how darn far you've come and know that the initial learning curve is SO STEEP that you're essentially climbing a vertical cliff. If you've made it beyond that point, you may wonder what's next that isn't competitive roller skating. How do you find a nicely structured programme that can gently introduce you to different types of roller skating so you know what to expect before signing up for a class (assuming you're lucky enough to have one close by). Or at the very least, you know what to Google.

So, I wanted to gift you 50% off my best online course - Find your Flow: A Journey Through Skating Styles - it's got so much content that it would take you around 18 months if you did all the learning with us in person. Use the code FLASHYB to get 50% off today - 12th November only.

Be proud of how far you've come - I am!

Rolling forward with you,

Mel xo