It's raining (outside). I'm looking at the floor (inside). And I'm thinking "it's bare wood. Of course I can skate on it, I just need to stop before I hit the chest of drawers".

So that's what I've been doing: the goal has been to work on my lopsidedness by practising transitions (forward to backward and vice versa) on my weak side. And avoid the furniture.

• anticlockwise f-b: start by setting the right foot down pointing leftwards so that it crosses the direction of forward motion. Not sure why this helps, but it does.

• b-f still looks inelegant whatever. The inside foot (the right foot for a clockwise turn and vice versa) should be trailing and should be turned first, then the outside foot can catch up at its leisure. That seems to be not the whole story though, unless possibly it's just a matter of more practice.

• the chest of drawers survived the experience