I'm Skating in Nova Scotia!

Hello, old friends, where have you been for 20 years?
Back in Ontario, in the house my parents lived in for a few years near Trenton, there was a pond in the back woods. It was part of the acreage that went with the house, and the neighbourhood kids kept it cleaned off during the winter. I skated there only a couple of times but I've always remembered it and longed for a pond of my own for skating.
For the past ten years, these skates (which I think are actually 25 years old) have been in the basement of my home here in Nova Scotia, waiting for the chance to go skating on the river, like they did "in the good old days", like I wrote about in my essay, A River Runs Through Him. Now, I can't say much more than that because this -- my first skate in Nova Scotia -- is the topic of next week's Field Notes column (February 1st).
I can tell you this much: the pond we dug in late August has paid off! I finally got tired of waiting for "the perfect winter day" to clean off the pond and go skating, so yesterday, we just went for it!

Update: Tuesday morning
I tried to go skating this morning, before the freezing rain storm moves in, but my ankles are so painful, I can't move. Curses! I'm not sure how to fix this.
My ankles hurt on Sunday but I guess they kind of numbed as I kept skating because this pain today came as a shock because it's not as if my ankles are generally sore, when walking or lying in bed or sitting on them in yoga. 
I have to have the skates tight around my ankles for support yet as soon as I tightened them, I couldn't move for the pain; sort of glided back to the edge to get them off! 
I know I have a low tolerance for pain but this is nuts. May I whine a bit and stamp my foot and say how unfair this is!