Yes, those are ice skate, and yes, those are shorts. But this is 1956, when if the weather was cold you just walked - or skated - faster to keep warm rather than reach for the latest cosy fleece or down jacket.
And this girl seems quite happy with the gear she has to go skating in Maxwell Park, Glasgow, around 70 years after Sir John Stirling Maxwell gifted a section of his Pollok Estate for its creation. It required quite a bit of work to drain the low lying former agricultural acreage, but that allowed for the water to be diverted to the pond that skaters could use when the weather became cold enough. The park was officially opened at the same time as Pollokshields Burgh Hall in 1890.
The park pond was popular in summer as well as winter, with the Maxwell Model Yacht Club seemingly in a none-too-friendly rivalry with the Glasgow South Yacht Club, with the latter complaining about the former's boats leaking oil into the water in 1892, a problem hopefully resolved by 1895 when around 2,000 people were said to have skated on the pond.
The water must be clean enough now - it is recognised as a breeding habitat for wildlife - and the park also has many flowers of varieties said to have come from as far afield as the Himalayas via Sir John's nearby Pollok House. Sir John died, aged 89, just two years before this image was taken and, by 1980, the park he gifted also boasted tennis courts and a pavilion.
Whether Maxwell Park would still attract 2,000 people to skate now is unknown but the popularity of the sport has remained strong, with Glasgow and Edinburgh creating rinks as part of the Christmas festivities in recent years, echoing the one normally set up in New York over the winter season.
But I would guess such information is unlikely to have interested this girl, whose expression says all you really need to have fun when the weather is cold is the correct footwear and a frozen pond.
It's time to get the skates on.
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