teeks

It is said in Scandinavian countries that the Northern Lights are a result of foxes made of flame, and the sparks from their tails drifted up into the sky and danced, making the aurora. In Norse mythology, the Valkyrior, a band of brave warriors wear magical armour that shines brightly when they rode their horses to battle, and the reflections were the foretelling of their arrival.

Seeing as we’re without foxes and warlike virgins down south, we’ll have to create our own myths. Perhaps the Aurora Australis is a by product of getting up at 3am and standing outside in -41 temperatures. Maybe its the ice god Meltankos’ displeasure at the water usage of the base, shower less people!

It’s entirely possible that the character of your average Antarctican bleeds into the night sky as we sleep, and sometimes, there’s enough eccentricity to manifest itself in a light fantastic.

The Simpson building, with the fog encased CASLAB in the background. The aurora gave the mist an unnatural glow…

The Western sky. The aurora covered the whole sky, and it flowed and ebbed all over.

Flag.

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I’m one of the very fortunate Winterers to have two birthdays. A proper birthday back in January, with a special cake adorned in an iced Welsh dragon, and a party 3 months later to celebrate it. We couldn’t have a party in January as my birthday fell on same day as the end of relief – so the summer and winter crew collected in the bar, drank, talked and ate my cake. My party however, was a bit more … entertaining.

Fancy dress is a tradition here it seems, and I was tasked with conjuring a theme suitable to my personality. Seeing as I’m a massive kid and I’ve yet to grow up, I thought cartoon characters would be appropriate. I decided the same night which character to use … a yabba dabba doing Fred Flintstone. I had a rough idea of the materials needed, and went about crafting my costume over the few days before the party.

As you probably know, Fred wears a basic orange dress, covered in spots finished off with a blue tie. Orange is the de-facto colour down here, so finding that material wasn’t a problem! I went to Sune, our Field GA and he provided me with a torn tent … which I wasn’t allowed to cut, rip, sow or even draw on – this was going to be a challenge. I folded and fastened the tent into an almost dress shape, and stuck pieces of tape in odd spaces as spots, and tied the tie around my stupid looking neck.

I was done, and looking absolutely ridiculous I walked into the lounge only to be greeted by Mark – who was also dressed as Fred Flintstone. Shit. Not only was his costume waaaaaaaaaay better than mine (he wasn’t wearing a tent to start with) the wig that sat on his head was perfect. After a few laughs, I looked around and saw the other costumes, and they were all superb.

Here we are! Jim as SpongeBob SquarePants | Jules as a Smurf | Rich as DangerMouse | Kirtsy as Leela from Futurama | Sune as Homer | Brian as Speedy Gonzales< | Alex as Getafix | Pete as Getafix | Tom as Shrek | Mark as Fred Flintstone | Me as Fred Flintstone | Tamsin as Raphael, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtle | Dave on the pool table as Hello Kitty | Neil as Captain Caveman.

Here we have the Two Freds, Hello Kitty, Leela and a Smurf

Speedy Gonzales. The fastest plumber in Halley. Not speedy when it comes to THE HEATING EH BRI!

One crazy Piggott Engineer. Jules wasn’t painted at all, he just popped out for 5 mins before I took the picture.

Tom as Wayne Rooney … I mean Shrek!

Jim as Spongebob Squarepants – quite possibly the best costume I have ever seen. Especially when he couldnt talk, drink, sit, stand or do anything but fall over and look incredibly funny. Kudos to Jim, we laughed so hard that night, and it was mostly at him. Classic

And here he is, talking to Andy. I think the topic was 19th centuary politics of pre-revolution Russia, and it’s affect on the economies of Eastern Europe.

Shrek playing pool. An image that’ll stay with me for at least another week.

Hello Kitty and SpongeBob throw some shapes. They danced like a wet flannel suspended by matchsticks controlled by very drunk beetles.

Tamsin shows Brian how her patented ‘Geordie Stab’ works wonders when asking people to buy her Baileys.

All in all it was a top evening. I was cheffing the next day, and getting woken at 11:45 to cook for the base WAS NOT COOL. I got up though, only after Dave and Sune had prepared lunch already – at least my Sunday roast was all mine, and mighty fine it was too.

Here’s an arty picture of the Icebar courtesy of Dave. Ant foreground, yours truly providing a decent subject. Ahem

Here’s the whole group. Winter 07 Rock n’ Roll Group of HardCore Monkeys Fighting for Warmth, Justice and the Antarctic Way.

Ohh and the temperature hit -44 yesterday, and the base was actually cold inside! Today it’s -15. SORT IT OUT ANTARCTICA, YOU’RE RUBBISH WITH THE CONSISTENCY.

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We’ve ohh-so-nearly hit -40 today, which is an exciting landmark for me. Only another 10 degrees lower, and we’ve hit -50 (you have to set goals down here or you’ll go cuckoo). The temperature’s been hovering around -39.5 most of the day, and once the sun buggers off I’m guessing it’ll get colder (the met training I’ve received is finally paying off – metbabes arent that rubbish after all).

We, and when I say we I mean Kirsty, Jules, Alex, Tamsin and Jim uncovered the old ice bar last night, and we all popped down for a drink. This ‘bar’ lies approx 6metres under the surface, and you have to squeeze and slide your way through a system of tunnels, ladders, chutes and whatnot to get in. Once you’re down there you’re forced to sit on the ground as the ceiling has gradually been pushed down over the years leaving only a metre of height. It’s still full of atmosphere though, especially with the candles flickering, your breath clearly visible in the air, the complete lack of any noise apart from people talking and especially with the monkeys dancing around the pole chanting to the IceGod Meltankos.

To celebrate the cold, I filled a jug with boiling water, went outside and threw it in the air (we’re so crazy down here!!!!!!!!!!11). Luckily for me, and not quite so luckily for Alex, the water instantly, er did something that looked and sounded really cool – and I even managed to catch it on film.

Here’s a link to a higher res. 17mb avi (xvid)

It’s my birthday party tonight. I actually had my birthday in January, but the people here are pretty slow, so we’re celebrating it tonight. It’s a fancy dress again, with the theme of Cartoon Characters – no doubt I’ll have plenty of embarrassing pictures for the next update, as my costume really really blows.

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What’s the point in keeping a blog if you’re not going to update it? Well, apart from making jokes at my colleagues expense, a convenient place to post some images when I want to, ohh and then there’s a useful place to rant if I ever need to of course. So erm, I digress … on with the update.

I’ve not updated in a while due to lethargy and laziness, and not lack of content to write about. Since the last update, we’ve had …

A fancy dress party (Dave’s birthday party).
I chefed for the day.
I went on nightshift for a week.
We had a rave (Tom’s birthday party).
I had a shower.
We’ve seen our first proper aurora (best thing I’ve ever seen, ever).
We’ve seen Sun Dogs.
We’ve had spectacular sunrises and sunsets.
Played golf.
I broke something.
I fixed something.
I pretended to fix something.
Somebody else broke something.
I did quite a lot of kiting.
We had a BBQ in -30 temperatures .
Night arrived in full force.
And a load of other, Antarcticy stuff.

I could go on, but I wont. They say a picture paints a thousand words, so here’s a few paragraphs …

Crocodile Dundee, Crockett of Miami Vice and Optimus Prime at the 80s fancy dress.

The first Aurora Australis of the season. It was something fantastic to witness, I’ll never forget it. Cheers for the photo Tom.

I pack my kite after a session at sunset. Cheers for the photo Rich.

The view from my office window at 9am

The same sky from outside a few minutes later. Most mornings are like this lately…

A different sunrise. You cant quite see it, but the sun lit up a massive section of the horizon – it looked like it was on fire.

To celebrate Tom’s birthday, we had a R A V E toot toot whistle etc. I have NO IDEA what’s coming out of Ant’s arse honest to God, but he seems well happy.

Worship the pillow! Man, it’s amazing what you get up to when pissed and having a good time.

Alex throwing some crazy shapes with the glow sticks! I’m adjusting an earring or something, I dunno

We celebrate Good Friday with a BBQ just outside the Laws main door. It was -31, and the food was cold before it hit your mouth and the beer froze in the can within a few minutes. My mouth stuck to the can a few times too, not the best way to enjoy a beer… Here’s our Venerable Chef, Ant – he’s a bit handy with the tongs

Kirtsty peaking under her hood at the camera. It was really cold, everyone wore our big canada jackets, bear paw gloves and embraced the heat from the BBQ…

I didnt get any photos of my chefing escapes, but thanks to Mam for the Cawl recipe – it was a big hit. For nights I made bread every night, along with crumpets, pancakes, welshcakes, pizzas and an assorted mess of flavoured disaster-breads (they were still eaten by lunch!).

A big shout out to my family and friends back in civilisation – I miss you all not very much at all really.

Filed by admin at 3:56 pm under antarctica
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