The Rocky Horror Picture show – a classic or utter garbage? A bit of both methinks. One thing’s for sure, it’s definitely a disturbing theme for a fancy dress party. Cue Alex …
The Rocky Halley Picture Show.
So very very disturbing. It’s been 8 and a half months in the Antarctic, and I’m more than happy to admit that I dont find this picture alluring, even in the slightest.
Marky as Riff Raff
We’re not all weird at Halley (but it helps) – so Alex allowed bizarre costumes as well as Rocky Horror related wares – an excellent excuse for me to don a wig and skirt!
Some people have complained that there’s not enough photos of me on my blog (are they insane?). So to shut them up, here I am in all my glory. I am a lady, call me Emily. I lost the wig early on, it was too warm.
You can look but you cant touch!
Kirsty as a hot-goth. Ant is looking at Alex who’s not in the picture (he-she was showing some leg)
Tamsin! Need I saw more?
Dave says hello to Jules. Jules says ARGGHHHH to Dave.
Ant decided to have a typical British Pub Crawl for his birthday celebration, and with venues like the SatDome, CASLab, Blimp tent, the newly created Ice Cave, who could turn it down?
The melt-tank is a pretty major factor in our lives down here, so we figured it’d make a good venue
Off to the CASLab, where Dave serenades us on Neil’s mandolin
Then the Simpson, with the walls covered in pictures of motorbikes. Tamsin is not amused/bored with the decorations …
Dave does his best Meat Loaf impression…
The Blimp Weather Haven gets a visit…
Dave throwing some shapes in the -35 degree temperatures. You cant keep a good man down.
The Piggott boys provide comfy seating for us hero types
And finally we end up at our Ice Cave. Ahh, such wonderful comforts…
Not content with SLEEPING OUTSIDE IN THE BLOODY COLD, Ant wanted an Ice Cave as a venue for his pub crawl on the weekend. So we got together on Friday afternoon, and started digging a hole in the windscoop in front of the Drewry. It was apparent within 10 minutes that we should have started digging weeks prior to the crawl, and seeing as we only had 2 days to complete an ice cave we knew we were in for a marathon digging session. Fortunately for us (and my back … arms, legs, fingers, face, nose, temper) Richard joined us, and after 16 hours of digging, we carved a small house into the snow…
You’ve got to start somewhere…
The cave starts to take shape. Hmm, maybe we should’ve started this a few weeks ago.
We were too eager to get it finished in time, so no more photos were taken … So here’s the end result.
Ant standing inside near one of the many pillars … cough
Some people needed breaks…
Here’s the trio. It was exhausting work, but definitely worth it. Shame it wouldn’t last – the windscoop in front of the Drewry would be dozed nearer summer.
The daily balloon launch by the met team is a very important sciencey bit we do at Halley. Not only is the information used to forecast local weather, but it helps with meteorological models across the globe. The balloon launch is one of the few lucky programs that continues next year (lots of science shutting down during the Halley VI build), and as a result I’m required to learn how it’s done in the event of the single met person being ill, on nights or on holiday.
Tamsin launches a balloon with sonde on a beautiful morning
The Simpson, where science never sleeps. Unless a hammock is involved
Outdoors in the Antarctic can be a bit dangerous. Emergencies, when not dealt with properly can easily result in nasty things such as frostbite, death, cold hands, frosty eyelashes, death, clothes that clash, bad hair etc, so as Genuine Antarctic Heroes or GAH, we’ve had the training and the equipment to handle any situation!
Today, I’m going to write about a piece of equipment vital to the survival of any GAH stuck outside in the bloody cold – The Bivvy, or as I like to call it – a big plastic bag.
That’s it. A big plastic bag big enough to fit two grown people, and all you need to do is crawl inside if the worst ever happens (well not worst, that’d be waking up in bed and Jim’s lying next to you) – your tent gets blown up, blown away, blown er down a crevasse or gets eaten by the Corbett Antarctic Ostrich. It has a convenient zip so you can seal yourself inside, which results in a crap load of ice forming on the inside as you breath and the worst possible smells ever if you have bad wind.
Seeing as it was Ant’s 30th this week, he wanted to experience the true Antarctic before he got old and wrinkly – and his idea of the true Antarctic experience is sleeping OUTSIDE for a night. In a big plastic bag. OUTSIDE. It’s not like it was MINUS FORTY BLOODY DEGREES OR ANYTHING.
Happy Birthday you piece of crap! Do you know that it’s -40? Ohh look, it’s quite windy too! Yay!
It wasn’t actually that cold inside your;
Thermals
Fleece overalls
Padded overalls
Hat
Neckie
Gloves
Fleece bag
Sleeping bag (which lies on a thermarest, foam lining, sheep-skin rug … yup, sheep-skin rug)
Bivvy
Snow piled up onto of your bag (not intentional, the wind helped us in that department)
Dave was most excellent enough to bring along a bottle of Champagne to celebrate Ant getting 1 year older.
Urgh, it was cold.
Ant gets ready for bed
Ant 6 hours later … Happy Birthday!
Pete pops his head out to say hello. Waking up at 5:30 in a plastic bag is not the best way to start the day
Sune’s little home at 5:30am …
This is what awaited me when I returned to the base. Everything covered in cling film, even the bits in my draw. I KNOW WHO DID IT, YOU CANT HIDE FOREVER
It was actually great fun. The brave (stupid) people were: Ant, Dave, Pete, Sune, Richard, Mat and me – happy birthday Dubber!
Kirsty’s 22nd birthday party was the usual affair at Halley – top nosh followed with a fancy dress! The theme this week? Action Heroes.
Bonus Happy points if you can spot; Maximus (Gladiator), Lara Croft, James Bond, 2 Indiana Jones’, A power Ranger, Cl Jack O’Neil, Biggles, Han Solo, Rocky, The ugly one from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, The Masked Man/Wesley from Princess Bride, Captain Jack Sparrow
Being eternally lazy means I get to choose the hero with the least amount of wardrobe-work, which has to be James Bond. Don a tux and job’s a good un.
Jules felt Richard wasn’t active enough, so he was good enough to brake his leg which would need plastering. Assuming that he felt somewhat left out, I decided to get my leg plastered to make his hoppy-evening not so lonely (ahhhhh).
The birthday girl as Lara Croft
Dave as Han Solo. Loving the bouffant Dave!
Tom as Maximus with Jim providing extra bits of costume.
Tom doesnt agree with Jim that the extra bits of costume are entirely necessary
There are many party games to play when celebrating a special occasion, and most are playable when you’ve got one leg in plaster. Cereal killer is not one of these. The objective? Pick up the box with your mouth without touching the floor with your hands or knees (or face). Once everyone’s picked it up, a 2 inch section is torn off the top of the box, making it more difficult to reach and another round starts…
Not easy with one leg in plaster (or wearing a tux for that matter … not making excuses or owt)
Tamsin one second before a face plant. No carpets were harmed in the making of this update (but a few people got carpet burns)
Ant, more flexible than a curly-wurly
I’m not sure who won in the end – it got to the stage where the card was just lying flat on the ground, with Alex, Ant and Neil kissing it to pick it up (and thats when started I feeling ill)
The sun returned on Friday 10th of August, after a sabbatical of 105 days. We celebrated it in usual Halley style – raising a flag, playing volleyball, a BBQ at a sultry -45 degrees followed with a beach party. Jim, being the youngest person on base had the auspicious honour of raising the new flag, and after a brief speech (which amounted to something like ‘you lot are only still here because I haven’t killed you all … yet’) we all cheered and marvelled at the unusual amount of light outside … you’re not meant to be able to see things outside damn it!
Jim has a nap before his long speech.
Is it the right way up? Jim is actually still on the roof right now, he couldn’t tie the rope to the pole, so he’s holding the flag instead.
One of the more attractive ladies we have on base.
A quick bash of -40 volleyball. A football at those temperatures isn’t exactly supple, and hurts a lot when it hits your hands…
I’ll tell you now that nothing tempers the soul more convincingly than eating a burger in the extreme cold, especially when the burger you’re eating develops a thin layer of frost on the outside as you hold it closely to your mouth, trying to shove it in as quickly as possible before it gets completely frozen. It’s definitely something everyone should experience at least once in their life.
Rich dreams that he’s standing on a beach in the Caribbean surrounded by golden sands and blue waters, with Ant working the BBQ in a Speedo
We later held a beach party, and I was nominated as the barman for the evening for I had experience in such debauchery and crowd handling (or something).
And here it is, the moment the sun appeared. Ahh daylight, how I missed thee.
This week we had to move the containers from their wind scoop hollows. These containers keep our food, emergency clothing, building equipment (sparky supplies, mast sections, cables, pipes, sledges, skidoos etc) and a myriad of other things, have to be moved forward only by a few metres, but seeing as they’re so heavy it takes two dozers to drag them from their frozen positions to their new locations.
Where’s an actual photo of a typical container in its hollow and the wind-scooped snow behind.
One dozer pushes from behind while the other drags it forward using a winch, with three people outside hooking up, clearing away snow from the front of the containers and directing the dozers so they’re synchronised. We had Mat driving the front dozer, Andy driving the back dozer, Tom directing with Ant and I mostly digging and hooking up.
Here we have the two dozers and Tom. This was about 11am, still very dark.
Later on and the light slowly approaches. You can see how far forward we move each container, with this one being pushed back first as Andy pushed forward too much and buried the tow points ….
Andy’s dozer in the middle of a wind scoop.
Here’s a brief video of an actual move. It’s not terribly interesting sorry, and the quality is poor (my little compact doesnt work very well in the cold + dark). We did this for every container, about 20 in total.
We finished at around 13:30 and it was almost daylight. Everyone keeps getting surprised at how quickly the light is returning … which is odd since it’s still only not-dark for 3 hours a day!
Tom with a frosty face. This is what 4 hours outside looks like
Me, with a less frosty face. I’m just as hardcore tho. Ahem
Ohh look, no updates for ages. Methinks I should do something about that.
What’s been happening for the last few weeks? Well apart from the slow onset of daylight at midday, storms and blizzards emphasising Antarctica’s unforgiving weather, and of course I’ve been keeping busy by annoying my colleagues. I’ve also been using the camera a bit more …
Digging the melt tank with that glow in the background is REALLY distracting.
Tom, with his wings open, digs the snow from one bit of Antarctica to another.
GO TEAM DIG! Mat was also digging with us, but seeing as he turned up 10 minutes late everyday, we deemed him unworthy of sticking his ugly face in front of my camera.
I’ve been reading the Harry Potter books again, and after each book I have a screening of the same film in my office, and I get a few tagging along to watch.
Sune, Jim and Ant get ready for some Harry Potter. I enforce a strict no popcorn rule (as we dont have any on base), and farting is totally banned. Except for me.
Note all the toilet rolls… That’s someone’s idea of a practical joke. They also made my office really untidy and messy and stuff.
As I’m the super responsible mega important comms manager, it’s my job to print out the daily newspaper and supply witty, exciting and absolutely-have-to-be-relevant titles each day. Recently (last 6 months) some people have found it funny to hide the most important piece of comms equipment on base; my stapler.
Cheers Dave. You may find your entire pitroom encased in ice next week.
I help Tamsin with cooking (I just hung around and ate cheese).
The masts need checking and stays need loosening, so Tamsin helps out… by standing around taking photos – its revenge for the cooking help I provided.
Here I am desperately struggling to loosen a nut while holding two screwdrivers in either hand, half expecting the wire to snap shredding my hands to pieces, while Tamsin decides it’s a good photo op. Shame it turned out rubbish eh Tamsin?!
Ohh look at that. Dave’s on his arse again, what a surprise!
We’ve had 2 storms, or ‘blows’ as we like to call them, and Ant was good enough to film some of the action.
See those sparks? That’s static that is. The wind blows so much snow into the air, it generates a massive amount of static when you’re stupid enough to walk through it. Walking to another platform and then touching the metal steps goes a long way to remind you that STORMS IN ANTARCTICA SUCK.
Cheers to Ant for the video, and to Tamsin for the mast photos.
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