#aqlima

[fullruinsprince]

Aqleema

अक़्लीमा जो हाबील की क़ाबील की माँ-जाई है माँ-जाई मगर मुख़्तलिफ़ मुख़्तलिफ़ बीच में रानों के और पिस्तानों के उभारों में और अपने पेट के अंदर अपनी कोख में इन सब की क़िस्मत क्यूँ है इक फ़र्बा भेड़ के बच्चे की क़ुर्बानी वो अपने बदन की क़ैदी तपती हुई धूप में जलते टीले पर खड़ी हुई है पत्थर पर नक़्श बनी है उस नक़्श को ग़ौर से देखो लम्बी रानों से ऊपर उभरे पिस्तानों से ऊपर पेचीदा कोख से ऊपर अक़्लीमा का सर भी है अल्लाह कभी अक़्लीमा से भी कलाम करे और कुछ पूछे - फ़हमीदा रियाज़

Aqleema The sister of Cain and Abel But she is different Different between her thighs And in the bulge of her breasts Different in her gut And Inside her womb Why is the fate of all of these The sacrifice of a fatted lamb? Imprisoned by her own body Burning in the scalding sun She stands on a hilltop Like a mark etched on stone Look at this mark carefully Above the long thighs Above the high breasts Above the tangled womb Akleema has a head too Let God speak to Aqleema sometime And ask her something - Fahmida Riaz

“Adopting Aqleema as a figure for the invisible woman of history, Riaz makes a direct appeal to God and suggests that poetry can rewrite the past, make amends for it, and use it to illuminate the present”

Modern Poetry of Pakistan By Swetha Regunathan

[hellogreenergrass]

Signy Island - Week Seven

22nd Jan – Sunday

Lie ins are lush. I feel renewed. This last week Ive been firing on ½ my cylinders I think. Not sure why, but after a month of full speed, I think I needed to take my foot off the peddle. I’ve been effectively part time this week, with days out to help Stacey not counting as work. But today I will end an easy week with a flourish. I will have A WHOLE DAY OFF. No lab, no thinking of work, no field treks. Just cooking, some rowing, writing and photography. Stacey took my early this morning as she had to get up early anyway to sort out some krill samples (she does this so the rest of us dont have to endure the stench that seeps out from her lab!). I owe her bigly. Oh yes, and Donald Trump was sworn in on Friday. I feel like we are entering a dystopian novel. He was greeted by ½ million people marching in protest through Washington DC. It will be an interesting presidency. A few weeks ago, we all made wishes as we threw wood into a fire and collectively decided that we wished a rapid and ultimately dooming impeachment upon him…

I’ve been drawing most days, but on the whiteboard in the living room as well as my sketch book.  It started as a small pic of something for whoever was on earlies that day. Then Stacey asked for a woodland as she missed trees, and I drew a landscape of a birch stand next to a river that wound down from some hills in the distance. On the other side of the river stands an old oak tree with branches that reach out over a waterfall. Since then, each day I add something else at the request of whoever is on earlies. We now have bluebells and harebells, sheep, a wolf, a peacock, a monkey, highland cows, a llama, a rabbit, and a bear. Iain & Stacey drew me a small hedgehog and some butterflies last night. Looking at it one night, Matt said he’d like me to do something for the new base they are building in the next few years. He will give some thought to what. Nice to think my work would be here even if I am not!

Meowntains  - new word combining two of my loves, cats and mountains. If there is a heaven …

24th Jan

This month is flying by! Cant believe its almost February. And Im almost 34. Jeez. Have been a bit slack at writing in this lately. I put my diary in a drawer in my room and whenever I have the presence of mind to remember it, I either couldn’t be bothered or get distracted en route. So now Im making an effort over brekkie.

The last few days have largely been lab/office based. I spent Monday trying to update my field plan for the coming month and reworking some experiments. The grid plan has had a reboot, less elegant now, but also less work. I hope.  I’ve been reading the work of a chap called Smith (we don’t do first names in scientific literature!) who has been working on Marion Island in the sub-Antarctic Indian Ocean area. His work spans 30 years from a word mapped food web to today, actual raw data on the energy and nutrient flow on the island. I’d love to do something like that here on Signy. He compiled data on all the input from major wildlife contributors and how the plants use it or lose it. Where it runs off the Island or gets blown back in, and the likely fate of it in the oceans. Science like that makes me heart all a flutter!

Aqlima and I went out to look for adult midge on Monday, to no avail. Although she really enjoys looking for them as she works with essentially invisible bacteria, so bugs are massive and remarkably charismatic for her! I think the adults are finished now. Where they go to die I couldn’t tell you as I’ve stopped seeing them in my soil samples too. Add that to the bank of mysteries and unanswerable questions I am accruing this season. I’ve also started going out to collect a species of mite for Scott (my boss back in Brum). He wants to do some population genetics on them. But whilst Ive started collections, Im not sure we can amend my permit again to take them off the island. Can but ask though.

Iain and I spent a few hours out yesterday getting in the last of the soil cores. Sun shone, the wind blew and the innuendo flowed! Down at the site in the unfortunately named Gash Cove, we went down onto the rocks and stood in the sun watching the huge swell roll up a slope of glistening rock the colour of titanium and almost iridescent.  It was a slab of mica-schist, mica being the mineral that gives the glitter to eye shadow. It had been buffered smooth by the waves who slid up the slope many meters and then recoiled back to the ocean excessively exposing an area of rocks and shore rarely seen, like the draw back of a tidal wave, or the curled snarl of lip. It was hypnotic. No furries around here, which is odd. In fact numbers have dropped off again, which Im told is unusual.

Im off to Gourlay today. Day out on my todd. The sun is shining, but its still blowing a hooley. I’ll collect that mite (Alaskozetes antarcticus) and spot sample the route for my midge along the way. Have lunch at the huts out there and see the penguins, then pop down to Cemetery Flats on my way home for more samples. Just me myself and I. Should be a nice day out J

26th Jan

I twisted my ankle!! Not even a little bit, but a proper sprain with swellings and everything! I’d been to Gourlay, hiked back and collected all the samples. Then as I stood at the top of the Stonechute, the final rock and scree descent to base, I recalled Stacey’s recent tale of her twisting her ankle just meters from base whilst carrying a heavy load. It was just a 2cm drop off a rock, but put her off her feet for weeks. I pondered this as I heaved my loaded rucksack on, weighed down by kilos of soil samples, decided not to withdraw my second walking pole and dove down the chute. Despite being just a few hundred meters from home and the first and last part of everyone’s day out, it is one of the riskiest bits. Not least because as well as being steep and loose, it is often full of fur seals. And it was furries that I was checking for as I misplaced my footing and went over on the side of my foot.

I knew immediately that it was not good as I sat trying to catch my breath that had just been dragged from me by the rushing and unweilding pain. Not again I thought. Just last July, I’d gone over on my left leg and torn any remaining shreds of ligament and cartilagein my knee whilst up in the mountains of Norway and out on my own. At least this time I had VHF radio and base in sight. I realised I was going to need help. No way was I carrying that bag across the boulders of the high-tide route. I called in and Alex and Stacey came out to help me back down. I slowly and carefully negotiated my way back, and an hour of ice and elevation followed by a shower seem to have eased it a bit. As have the painkillers. And the 2 glasses of gin I just had. So now I feel just fine!

27th Jan

Woke to stiffness and a substantial amount of pain this morning, but thankfully this eased as the day went on. Although the swelling has peaked and there is some bruising coming through now. I’ll be a few shades of purple soon. At least I actually did something, hate to think Im being melodramatic! I have to try and go out to do some field work tomorrow though, not sure how likely that is, I can’t walk properly. I’ve prepped the ion-exchange membranes already and they have a limited amount of time to be used you see. I did the last of the work whilst watching Seven Years in Tibet tonight in anticipation of being able to at least stagger along in the field with some back-up tomorrow. Great movie, and by God that man. I swear Brad Pitt must have hovered up all the good-looking genes in his family for the best part of a century. The mind boggles. Speaking of good looking men, I spoke to K today. He’s been offered a new job! Interview was at 11am, with two others to follow him and by 2pm they’d made up their mind and called to offer him the position.  I’m not surprised, he has that effect on people ;-)

Wind is still blowing hard and finding its way into the cracks and gaps in the seams of the cabin. Makes the whole place scream and whistle all the time. Some flights from Punto Arenas in Chile to Rothera on the Peninsular have been delayed. I wonder if they have the same weather system. Few thousand km away though. Its been quite unstable the last few weeks, but we are about to enter the warmest month of the year soon, so at least it may stop snowing even the wind keeps up its run of 20+ knots!

[hellogreenergrass]

Signy Island - Week Ten

13th Feb

As a job, field work is unusual for many reasons, but  especially because you need to be OK with both your own company and that of others for long periods. You also need to be tolerant of a disconcerting amount of self-reflection and personal psychotherapy, self-administered without much warning, due to the amount of time you have to spend working on your own/wandering about hills. I’m quite comfortable with both my own and other peoples company, in about equal measures I’d say. That being 50% of the time I am happier on my own and 50% of the time would rather be with others. Sometimes my mood and circumstance correlate, other times less so….

Being on a small island with six people who you live and work with all day, every day (despite them being very lovely and all, I cannot stress this enough!) and cannot escape from without having to inform them of the fact via route cards, VHF radios, appropriate clothing, a designated time slot, a will, a note from your mum, and a renewed membership to your local swimming baths…is beginning to grate a little. As a consequence I’ve been a bit uncoordinated with my desire for company and moods lately. This has led to long, unwanted bouts of self-reflection on my behaviour. The horrifying conclusion being that I fear those ex-boyfriends may have been occasionally right about me!

Despite being a usually patient, kind, cheery, sing-songy type person who makes a lot of unnecessary noise in pursuit of saying and doing unnecessary silly things to make people equally as cheery – I can also be sullenly quiet and bitterly stroppy on occasion. This can be triggered by the following: headaches scaled from niggling dull throb to migranes (which I get often); people in the kitchen when Im cooking; people eating noisily, or worse noisily with their mouths open like masticating cows; too much work; too little work; the wrong tea; the right tea, but not made for me; hormones; a changing tide; the transit of Venus; a butterfly flapping its wings in China….and so forth.  I think of these phases post-hoc as my “little funks” As if they were harmless little splodges on rug that were easily cleaned up and forgotten about. Rather than them actually being a large gift from the cat quietly hidden behind the sofa, but you know it is in the room as the air is so deeply scented that it alters the very atmosphere and chokes you…

14th Feb

You know that scene in Labyrinth where David Bowie holds court with the Goblins just before he sings “Dance Magic Dance”? Well, that noise that the Goblins make, that’s the sound of the apparently hysterical petrels that I can hear outside my bedroom right now. Very peculiar.

They aren’t the only hysterical birds: Yesterday I was dive bombed three times by a screaming banshee. The Skua is back, and heavily on my case. On the third and final swooping it waited until it was level with and 50cm from my ear, before squawking loudly, causing me to leap into the air in alarm squawking my own series of expletives in return call. It then sat quietly nearby and watched me work through slitted eyes. When I moved it looked away from me and became preoccupied with its feathers, or a bit of lichen on the rock, as if they were the whole reason it was there afterall. It got bored with me shortly after and left me be. Which was actually a bit disappointing.

Lab work today kept me out of the skua’s way  – desorption of the ions from my fancy soil membranes that came in yesterday. Had to work a second late night in a row to get it done.

15th Feb

Going back to bullet points. Handwriting is overrated, archaic and beside my pen is running out.

Wrote 3000 words this morning for two new BAS articles: Signy Island Part 1 & 2.

Committee meeting stuff- arranged phone call with the British Ecological Society for next week and caught up with Athena Swan stuff

Put out 40m x 40m grid with Aqlima, up on the backslope. Sun shone. Skuas harassed me, and only me…

Snap froze 20 Alaskozetes from Cummings

BBC looking for “women experts”, but they want a 2 min long video uploaded to YouTube. Not gonna happen with our bandwidth. I sent them an email explaining and attached a picture of a cute penguin as bait.

Beat, nay smashed my rowing PB! 956 strokes in 25m. Also on 220 step runs, which with the dodgy knee and wrecked ankle combo was good going. I want to buy a rowing machine.

16th Feb

I really need a new pen. But this one matches my diary so this is an upsetting turn of events.

Good day today (co-ordinating pen woes aside), although I didn’t go anywhere. On earlies today, but woke at 6am feeling nauseous. It persisted until 6.30, so I went back to bed and woke at 9.30 feeling fine! I get this sometimes if I am overtired/underslept. Wonder what causes it? And no, buns in the oven are definitely not responsible. I’ve been on an Island in the Southern Ocean for months. Months. ITS BEEN MONTHS! :-( 

Ticked off my to-do list today. Feeling nicely on schedule. Went out to Gourlay to put out some membranes, have lunch and potter about. Beautiful weddell seal asleep there on the rocks. It was so deeply asleep I got within a meter of it. Such a lovely creature.

Rowed again, well 20 mins of running and 10 rowing. I can keep at 40 strokes p/m at weight 6 now, but am a bit tired after yesterdays effort. A good hard 20 minutes felt good though (mmmmm matron!). Made sitting at a microscope all day today feel less back breaking.

Still no news on the Shackleton. Last we heard it was due to us tomorrow, but its still en route to the Ronne Ice Shelf, so that’s not going to happen! I guess its stuck in the ice down there and won’t be here until next week at least. It will drop off a guy who will be with us until we close the base down, and take some cargo off our hands aswell. With any luck they will have some fresh fruit and veg they can share. Hopefully the Halley guys I sailed down with will be on board. Would be so great to see them!

Goblins are rioting outside again.

18th Feb

Just one month to go! Feels strange. Mixed emotions about this…

Spoke to mum tonight. Lovely to hear her: “Ello me daRRlin’!”. She is well and on top form. K went to visit her today and helped out in the garden in exchange for mum hugs and some top soil. Fair deal I reckon.

Working hours have been pretty gentle the last few days and I feel like Im slacking as a result! But 10-14 hour days are not something to be kept up. Discovered Billy Connelly and climbing videos (Hard Grit!) on the media drive, so they’ve all helped with the mundane task I’ve had today, tying little bits of string to small rectangles of ion-exchange membranes. And to think I do the more glamourous type of science apparently…

Stacey cooked up a storm for Saturday dinner: Carrot soup, gammon with all the trimmings, apple and cinnamon cake with custard. Girl did good. Then we all played the card game Presidents and Assholes. Which was excellent! Especially as I got myself to President twice. Aqlima got there three times and promptly became quite the dictator on each occasion!  

[hellogreenergrass]

WEEK EIGHT PHOTOS - Featuring: Birthday colour and cake; Birthday games; Me at work in the sun (no coat!); Aqlima’s suspicion.

[hellogreenergrass]

Signy Island - Week Eight

29th January

Im out on the veranda enjoying some brief sunshine. Seeing those lenticulated clouds again. Another storm coming? I got out the lab today, just a few Km of hiking around to put out ion- exchange membranes for some soil chemistry. They were all disparately spaced at the edges of my main field site, which with my ankle in this state wasn’t helpful. But it did OK. I went slow, Iain helped.

Im watching seals. Some furries are twirling about in the water like they do. They slowly turn and spin in the sea in a gently exhalant way. I wonder if it is cleaning? There is a very young elephant seal eyeing up a much much larger one from behind a rock. It’s very cute. Big black orb eyes peering out from above the water line. The bigger one is a beautiful colour, a fawny-silver into deep grey with a velveteen texture. I’d like to hug it if it weren’t liable to crush me…

31st January

Another lab day. I swear I feel physically worse after a day at a computer or microscope than I ever have after a day in the hills. Worse still, I had the realisation yesterday that better science will come from creating even more work for myself in the lab, dissecting up midge egg sacs. They are as tiny as you think, and the task is laborious and mind numbing, but will provide good data. On the plus side, it dosent require I think too much so I can just plough through audio books: I’ve listened to Bill Bryson reading “Short History of Everything” today. All of it. I’ve had him with me for a few days now and find his voice just lovely. First I went to the US to be amongst some very missed trees for “A Walk in the Woods”, and then to Oz for some heat in “From a Sunburned Country”. Its nice to be whisked away somewhere whilst staring down a microscope for hours, nay days on end. Even when you are in Antarctica! But then, I do have the perennial affliction of always looking for greener grass…

Kristian and I had a disagreement about his new placement of the sofa back home. A trifling matter really that makes perfect sense, but I took against the idea of coming home to a house changed. And besides, there are asthetic considerations! He mentioned something about banishing throw cushions as well. I thought I could trust him in my absence not to abandon the soft furnishings to logic…

1st February

An Antarctic birthday! Quite something. And the sun is shining too, properly too. No-coat weather! I woke up to a gift from Kristian that had been stowed away by Iain, and my own personal gift to myself that had been stowed away at the back of my mouth, waiting for that special moment to come and show itself. My final remaining wisdom tooth has broken ground, and bestowed me with toothache on my 34th birthday. Evidence of one year older, another wiser perhaps. My present from K was about as good a present as I could want. A party pack: Balloons, bunting, a make your own birthday badge, a very sweet letter and also another hidden video message on my laptop. It’s perfect! We hung the decorations and embellished the balloons with pictures and messages. It was lovely. So much colour everywhere! Iain and Stacey had written a big happy birthday sign for me and made me a card, and then later after a special birthday dinner of spinach and ricotta cannelloni (to please the vegetarian in me that’s currently having to be on sabbatical), I got birthday cake too! With a massive emergency use candle in it to blow out! I have been spoilt. Im so pleased I can barely form sentences.

We spent the evening together playing several increasingly hysterical rounds of The Resistance and I cracked open the last of my St Austell brews, Korev. Went down a treat and helped ease the toothache, which meant I could eat more cake :-D

2nd Feb

Hid inside all day today. Post-cake lull. The wind arrived last night. All of it. And has shown no signs of relenting, in fact has invited its friends rain and sleet along for the day too. I think they must have been mad that they missed the party yesterday and have banished Sun for bothering to show up and make me happy.

Managed to get through 2 plots worth of soil samples over 5 hours of work this afternoon, which is ridiculous. I have dozens and dozens of plots. Im very glad I have a permit to take the soil off the island so I can finish this back in the UK. David Attenborough, “Life on Air” as company today.

On lates tonight so I took advantage of people in bed by reading news online. This is what the world appears to be talking about: MP’s voted in favour of Brexit, unsurprisingly seeing as that’s how the country also voted; Trump is still a colossal nightmare – but he is doing what he said he would do, which was be a colossal nightmare; Beyonce is having twins and announced it in her typical understated way: with her as a semi naked art installation.

New word: “Perminion” – a permanent helper, such as I need.

4th Feb

Search and rescue training today. Matt was the casualty up on Observation Bluff, with a ‘head injury and possible broken leg’. Megumu and Alex co-ordinated everything from base whilst Iain and Stacey went out in the first search for him, Aqlima and I following later with stretchers and splints. Was a good run up the hill! Vacuum mattress was a bitch to get underneath our casualty, and I fear we worsened any potential neck injury as we rolled him back and forth across rocks. I was at his head the whole time checking vitals and keeping spirits up and that, and trying to remember what it was that I learnt on that first aid course beyond how to inject oranges and that entonox is good fun. We carried him just a few meters before deciding that he was too heavy and needed to make a miraculous recovery so he could walk back down himself. Well, it was only training afterall!

I was on cook the rest of the day, did a Chinese take-out kind of meal. Rowed later on, struggling to hit my PB of 910 strokes, but not failing. If I want to reach that goal of 1000 in the next 6 weeks I need to significantly up my game!

[hellogreenergrass]

Signy - Week 4

WEEK 4

5th Jan – Iain and I hiked up to the peak of Rusty Bluff last night. A good few hundred meters of ascent from sea level , but not too far so we did it in under an hour to the summit.  Views from the top were awesome and I could see the entirety of the massive slab berg that I woke up next to that morning we arrived here on the Shackleton. It’s now opposite Sunshine Glacier off Coronation Is.  The terns were upset with us being at the summit, but thankfully didn’t quite stretch to dive bombing us! They are wonderful to watch, their feathers so light as to be almost transparent and combined with the forked shape, their tails look like a fishes. They are so improbably white and delicate it makes your heart ache a little bit. Beautiful birds. Speaking of pure white, we had a big dump of snow overnight, and I woke up to 10cm covering all my plots. Zero data day. But now the sun is shining so Im sitting outside writing this, with a cuppa, a fig roll and a newly arrived fur seal for company. They should start to arrive slowly over the next few weeks, building up to several hundred around base by the end of the month. They are much more dog like than the ellys, able to walk around on flippers like they are legs, and communicating through a complex series of barks and whimpers. They also have a famed dog like bite..

6th Jan – Beginning to miss people back home a bit now. I emailed my Birmingham posse today with updates, hopefully they will return the favour and give me some news from home other than the snippets we get in the daily e-‘newspaper’.  

The petrels that live in the cliff that rises above base are cooing and croaking outside my bedroom window. They nest so close and the noise is so peculiar that it feels like its resonating within me. Weird.

8th Jan – We had another storm come in. Not as dramatic as before, but we still lost comms so I couldn’t call Emma yesterday on her birthday. Twenty-seven now. Bonkers. I made a speech bubble sign for Iain and Stacey to take out to Gourlay so that a penguin could tell her happy birthday for me instead!

Had a good rowing session this morning. 866 strokes in 25 minutes at weight 7. Will aim for 890 next time. 1000 by the end of the season. I have to do something whilst in the lab so much, people keep making cake!

Played ‘The Resistance’ last night. Aqlima is very suspicious! Iain is a worryingly good spy. Made me miss my neighbours.

10th Jan – Had a bumpy day today. Missing home and Kristian a lot, so I emailed him to vent and he replied with a link to a hidden folder on my laptop. It was a pre-recorded “in case of emergency” video of him telling me that everything was going to be OK, despite it being hard being apart, that he was proud of me and loved me very much, and to enjoy my time here because it will be over before I knew it. Blew me away that he would anticipate me like that. Im a very lucky lady. Day. Made. Choice in man verifiably excellent.

Field work is not always easy or fun and I would be dishonest if I just showed you nothing but beautiful landscapes and told tales of extraordinary wildlife. As incredible as this is, it can also be tough. Mentally and physically, sometimes both at the same time. And as a career choice you are continually faced with difficult decisions, especially as a woman who wants a family. Its a hard compromise when following your dreams means being away from the people you’d most like to share them with: You have to love what you do as much as you love them, else what’s the point in either endeavour? And I don’t doubt how hard it is to be the one left behind, having to patch over a an empty space in the home and daily life, and then always having the mistress of “the field” pulling at the heart strings of your partner when they are back. This is the 7th time Ive gone away for 3 months or more and left someone I cared about at home. But this time was the hardest. Kristian is the best of the bunch and someone I met on field work, so he understands the addiction. Not many frequent field workers have successfull relationships with non-field types. I can testify to that.

Given the complexity of emotions that comes with a job like this, I often wonder what drives others, and myself I suppose, to live a life punctuated by field seasons away. We compromise a lot for this work: I’ve put off crucial knee reconstruction operations for years because of how it would interfere with field work; delayed starting a family and putting down roots; had relationships fail because of the time apart. I met a guy on the ship down here who had just left his 4 week old daughter, he was heartbroken, but still heading South. Mind-boggling behaviour for any rational person! So why do we do it? I’ve started asking around, from Antarctic base commanders to Royal Marines perenially on tour, and will start to publish some interviews over the coming months. A way of explaining myself I guess! In part because I thought that Antarctica would be the pinnacle for me, but I’m starting to realise it may only be the beginning...

[hellogreenergrass]

Signy - Week Two & Three: Xmas & New Year.

21st Dec – Winter Solstice, Mum’s birthday. I’m sat outside in the sun on my lunch break. There is an elephant seal on the beach roaring into the fence at my feet. He seems impressed with himself, although I hate to tell him it’s mostly reverb.  A large cloud looking like a low front is rolling, quite literally, down from the ice cap and mountains of Coronation Island. It’s like watching a tidal wave a thousand feet high…I can feel drops now. The ice from the storms has dispersed, only the biggest bergs remaining now, melting into obscure shapes that would not have gone amiss in a Dali painting.

I’ve made friends with a Skua! Well, she would like to presume that I have food for her whenever I step outside to collect samples with my tub, and I would like to presume I’ve bonded with an animal. She’s bold as brass and will investigate whatever I have to offer. Whether I actually offer it to her or not, as was the case when she dismantled my pupae development experiment that I’d just set up. She tried out the sea water sample as I poured it back into the ocean, and then upset that it was just sea water (as I told her it was), she pecked at my shoe laces. I’m tempted to say that I’m enchanted, but she was a dick by making me re-do that experiment.

Got on the rowing machine last night. Neck/trapped nerve held up and knee kept it together (God Im falling apart), so this could be good for days when Im stuck in the lab to keep me mobile!

22nd Dec – Bloody ellys were loud last night. They sound like a cross between a drowning lion and a waste disposal machine when they roar. But they also bark like dogs and snort like horses. The fence shouter is back, doing his best lion impression whilst wallowing in mud. It’s like living in a zoo.

Spoke to mum last night to wish her a happy birthday, she was really excited to be getting a phone call from Antarctica! Glad she had a good day J

The skua came and investigated my work today and got particularly excited by the snowball I made for her. Was less impressed when I fed it to her and she realised it was just snow afterall. My shoelaces got another battering for that, before she took vengeance on the new experiment. I had to chase her off, much to the amusement of Stacey who could see everything from her office window.

23rd Dec - I put the dictaphone out today to record the seals and waves, only to find the bloody skua peering down at it when I went out at lunchtime. Safe to say the proceeding altercation was recorded. I fear for our friendship.

26th Dec – MERRY CHRISTMAS!! Busy few days, although yesterday was mostly taken up by eating and sledging. I spent the days leading up to Xmas flat out in the lab trying and failing to find enough pupae to experiment on. I did however find a site with eggs like caviar. So I’ll focus on them instead for the foreseeable. Christmas was excellent. Alex, Stacey, Iain and I hiked up to the skidoo depot at the base of the ice cap and went sledging on the expedition pulks. Epic day out. Alex towed us up to the top of the glacier on the skidoo and we hurtled back down. I don’t think I will experience a longer toboggan run! Such good fun. I nearly shot off the end of the glacier onto a beach, but thankfully Iain and Stacey caught me in time. Got the whole thing on the Go-Pro, which makes for hilarious viewing. Not least because Im so giddy and laughing the whole time! We got back to Matt’s Xmas Dinner and an evening with Star Wars. Good day.

1st January 2017 – HAPPY NEW YEAR! We were joined last night by 6 Royal Marines from the HMS Protector that had brought Aqlima and Megumu, our new scientists, to Signy. They arrived late on the 30th and spent most of NYE helping Alex move a tonne of redundant building and fencing materials off from the other side of the island (the Marines, not the scientists!).  We had a big group effort to clear the elephant seals from the jetty so that the tender could bring people a shore. Involved a skidoo and a big stick with a very large bag on the end, an ingenious invention of Matts. Did the job proper! In the evening we Signy clanners and the Marines all drank beer and gin together in the cabin, debated the pros and cons of Devon vs Cornish cream tea, and saw midnight in from the veranda with cheers and a round of hugs and kisses for all. Worse ways to see in a New Year!

2nd Jan – I cannot wait to be done with this lab intensive period! I keep looking wistfully at the peaks that I see from my lab window, hoping to stand atop them any day/week/month now!  I’ll go for a wander after this next time-point, over to Cemetery Flats named for the graves of whalers that are buried here and which is now home to the main elephant seal colony. In fact, a seal had rather appropriately died on top of one the graves. The only body on shore I think as they usually go out to sea. Makes for a morbid sight.