Claire of the Antarctic

Vals is fortunately equipped with the Caboose, a small hut on skis, which serves very well as an alpine catering facility. On this particular occasion we were treated to a spectacular spread including Christmas Cake and a recently beheaded Lindt Reindeer!

Typically on Boxing Day at home we have a picnic on Studland Beach followed by a wander to Old Harrys Rocks with a stop in the Bankes Arms for refreshments.

This year I enjoyed an afternoon at Vals, our local ski resort, complete with a merry throng of folk all keen to enjoy the fresh powder.

For those of you who are rather curious as to how light it is here in Midsummer I thought you might enjoy this view, just after midnight of Christmas Day.

This was taken from my bedroom window, looking South towards Jenny Island in the far distance.

Christmas Day has been super; Awaking in a hut on a glacier in Antarctica will probably remain forever one of my most unusual Christmas Day Morns!

Therein followed the Radio 5 Live appearance; apologies to those of you who listened for the entire programme to catch me in the closing few minutes! Apologies indeed!

We are remarkably lucky with communications here and so telephone calls home have been super!

And Christmas would not be complete without scrabble, and we even had Bombay Sapphire, Helen’s Christmas present, to toast with! Hurrah!

I hope you all are enjoying your respective Christmases also.

PS The tartan shirt featured here is actually a vintage FID shirt!

The evenings festivities took the form of a mulled wine & mince pie party, swiftly followed by the politically incorrect Nativity ever created. Dr Matt Edwards was our playwright and his script was quite hilarious.

Rowan and I played part of the heavenly host. Antarctic angels like to be prepared for all eventualities and so it was with BAS issue footwear that we set forth to our dramatic debut.

Another 200 mince pies were created and also an array of marzipan fruits and fruit de mer!

Christmas Eve itself was great fun; the day was largely spent in the kitchen with a small army (Matt Burke, Glaciologist and Rowan Whittle, Palaentologist) decorating the Christmas cakes.

This is how I chose to spend my first Antarctic Christmas Morn, awaking in a hut upon the glacier about 4Km from base with Clive, Ashley and Adam. Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve has arrived and with it a fresh and much needed dusting of snow which has pleased me greatly as I was beginning to fear that my first Antarctic Christmas may be not so white after all!

Today shall be more festive preparation, mince pie making continues in order to keep up with demand, hopefully I shall be able to listen to Carols from Kings whilst I do so! And tomorrow possibly the Queen’s Speech complete with toast of sherry!

And for those of you who may wish to hear a brief insight into an Antarctic Christmas you may wish to tune into Radio 5 between Midday and 1pm… I shall probably only be on for a minute if that so you may need to listen closely, for I shall say it only once!

www.bbc.co.uk/5live/

So without further ado and no more poor Allo Allo inspired jokes I shall leave you to your festive preparations, may be all your Christmases be white.

And so in answer to my dear friends who have enquired about the availability of my favourite Advent foodstuffs I can now say that we have enjoyed our first mulled wine & mince pies of the season! Hurrah!