Claire of the Antarctic

The chefs did a fabulous job with the meal of haggis, neeps and tatties, complete with a dram of whisky and cranachan for pudding. The petit fours were truly Scottish… deep fried mars bar and blue St. Andrew’s flag shortbread!

I had flown out from Rothera on 2nd January thus technically still in the twelve days of Christmas, consequently Bluebell Cottage was awash with decorations from yesteryear. I am particularly fond of these paper decorations, and will be on a mission to find some for 2011!

I spent a fortnight at Bluebell Cottage last year with Alan Hill, Dave Wattam and Glyn Henry. This year Karen, the communications officer who has just finished a winter at Halley, and I persuaded the Field Operations Manager that a female only crew in charge of Fossil Bluff would be fabulous, and indeed it was.

It is amazing how much the snow has melted this summer, particularly considering the bumper snowfall we received over winter. As a result the route from Fossil Bluff Ski Runway to Bluebell Cottage has become a mini-trek, complete with melt pools to avoid, glacial streams to be crossed and fossil-rich terrain t in order too be traversed in order reach our destination, Bluebell Cottage. Karen had been experimenting with baking bread and I was the happy soul who arrived to a freshly baked loaf! Yummy!

Again the buzzing life of an Antarctic Research Station in the middle of summer has put paid to prompt blog entries, so please forgive me a slighty time delay in my tales of derring do… actually thus far in January it has been more a life of being a domestic goddess! Although in order to exhibit such tendencies I did have to co-pilot a flight in a Twin Otter down to Fossil Bluff, through ridiculously thick cloud, thus the only glimpses of land seen from the cockpit was this shot of Rothera base, looking across to Reptile Ridge, and later on some aerial geology lessons as we descended through the dreak clouds to land on the snow runway at 71 South.

Just a quick photograph of Mike the mechanic and me from our New Years Eve festivities, a night of live music and DJing from Nathan, Wedders and Ian, culminating in the traditional rendition of Auld Lang Syne out on the veranddah of Old Bransfield House. A good evening was enjoyed by all, and the most exciting thing is that I shall be home this year!

For now however I am literally about to jump in a plane and fly off to Fossil Bluff, where Karen and I will be custodians of Bluebell Cottage for a while, so apologies in advance for the radio silence.