Sunday 5 July 2009

Midwinter At Rothera....

The Midwinter celebrations have been and gone. And we had a brilliant time.

It all started on the Friday evening with a pub crawl. All the departments transformed their workspace into a themed "pub". Some even prepared pub games and entertainments for us to enjoy.
The evening started in the comms tower, where Andy served cocktails, and ended in the garage (aka The Twigg And Giggleberries) where Stevie Ray Vaughan was playing "live" and loud on the huge screen.
Marty (our plumber), Shaun (our chippy) and me (our electrician) transformed my workshop into Sparky's Bar, playing loud rock music and serving ice-cold beer and nachos and salsa.











Click here to see video clips of the pub crawl and other events from Midwinter on Kirk's Video Blog site.

The following day was spent in quiet recuperation (hmmmmm....) so I took the opportunity to take a walk round the point, to try to clear my head.
It worked; the beautiful daybreak (we don't get sunrises any more) the cold, still, clean air and the stunning scenery all helped revitalise my fragile disposition.










You can see the sea behind me already freezing. The only sounds I could hear were my own breathing and the sea-ice creaking and groaning as it rubbed together.

Sunday was Midwinter's Day, and what a splendid day it was, too. For Antarctic winterers all over the continent, this is our equivalent of Christmas back home.
The day started early with me, Marty and Paul (our genny mech) watching the British Grand Prix on the big screen in the coffee lounge (not traditionally Antarctic, but we enjoyed it anyway).
That was followed by the Antarctic tradition of the Base Commander, Matt, cooking us our breakfast. Yummy...

Then, at around 11:30, we watched another glorious daybreak....










... followed by another Antarctic tradition - we all sat and watched John Carpenter's movie, The Thing.

I also went and phoned home to talk to my family, as it was Father's Day, too.

Then it was time to get ready for further festivities.

The exchange of handmade, personal presents has been eagerly awaited since the start of winter.
No-one knew who they were going to receive from, we only knew who we were giving to, by drawing the name out of a hat. I drew Mike, our electronics engineer, but I had no idea who was making for me.

My gift to Mike was a table lamp made from parts of a genuine nansen sledge that had been retired from service this year after almost 30 years working in the field, and a burner plate from an old primus stove that had also seen many seasons hard labour.






The gift I received was just stunning. It was made by my good friend Jonny Mech. How he managed to keep it a secret from me I'll never know.

He spent hours in the sewing loft making a one-tenth scale model of a pyramid tent using original materials. It is perfect in every detail, right down to the different sized tent pegs for the guy-ropes and the valance.
Jonny even managed to acquire a registration number and entered it on the tent database.
I can't thank you enough, Jonny. I shall treasure it, always.


There were some truly amazing gifts given out that day; each one a joy to behold and to treasure.

Next up - The Midwinter Meal, prepared by Riet, our Belgian chef....










...and it was a feast fit for kings.
Check this out:

- Salmon Gravad lax with panfried scallops in lemon oil
- Pate Maison with smoked bacon and granary toast
- Ravioli of monkfish in green curry sauce
- Raspberry Sorbet
- Lamb Cutlets with minty gravy, pommes duchesses and green beans wrapped in bacon
- Creme caramel
- Coffee and cocoa cream
- Cheese and biscuits
- Port

The meal was accompanied by some rather fine wine (Chateau-Neuf du Pape, no less), a gift from our base commanders, and was very much enjoyed and appreciated.

Riet -I don't know how you did it, but it was a pleasure to eat such fine food, and in such fine company.

Halfway through the feast we took a short interlude;
a) to aid our digestion, and
b) to go to the comms tower to listen to the BBC World Service Antarctic Broadcast.
This half-hour programme is broadcast to the staff at the four British wintering bases in Antarctica. We get messages from celebrities, wishing us well in our coldest and darkest hours. This year we were greeted by Sir Rannulph Fiennes and Stephen Fry. We also get messages from our loved ones as they send Midwinter greetings to us. It was so good to hear their voices on that short-wave radio.
There were a few lumps in a few throats, I can tell ya....

Then it was back down to continue the feasting.

Not surprisingly, not too many of us retired to the lounge afterwards for beers; we were all so full. Most opted to sit around on the sofas for a while and then slip quietly off to bed, reflecting on what had been, for all of us, a rather splendid and memorable day.

Monday was generally quiet; only to be expected, I suppose. But we did have a very enjoyable pub quiz, organised by Ian, one of our FGA's.

Tuesday was the Winter Olympics, organised by all the FGA's. What a laugh we had.
It was very much a light-hearted day filled with such events as downhill skiing (obviously) and ice-cliff climbing, bog-chisel javelin throwing, ski-doo time trials, crazy relay races, target shooting and building towers out of manfood boxes.






















Big thanks to the GA's (Adam, Kirk, James, Ian and Dave) for the effort, and for taking care of us by insisting that we all followed safety procedures and making sure that we had all our safety equipment properly fitted at all times.

On Wednesday we had the Miss Rothera 2009 Contest. It was not my finest hour!!!!



The guys had to dress in drag and be judged, somewhat critically, I might add, by the three real girls on base.
Jonny Mech was our Chippendale compere for the evening.






Adam was the eventual winner and he deserved it, after all, he went to the trouble of shaving his armpits and doing his make-up, whereas I might've stood a better chance if I'd bothered to shave off my beard!!!












Unfortunately, I couldn't join the after-show party because I was on nightwatch and had to make my rounds. Everyone else had a good time though.

Thursday was much quieter. Mike had found all the old 16mm cine films and he worked out how to use the projector, so we had an evening of old newsreels, cartoons and documentaries from the '50's and '60's. Good fun.

Friday was the crazy golf tournament, following the same format as the pub crawl.
Everyone worked hard to create a challenging (but in some cases, impossible) hole in their workplace. There appeared to be a lot of cheating going on, particularly from management, tsk, tsk!!! The scoring became somewhat dubious and no-one knows who actually won, or indeed, if anyone did win, but again, it was a great laugh.

Saturday night was the first winter gig for Windscoop - the winter house band.














It was the first time we'd played in the New Bransfield House lounge, and what a brilliant atmosphere there was there.
We played two high-octane electric sets featuring classics such as Ziggy Stardust by David Bowie, The Jam's That's Entertainment and an incredible, full-choral version of Queen's Fat Bottomed Girls.








We played a smooth acoustic set in the middle of the two electric sets.











I, of course was my usual shy and retiring self....!!!!




(The band photos credits; Mel Langridge)

What is amazing is that most of the band had never performed in front of an audience until after they arrived here at Rothera.

We finished off Midwinter's Week with a 14 hour movie fest.
We all voted for our all-time top five movies from the massive Rothera movie collection.
Only two people managed all five movies: Mike and Paul - well done.
The movies, as voted by us, were:

5) 2001 - A Space Odyssey
4) Local Hero
3) The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
2) Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid
1) The Shawshank Redemption

A fine finish to a wonderful and unique week; one that I will certainly never forget.

Finally, I would like to say a big thank you to all who took the trouble to send me Midwinter greetings and good wishes. Contact with my friends back home is still so very important to me. It's good to know that, although I'm many miles away, I'm still in your thoughts.