Catch up

Ok, its been a while so sorry if I am rambling on a bit!

Last Saturday was St Patrick's Day and Tony organised an Irish themed menu. And I was on slushy duty that day, lucky me, so I had plenty of Irish themed dishes to wash!

The menu from St Paddy's Day

The potted crab and prawns for entree

Dave and I dressed the mess up in green, but we had to use doona covers as table cloths as there was a severe lack of green table cloths. I also raided the dress-up store and got my hands on all the green balloons and streamers, and found a couple of Irish flags, and also some silly green hats. That's me in the green and gold stripes at the back.

Enjoying dessert

The weather has turned decidedly colder in the last week or so.The sea out the front is very close to being permanently frozen now. We shut down the reverse osmosis plant last week, and we had to use a crow bar to smash the ice up around the pump to get it out. This morning it was -19, and warmed to a maximum of -15, which is common these days. It's not surprising really, seeing that we have just had the equinox, and the days are getting shorter very quickly. It's starting to look a lot like Antarctica down here, which is a very nice change from rocky and dusty Davis. Blundstone boots just don't cut it anymore down here if you are outside for any length of time (especially if you are wearing shorts - your socks get too wet in the snowdrifts!).

Looking down towards the tarn (the saltwater lake we get our drinking water from)

With the weather turning cold, it is time to start "winterising" the place. This involves shutting down all the buildings and equipment we won't be using over the winter. All the summer accommodation has been shut down, the reverse osmosis building has been done and the summer ablutions block will be shut this week. The other building we shut down last week was the science building. We have no science program here this winter, other than atmospheric and space science, so the general science building has been shut down. We even go so far as to block all the exhaust stacks and air intakes into the building to stop them from blizzing up.

Working on a pair of steps on a snowy, icy roof. What could possibly go wrong?

The good news with this weather is that soon we will be able to take the vehicles out on the sea ice. So with that in mind, those of us who haven't driven a Hagglunds before got to take them for a spin today. They are noisy and rough buggers, but will be a hell of a lot warmer in the depths of winter than the quads will be. Anyway, it was still a fun way to spend a few hours this afternoon!

Me driving a Hagg