Snow, sledges and stitches

After the midwinter week of excess it was almost a relief to get back to the routine of working life again. Almost. The last bit of the midwinter week was the photo competition, which was won by Nic with an excellent photo of two skiers heading into the sun, but there were several other good pictures in there as well. After that I decided to ease into the week by having a tidy up of the office, not that you'd tell by looking at it now. I also reacquainted myself with the gym to try and work off all the excellent food and drink, and I was on melt tank duty for a week which always seems to burn off the calories, although I usually use that as an excuse to eat more. I think I've spotted a flaw in my plan.

Photo competition entries

The compact Halley gym, Chris in action

We've had a couple more impressive blows recently, with winds up around 50 knots, so once again handlines have been the only way to get between buildings as visibility is about zero. One of these blows resulted in one of the HF aerials becoming detached from the cable back to the Comms Office so I've been out trying to fix that. As well as high winds we've had much more snow accumulation than normal this year so things are getting buried much more quickly, including masts. All the masts are held upright by stays, like big metal guy ropes, and these have adjustable turnbuckles in them so we can reduce the tension on the stay as it builds up due to getting buried. This also means we need to raise the turnbuckles every now and then, so Jules and I have been out doing that on the Comms masts. This involves clamping a ratchet device called a chain hoist onto the stay to maintain the tension while we take out the turnbuckle, add a new section of steel rope, then put the turnbuckle back higher up. Next job will be raising the catenaries, which are bits of steel rope suspended between posts that keep all the cables off the ground.

The problem - an almost buried turnbuckle

Attaching the chain hoist

Turnbuckle removed, extra length of stay ready to go on

Reattaching the turnbuckle

The finished article, and a cold looking Jules

On the leisure side we've decided we're all going to be rock stars and have started a band. Our first couple of rehearsals have gone pretty well, and we've rattled off a handful of numbers. It was a bit of a squeeze as there are a lot of multi talented people down here so there were 9 of us in the gym. So far lead vocals have been shared by Simon and Andy, guitars by Andy, Mark, John and Vicki, backing vocals by Vicki and Fran, who's also played violin, percussion by me and Simon, Alex is on keyboards and Nic on bass. All we need now is a couple of venues to play and an audience.

We've also been honing our knotting and lashing skills again. Wooden Nansen sledges are still the preferred method of hauling loads over long distances down here, usually towed behind a skidoo. These are essentially made up of lots of bits of wood held together by string and bits of leather, but seem incredibly sturdy all the same. Simon had all the requisite parts to make a new one from the ground up so we've had a communal sledge building session over a couple of days. It's a very rare limited edition signature model as we've all put our names on it. Luckily we didn't have to sign on the bits we did as there may be future recriminations if it falls apart in the middle of a trip.

How the sledge starts out

Joints held together with string

Nearing completion

Ready for action

Doc school has been getting ever more practical lately, after looking at burns and how to treat them, we gave each other numb fingers in order to practise our anaesthetising techniques, and this week we've been stitching wounds. We didn't have to injure ourselves in the name of science however, as we we were able to try our hand at stitching on pigskin. Probably just as well given the hash I made of most of it....

In true Blue Peter style, this is what you'll need

Injecting the anaesthetic. The patient was very calm throughout.....

Functional rather than pretty stitches

Bob making it look easy