Crop Circles, & A Bit More About Cats

 

Letters from the Falkland Islands 

Today marks a week of quarantine completed. All that really meant was that it was the day 7 covid swab test. It was someone different from the hospital this time, and there was very little preamble about it all. How are you keeping, and then a giant cotton bud gets shoved up into your brain? I knew that it wasn’t going to be good; moments before I’d heard Mags exclaim, ‘oh fuck me’, from the room next door. We hung out of the windows for the next thirty minutes all agreeing how brutal it was. Catrin was adamant that she suddenly felt a lot less intelligent, and that it was nothing to do with the time spent in this slightly suspended existence. We caught up with each other’s news, which was all pretty interesting today. Mags hadn’t been given any jam for her breakfast toast, but thankfully she had saved one from a previous day when the little jars were in surplus. Catrin had repeatedly been left without cutlery, but we didn’t ask too much about how she coped. I didn’t have any stories of loss to share, so I just showed them how I had managed to spill gravy on the hotel bath robe. I feel like I’m going to have to leave a note at the end of my stay explaining what happened there.

After a time, a well-dressed man wandered into the back carpark. We all waved and smiled. He said it must be nice to talk to someone different for a while, and then promptly walked off. To his credit though he returned about five minutes later to honour his statement. He was jolly nice; we talked about the weather and quarantine things. He even said that if he wasn’t too busy on Christmas Day that he might come back and throw us some sweets or something. I’m really hoping that he is not the Falkland Islands’ Santa Claus. After he left, I remembered that I hadn’t told the others about the older man with the distinguished beard who I’d been chatting to the last few days. Yesterday evening when I was out in the sheep pen, he suggested that instead of running around in the same old circle I should think about mixing it up and creating some crop circles. It certainly seemed like the best idea I’d heard in days. Better even than my idea to acquire a quarantine cat, believe it or not. Catrin suggested a satanic star of sorts, while Mags went for either a ‘H’ to create a helicopter landing point, or SOS as a cry for help. Either of those might be a touch irresponsible, but we settled on SOS because at least it reads as an apology as well. The next eleven or twelve days might be oddly productive. Oddly, being the key word there. My attempts to re-domesticate the missing cat requires a little more work and patience, though. I saved a scrap of bacon from breakfast and put it on a saucer when I went out for my morning exercise. I didn’t see a cat the whole time I was out, and when I sat down quietly on the grass after my run, I only had a few moments to wait before watching a regular sort of gull swoop down and eat the lot. But that is what hope and tomorrows are for, are they not?

The Cats of the Falkland Islands

 

Letters from the Falkland Islands

 

 

It’s chucking in down. I’ve just watched a white van reverse into a kerb. That’s about everything that has happened in the last ten minutes, that and the sound of Doug playing the guitar in the room downstairs. It hasn’t been like this all day; the morning was largely dry and sunny. I managed another 5km on the 30-meter grass ‘track’. I caught a second glimpse of the elusive black cat. I first saw it a few days ago; it made a dart across the sheep pen during a previous sunny run about. This particular cat has been officially listed as missing by the Falkland Islands Government for the past two and a half years. Even though there have been many sightings of this cat, they have all been but fleeting and no one has been able to catch a hold of it. By all but some, it now passes unnoticed; a long time has passed since the missing cat poster campaign. People have just come to assume, and come to accept that it doesn’t want to be caught. Some creatures are happiest going from place to place, after all. They live, never too sure where the next meal may come from. I doubt that is a serious concern for the cats of Stanley, though. There are enough cats around town to know where they might scrounge a meal from. I have observed no less than 10 different cats darting out of bushes, and crossing the steep street I can see clearly from this hotel window. I’m assuming that cat flaps are a thing in Stanley, but never having actually seen one here I can’t say for sure. Anyway, I suppose the owner of this cat still hopes and longs for its return one day. You’d definitely be inclined to think so, given that this cat is still listed as missing. However, this ‘status’ may not be the clear indication that you might imagine. You see, the Falklands Government would rather that cats and dogs be listed as missing rather than been classified as strays. Probably something to do with the reputation of the country and how that relates to the tourism industry. Anyhow, all this made me think, wouldn’t it be nice to have a quarantine cat? So, this afternoon, at 15.40, I went outside to the sheep pen armed with a saucer and the dregs of a UHT milk carton. Dutch, once he had learned of my plan kindly informed me that contrary to the commonly held belief, milk isn’t actually all that good for cats on account of its lactose content. I persisted with it unsuccessfully for this half hour, but vowed to try again tomorrow with a bit of bacon or something. Of course, there’s a chance that this will backfire spectacularly - if a flock of Turkey Vultures descends, for example.

A question about push ups, & the joys of running.

 

Letters from the Falkland Islands

 

Saturday 12^th December. 09.47.

 

I was asked a question by one of my brothers, Rory. “How are the push ups going?” The push ups went pretty well on day one, but since then my arms have been aching so much that I haven’t done a single one. The same can be said for sit ups, squat jumps, and burpees. Ha. It’s amazing how quickly my ankle injury from a few weeks ago suddenly seemed to recover. So now I spend my outdoor exercise time trying to run 5km on a 30-meter grass ‘track’. Running round in very small circles, changing direction after every five minutes or so to prevent dizziness setting in. It’s oddly thrilling, though. Maybe it’s the simple wonder of being outside, a change of scenery to inside the hotel room. It’s also the pure joy of running, of running for running’s sake alone. It certainly has meditative qualities, I find myself getting lost in the simple movements, and noticing each and every slight undulation of the earth. I’ll take in the smells of the nearby sea, feel the sunshine and the breeze upon my skin.

I never hold that level of focus for the entire time, though. A conversation will start up with someone from one of the hotel windows. Or the game of ‘trying to guess the entire contents of the Historic Dockyard Museum’ will start up again with my morning exercise partner, Rob. We can see this museum from the sheep pen, and it’s amazing how much you start to wonder about all the things that you can see but are just out of reach. It’s that human instinct to discover and explore; we are always asking questions of the things we do not know; we always want to know more. Our guesses at first were perhaps not the most imaginative, we didn’t get much further than really old anchors and matchstick ships. But we’ve still got a long way to go in quarantine, so it’s probably pretty good that we didn’t peak too soon.

Letters from the Falkland Islands. Friday 11th December. 20.26.

 Letters from the Falkland Islands 

Early on in this period of quarantine, during my first allocated outside slot, I made a quite wonderful discovery. If you stand in one particular spot in the sheep pen, if you stand on tiptoes and crane your neck; it is possible to make out two red phone boxes and the unmistakable top of a red pillar box. Every time I’ve been out since I always make sure I get a glimpse of it. I’m not entirely sure why I love post boxes so much, nor why a week’s holiday in Scotland turned into a bit of a post box quest. I suppose it’s the magic that surrounds it all, the magic of letter writing. It’s about connection and communication, it’s about taking whoever you are in the moment of writing and giving that part of you to someone else. There’s an honesty and thoughtfulness to it all that seems to have been lost in the instantaneous world we’ve come to inhabit.

A few days later, or it might have just been the next day, I realised I was encountering a coffee shortage. Now, although we are in quarantine here, in a different country, we have not just been left to fend for ourselves. The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have two logistics coordinators based in the Falklands; Liz and Brad. Now, the only extra coffee the hotel could seem to provide was decaff (which is not really coffee at all), so I messaged Brad and he was able to sort me out a jar of Nescafe. Brad also said that if there was anything else at all just to let him know. What followed was probably not the usual kind of request he receives. I asked, if it wasn’t too much trouble, would he be able to take a photo of something for me. I explained about the post box, explained it in a way that would have left him in no doubt that I was either a little bit of a geek or someone who wasn’t taking to quarantine too well! I even had to ask him to go back and take a second photo, because the first one he sent me was just of the royal cypher and not the box in its entirety. Thanks Brad! Christmas really does come early sometimes.

Wednesday 9th December. 21.23. & Into the night.

 

Letters from the Falkland Islands

 

There is still a little light clinging to this day. I’ve just ordered another whisky from the bar. It’s the second day of a nineteen day stretch of quarantine in this hotel room. That’s if everything goes to the current plan. It has felt like a long one, but not in the sense of boredom or anything like that. It’s just that it has been full of different moods and emotions, I suppose. I had the first of three covid swab tests earlier this afternoon; it wasn’t too bad, but it did feel like they took a little bit of my brain out as well. I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t at all anxious about these tests. Not the tests themselves, but the knowledge that a positive test result would put a halt to my progress South. Antarctica is the only covid-free continent, and it’s vital that it stays that way. I haven’t got any symptoms, and I’ve been as careful as I can – even slightly paranoid at times. But of course, that’s no guarantee of anything, and it’s really not easy to shake the lingering possibility of ‘what if?’ I knew this all from the outset of course, I knew there would be this period of uncertainty. But knowing a thing and experiencing the real-life doubts are vastly different. You can’t really know how you’re going to feel until you’re feeling it. And even then, we don’t always have the words to put to it. I’ve been dwelling on this a little – it’s easy to dwell on things in certain circumstances. Of course, it does no good, when has worrying ever changed a thing. So, I’m trying to drag myself away from it, and is often the case the only way to do that is to face it head on. This (writing) is my attempt at that today. It’s not the only thing that has helped, though. And it’s funny the places that we find help, and the things that give us hope. In this case I found it in a tin of biscuits. This in many ways is a story in its own right – the story of the Eskdale Fell Runners. But I’ll save that for another time, because some stories are worth the telling in full. Just before I went away, the six other members of the Eskdale Fell Runners (formally established summer 2020) gave me some cards and presents. I brought the cards with me, along with a miniature Christmas tree. There was also room in my bag for a box of biscuits which I had just assumed contained the contents listed on the tin. But when I opened them this afternoon to have with a cup of tea, I found it full of ginger biscuits made by Ali’s husband, Ian. These biscuits are made in the shape of Herdwick Sheep, and gingerbread style biscuits are one of my favourite things. It was such a strong reminder of home, and of the last time I was sat out down by the coast with those friends. It was a reminder of the constant things in life, and of remarkable friendships forged in uncertain times.

Wednesday 9th December. 08.05. Stanley, Falkland Islands.

Letters from the Falkland Islands

It’s raining. The rain seems to have quietened the nearby chickens, at least. It seemed strange to discover it was raining, I actually had to do a double check out of the window. I wondered why this was, and I suspect it’s simply because it has been bright and sunny here since I arrived and that was, up until now, all I’d ever experienced of this place. I also wonder if we find rain in any new country strange and is the rain in fact different wherever we go? How similar is this to Eskdale rain, for example? I’ll find out soon enough, it’s not long until the first of my allocated two half hour outside slots of the day. We are allowed out into this roped off grassy area in front of the hotel – this area has become affectionally known as the sheep pen. The sheep pen is about 15 metres long, and 5 metres wide. We have a printed schedule for the times we are allowed out; the area is too small for all of us quarantining here to be out at once. There are 14 of us here at the moment, mostly Twin Otter pilots, air mechanics, and air support, a few field guides, a MET forecaster, Mr Halley, and me (Station Support Assistant). Many are friends from previous Antarctic seasons. Only one I’ve never met before, and another I’ve only met once briefly – we had a few hours cross over on station last season and we had a conversation about post-it notes and drawings on a white board. It’s kind of funny how I’m in a country I’ve never been to before, but the majority of the people I’ve seen are familiar faces. The sheep pen is on the other side of the hotel to my room, which means that twice a day I get a different view. I also get to say hello to those who have rooms which look the other way; they come to the windows and we chat for a bit, or they just watch as I do some keepie-ups or run round in really small circles. It’s amazing how our definition of entertainment substantially changes during quarantine. Although, some things are just outright exciting. When I was outside yesterday, kicking a ball about from one end of the sheep pen to the other with Dutch, I was dive bombed by a Turkey Vulture. In reality, this enormous bird was at least 20 metres away from me, but it felt pretty dramatic especially when Dutch informed me that they will just swoop down and carry anything off. He even sent me a link later to a website full of information about these birds and assured me that it was a genuine website and not something that he had created in spare moments of quarantine madness. I am a little dubious about their ability to carry off humans, though. 

Letters from the Falkland Islands

 

8^th December 2020.

Woke up at 4am. It appears that there is a cockerel which lives in close proximity to the hotel. The daylight made me think that it was much later, made me think that I’d missed the breakfast which is left outside the door at 8am every day. That’s what happens when you move from winter to summer in 24 hours. There’s a touch of the surreal about it all; it seems like no time at all since I was driving down to Brize Norton in the freezing fog of an English winter. No time at all since I was swimming in the river Esk at first light, and saying some goodbyes, and hugging my mum for the last time in a while. That’s the beauty of air travel in some ways; you’re on the other side of the world in a few blinks of an eye. But it’s an awfully long way to travel without taking very much in. You’re taken out of one world and deposited in another with no available insight to the worlds you’re passing through. The flight had one stop, in Dakar, Senegal, to refuel. We were on the ground for two hours, but not allowed off the plane so all I saw of Africa was from a cabin window. I treasured those moments, though. Treasured seeing the sun rise over that most ancient of continents, and smiled as I saw the red dust, that unending red earth. To see the sunrise, to see the sunset, is a spectacle I’ll never tire of. It’s to know time, it’s to know change, it’s to know life. It connects us all, and there is something comforting about the reminder that we are all under the same skies whether in darkness or in light. I can look to the sun, and look to the moon, and know that all the people I love can see the same. Separation from our friends and family need not be that separate at all.

Ten hours after taking off from Dakar we landed in the Falkland Islands, at RAF Mount Pleasant. As with flying into Senegal, this was my first time seeing the Falklands. And in truth I knew I wouldn’t be seeing much more of this place than I did Africa. There was what I could see from the air, and what I could see from the bus journey to the hotel. But it was wonderful, and for all the world I could have been in the far North West Highlands of Scotland. I half expected to see a road sign to Scourie, or a signpost graffitied with the words ‘Flat Earth’. If the landscape reminded me of Scotland, the houses in Stanley remind me of Scandinavia. They are all brightly coloured, bright red, green, blue roofs, some with brightly coloured walls, too. I can see them from the window of this hotel room. I can also see a few trees and bushes, and a few cars and people that pass occasionally.  A moment ago, a youngish lad cycled past blasting out some music; ‘do you think my tractor’s sexy’ were the only words of the song I managed to catch. There’s a strangeness in observing this outside world, and yet finding myself almost entirely separate from it. Today is the first full day of my quarantine period in the Falklands. If everything goes to plan, I’ll be here in this hotel room until 26^th December, which is when I’ll be getting on a ship for the five day journey across the Drake Passage to Antarctica.