A normal week

2007-05-13

It's been a pretty normal week here at Halley. A bit cold, a bit warm, a bit still, a bit windy. A bit of work, a little playing and some partying.

This fits within a strong routine, there to provide form to a week and help us notice the gradual passage of the winter. Now that the light outside is fading away it's easy to start drifting out of normal waking and sleeping patterns, so the routine starts with gentle encouragement to make it to meals, and work the hours that England works. Without that structure to the day people's different natural rythyms quickly diverge and we'd see a base where one guy worked late into the night then ate dinner just as his colleagues were waking early to eat breakfast. Not good when much of the work we do down here draws on the skills of each person on base, and usually needs a helping hand.

With days defined, we fill the week with activity. Work fills most of the time, punctuated by a good number of tea breaks and meals, followed perhaps by a trip to the gym or a ski around the base before dinner. Lunch is usually well attended but sometimes things just have to be done and people skip it from time to time. Everyone turns up to dinner, baring technical crises, which stretches through cups of coffee and gently melts into the evening.

Each evening then has something there for us to amuse ourselves, if we want to join in. Most Mondays have a pub quiz, Tuesdays a German lesson from Thomas and a late showing of some TV series or other, Wednesdays are film nights, Thursdays have samba drumming (or hiding from the noise for everyone else), Fridays turn into a night at the bar or a game of bridge, Saturdays see a major meal and the wearing of shirts, and Sundays show another film. The films are chosen by the unfortunate who was on gash (cleaning duty) for the day. Sometimes chosen to challenge, sometimes for people to enjoy, and sometimes picked out of private passion.

The weeks roll into months, the sky outside grows darker or lighter, weather comes and goes, and the base passes from summer, through sundown, midwinter, sunup and summer again. Inside we take our turns cooking, cleaning or watching awake at night.

Hook on the Laws platform crane

Stays to stop the Laws shaking

Twilight of a distant dawn

Moon hangs behind my office

Ice grows on skis