Christmas & New Year

Despite the snow and Christmas decorations it didn't feel especially Christmassy on base, but it was welcome relief not to be out battling with crowds for last minute presents and enduring carols being played everywhere you go from November. We had Christmas day and boxing day off work and were given a fantastic meal cooked by the 3 chefs on base. Cyril (this years wintering chef) gave the Queen's speech in usual Cyril style. A few of us spent the afternoon at Vals (the local slope we use for skiing) snowboarding and building snowmen. We witnessed the rare sight of our two "Twotters" (Twin Otter planes) landing on the skiway (snow runway) at Vals. This is only used if the Dash 7 is coming in to land as it can't land on snow so the others have to land up at Vals and wait for the Dash to come in before landing on the runway at Rothera themselves. It was an impressive sight.

New Year's Eve started with the now traditional 10km run around the runway. I ran as part of a team and Sue-Ann and I decided it'd be much more fun in fancy dress so I brought out the horse costume which mom had helped me make for a fancy dress party last year and which I brought with me as I knew it'd come in handy! As you can see from the photos we were unaware that the race had started for quite a while and it was rather warm / awkward running in costume, it took us 17minutes to trot a lap and a half (about 2.5km) - pretty poor effort but good fun.

New Years Eve was celebrated in the 'Sledge Store' (where all the field kit, tents, skis etc are stored). Music was provided by 'Flamenco Jamie, Rob & Tris' followed by newly formed 'Ratchet Death' (not sure where the name came from), I played the sax on a few songs.

All in all a top evening and couldn't think of a better way to welcome in 2007.