Another glorious day in paradise

Today the clouds are low over the mountains and it is raining gently, but a yesterday was really stunning - bright blue sky, hot bright sun, and gentle breeze. The bright contrast between the white buildings and their red roofs, the turquoisey blue sea, the green of the tussock was so vivid it almost hurt your eyes - might have actually done that as we are directly under the hole in the ozone layer so have to be really careful about sun exposure - no bikini for me then! No swimming either, with the temperature of the water and all those fur and elephant seals around.
My first job was helping to stain the steps leading up to the Museum front door, then I decided to try and shake the huge coconut mats in the porch there, but they were far too heavy, so I put them over a fence and tried to beat the dust out with a large piece of wood. A heap of fine grit appeared below them, and the fine grey dust blew all over me, but there was no chance of getting it all out so I put them back in place and hoovered them well. (Gripping stuff, this!)

In the afternoon I helped prepare envelopes for sending out certificates to people who had paid £90 to sponsor one hectare of land for rat eradication - the rats in some areas of South Georgia eat the eggs and the young of the ground nesting birds (which is all of the species who breed here ... no trees on South Georgia!!) and are a huge environmental problem. The rats were brought onto the islands here by the whaling ships early last century. In the New Year there is a programme of rat eradication beginning, with helicopters dropping bait to get rid of this huge problem.

It was my turn to cook yesterday. I generally cook EVERYTHING at 180degC for 2 hours, so it was a bit of a challenge for me. Also, we eat when it is ready - whatever time that is - and Ewan and Katie used to say they came for meals when the smoke alarm went off!! I made potato wedges and roasted them in the oven, grilled gammon steaks, and we had grilled asparagus and tomatoes and rock hard peas (not my fault!) I forgot the pineapple rings on top, so we just had to have them with ice cream for pudding afterwards. The rule here is that whoever cooks doesn't wash up, so I had a rest before going across to the BAS bar for a drink and a natter. I was tired (all that beating this morning!) so didn't stay long, but it is lovely to spend time with all those great young folk chatting and teasing one another. They are a funny lot!