Thursday August 8th

I had heard rain falling on the tent several times during the night and was surprised not to hear it on getting up. It was certainly a surprise, however to find the ground covered with snow and light snow still falling. Here was a predicament! I was on breakfast duty and the stove was covered in snow and there was no dry wood or paper anywhere. So we just had to have a cold breakfast. Nothing could be done afterwards, so we just retired again and I read and calculated all the barometer corrections. The snow had changed to slight rain during the morning, but using the oven was still out of the question, so the only thing to be done was to have a cold lunch (as usual) and to get out the primus stoves afterwards. Looking off and on it was ages before we could find these; we found from the invoices that Benjamin Edgington had supplied 6 of them, and we thought the others had taken two away with them, and we found three unopened cases but these all contained nothing but lamps and radiators. There was also an empty case, but nowhere in the camp could we find the stoves. We were just giving up in despair when I found them in another case that had been opened and half emptied.

Though it was drizzling slightly all the time it was not unpleasant during the afternoon, and we did do one useful piece of work in sticking up the poles of the hoar-frost beacon. We got the primus going and celebrated it by having tea, and then started cooking a feast of a supper. After washing up it was really fine with the sun shining on the hills to the East and we could see across the bay. The temperature was just at freezing-point, and Brownie and I got some exercise and a good view by climbing up one of the screes up the cliffs. One of the most friendly dogs - Angussvak - came with us and after a bit they nearly all followed. Old woolly bear got on a ledge and was too frightened to get off again, but found a way when we went down. The dogs have been loose ever since we landed and have gradually been getting cleaner and today's snow has made a lot of difference, so now one can touch them without regretting it. After seeing to Robert, who was better to-day but still in bed, we went off ourselves.

a clean husky