Monday 16th December

Monday 16th December

It was overcast at first, and of course started snowing when I was doing the weekly charts. Then all of a sudden after sending a report of overcast and snowing at noon, at 1pm. it was absolutely clear with stars shining brightly! It is liable to clear suddenly here, but usually get warnings of changes for the worse, which is as it should be I suppose. The clear sky meant that for the rest of the day I was engaged with aurorae and Polaris. It was a day of great auroral activity, and though it was rather messy and all over the place most of the time yet we had one of the best and prettiest displays when a long rayed band passed overhead swishing in a ghostly fashion - most mysterious in that its movements are quite unaccompanied by any noise - then formed itself into a bow formation which just passed overhead, wheeled slightly to the W. of N. and continued its course slowly until it broke up its form. And while you stand watching all is quiet except for the eerie noises made by the ice - either a rather high-pitched howl which makes you think Ayo has gone along the coast and has found a bear - this is perhaps caused by friction of big pieces of ice, or a higher pitched squeak made either by small pieces of ice on the surface and squeezing against one another or scraping across the rocks - or it is the ghost of Annadark; it is a noise reminiscent of the squeals she used to make when young, and it originates from the point where we dropped her into the sea.

Made bread today; it’s funny how each time it turns out differently though you apparently go through the same process. Today I made a determined effort to obey the instructions on the yeast tin to the letter. It didn’t rise much in the mixer, but did just a bit in the tins. So I put it in the oven, and when I first looked at it the bread surface in both tins had risen up to the edge of the tin, but it was hollow inside. It was not a very hot oven, and took some time to bake through and when finished it appeared normal size, or risen a bit more than usual - but actually it was hollow, a cross section being something like this...... (diagram supplied!).

Tuesday December 17th.

Fine again this morning with auroral activity and at each hour I spend ten minutes observing and taking notes, and take some photographs too. The position of the aurorae is always fixed with reference to stars or constellations. I’m getting to know these better now, and their names mean more here, for though one wonders how they can ever have been thought like what their names represent, in a lonely place like this they do seem to take a personal interest in you, more so here as they go more round and round than at home, most of them never setting at all, all the nice friends like Capella and Vega, and the constellations Taurus, Leo, Pegasus etc never set at all, but keep an eye on what is going on here. There is one which puzzles me terribly. In the star map he is merely marked E, but is not attached to any constellation, so I don’t know what E it is. Moreover E implies rather a weak star but this is bright and red. I’ve searched through the Nautical Almanack to see if any planet can be there, but no, we are to see no planets at all here, except Venus (which as a glorious morning star has now set), and it doesn’t look like a planet. So I just always have to refer to him as E: the trouble is that there are always aurorae in his neighbourhood!

In a view of what I wrote last night about the weather it must be recorded that after observing aurorae in a clear sky each hour and after taking the 3pm. observations I went in to write it up, decided to start up Polaris, collected the plate and hammer, and went out to find it overcast and snowing! It is a good thing I hadn’t opened the skylight in the ionosphere hut and then left it for an hour.

Friday December 20th.

The bread showed signs of forming a roof with an attic below today after baking a little, so I tried pricking it all over with a fork, for after all it could hardly do any harm except give the loaf a slight taste of sardines. The experiment was a great success.

Saturday December 21st.

Found Matilda had escaped this morning. I’ve inspected her cage daily and hitherto she has made no impression on the wire, but she has been getting so thin and in desperation must have got the wire bent just enough to force her body through. I’m sorry for Sandy to some extent, but my sympathies have always been with Matilda and am really glad about it. It is certainly not in the spirit of the Exploration Club rules to keep adult foxes in cages.

Today was the first day of a holiday from technical reading that I am giving myself up to January 1st. It may seem absurd or lazy to do such a thing, but I have such an immense amount of reading to make up for what should have been read last year and must be read before spring 1937, but on the other hand this will be the first time for a year and a half when I will be able to sit down and read just what I want to read. Started off with the “Testament of Beauty” and “Plato’s Republic” and enjoyed the former to the full, but I never could bear with philosophers and I doubt if I ever will get right through with Plato! I have also started learning to typewrite in the correct manner.

Sunday December 22nd and Monday December 23rd.

The special solstice international day was from 4pm. 22nd to 4pm. 23rd. We had been hoping that some of the others would arrive to help us, but in vain. We took altogether 25 runs one at each hour, but it was not half as tiring as I had expected. We were so rushed that we had no time to think of being exhausted.

To bed immediately after the 6 o’clock news bulletin. Then Andrew, John and David arrived having sledged over the bay ice at about 8pm. Brownie woke up to the fact and got up and called me, but though I myself thought I jumped out of bed and went around searching for the new arrivals even as far as the cairn wading through a mixture of rice and Fowler’s treacle, it was only a dream.