Fluffy Kittens and Embroidery: Stamps, angle grinders and apples

Ok, what do I actually do here when I'm not on holiday.....

So, I think I've probably learnt to accept I don't fit the idea people have of what doctors should be like. I no longer feel remotely offended when, after spending a little while chatting to someone new, they suddenly regard me with a look of distinct incredulity and express a fair amount of disbelief when the subject of what I do for a living comes up. To be honest, even I occasionally wonder how I made it through medical school when I'm struggling to remember what I had for breakfast this morning, where I've left my watch this time and what it was that I absolutely positively must not forget to do today, but appear to have completely forgotten nonetheless. However, the fact still remains that I did spend six years at university, passed a couple of exams along the way, and can even put a few letters after my name were I to ever feel the need. It might seem like all this time and energy spent learning to be a doctor would prepare me well to take on the role of Medical Officer on a sub-Antarctic base. Not so. Not even remotely. At some point I may write a bit about the medical bit of my job here, but for now I'm going to concentrate on the non-medical bits and all the new and (in some cases) exciting stuff I've been doing down here.

Something I have spent a lot of time doing is Post Office duty. When I first arrived on the island it was mentioned that the doctor usually helps out the Postmaster when required, mainly when big cruise ships come in and want the post office to be set up on board. This turned out to be very enjoyable - lots of nice, interesting people to talk to, the opportunity to nose around a couple of very swanky ships, buy expensive Norwegian jumpers and be treated to some extremely delicious drinks and/or food. All most agreeable. It was also assumed I'd take over the running of the Post Office for the winter period and, with this in mind, Hugh spent several hours explaining the finer details of the philatelic world to me before he headed off to warmer climes. As it turns out, the philatelic world is an extremely complicated place! Over the winter five sets of First Day Covers have been issued (picture below for those who have no idea what I'm talking about). Each envelope has to be stamped in exactly the same place, nicely in line, not smudged, not too much ink, nor to little. I suspected my slight perfectionist/OCD tendencies would help with this, and I vaguely remember one of my favourite toys as a child was a date stamp of the type used in libraries. I basically thought this would be the ideal job for me! Little did I know that each issue consists of 1500 First Day Covers and lots of individual stamps that all need to be stamped with the date before being sent back to the main Post Office in Stanley. Luckily Jo (Government Officer) has been splitting all the work with me which made it far more manageable, but I think it's safe to say that, after around 8500 covers (not to mention all manner of other crazy philatelic requests), my enjoyment of stamping things has diminished somewhat over the last few months. However, I've also been able to go on board a number of Navy and RFA ships to run an on-board Post Office, as well as opening the shore-based one for various smaller vessels over the winter season. This side of things has been incredibly enjoyable as it again gave me the opportunity to meet all sorts of people, have a look round different ships and (most importantly) receive a few treats for the base in the form of fresh fruit and vegetables from the ships' galley. Hugh has now returned to do the post-winter accounts so who knows how that will go - I did a lot of mental arithmetic when giving change and maths was really not a strong point of mine.

Hundreds of First Day Covers laid out to dry after being stamped

All stamped in the same place with no smudging!

One of many strange philatelic requests - I did a few hundred of these with five different stamps on each envelope.

I've mentioned the boat driving several times already, and this is by far the most exciting new skill I've had the opportunity to learn. Admittedly there are a couple of bent aluminium aerials (that completely refuse to return to their non-bent former shape despite application of both heat and force) and the memory of a small incident involving the side of a large fishing vessel and the bow of one of the jet boats (unfortunately related to me pulling the wrong lever at a crucial moment and just dropping the revs rather than putting the boat into full reverse) to remind me I'm not quite as good at this as I may like to think. However, it has been most enjoyable nonetheless. Unfortunately boats require a fair bit of maintenance, even when kept in nice hot and sunny places. Down here in the cold they need an awful lot of TLC to keep them running smoothly (and quickly), and occasionally the boating people need a little assistance with this. Erny (our base mechanic) usually helps out with all engine related issues, and I generally make an effort to steer clear of the boatshed when complicated things are being done in engine bays, for fear I will get roped into cleaning the bilges. I'm not entirely sure what this involves, but it seems like something I wouldn't like to do. However, I quite like painting and, since I owed Ella a lot of my time after she helped me count needles and drugs in the surgery, I figured I should probably help her replace the non-stick paint on the jet boats. I probably won't be making this mistake again in a hurry. Ella and I decided we should remove the old stuff first and get back to bare aluminium prior to painting. This meant learning to use an angle grinder (with wire brush attachment) which was actually much less fun than I had expected. It seems the grit usually put into non-stick paint to actually make it non-stick makes it is really quite tricky to remove. I'd assumed we'd have all the paint stripped in a few hours if we put our minds to it. Oh how wrong I was! Angle grinders are heavy and noisy, lots of kneeling is involved, lots of red dust which gets absolutely everywhere, lots of sparks flying around burning hair, and several days rather than a few hours were required to clear all the paint. We were also somewhat time-pressured as the boat had to be back in the water by a certain date or the tide would be too low to put it in and it would be stuck in the boatshed for another few weeks. After several midnight finishes, lots of very loud and happy music, the occasional beer while waiting for paint to dry late at night (and a reasonable amount of complaining and swearing that I am never going to use an angle grinder ever again in my whole life) we eventually finished. It must be said that the new style paint we were using is not looking like it will hold up well to the weather down here, but I think it will last long enough for it to be someone else's problem, and that's the most important thing!

Ella having enormous amounts of fun with the angle grinder - oh the glamorous life we do lead!

Late night painting - no idea why I'm looking quite so cheerful about it

They started off looking like the one on the left and it took 15 of them to get all the paint off

The other thing that occupies my time is food. Worryingly this is probably the most stressful thing I do here as I really have no idea what I'm up to, but it's very obvious if I get it wrong because we run out of things, and EVERYONE has an opinion on it! Fresh food orders essentially involve me finding the list from the last order and putting arbitrary quantities next to each item. I rarely know how long I'm ordering for, how many people will be on base for that period and what they like eating, so it's essentially a big guessing game. However, the fact we have a regular delivery of fresh stuff is such an unexpected treat for most people coming down here (who've heard about the months without fresh fruit and veg you get on the proper Antarctic bases) that no one really complains when we run out before the next delivery. However, ordering dry and frozen food for the coming year was so incredibly stressful that I've pretty much managed to blank it from my memory. I struggle to buy food for myself for a week at home, and usually end up going to the supermarket every day on the way home from work. How on earth do you know what to order for a massively variable number of people with unknown eating habits in order to keep them happy and well fed for an entire year? It's a dark art and I suspect there will be a number of ordering 'blips' that will become apparent when the food is delivered on the JCR soon.