hyarrowen

Well, I'm back

Wed, 13 Aug 2025 01:10:11 GMT

Sorry for the long silence. I've been really remiss in not keeping up with you all, but I've been a) busy and b) tired. It's been an interesting few months, but I got the "cancer-free... for now" from the surgeon last week, so the flood of appointments seems to be slowing down for the present.

In the end, I didn't have to have radiotherapy, which is nice, or chemo, which is even nicer. But I had two operations - a lumpectomy which didn't work and a mastectomy + lymph node-ectomy (?) which did - and with a couple of other procedures I'm suffering from a bad case of anaesthesia brain. It's wearing off, though.

I have to say cancer care is great. I've seen it described as the Lamborghini of medical care, and it's a complete contrast to the cranky old bus that is chronic illness. ("Just go for a nice walk in the sunshine and practice mindfulness, dear. You'll feel much better." "Oh, reely?") It's so nice not to be gaslighted and patronised.

So, as I say, I'm back. I have very little energy and very little brain, but hello again!

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Ow.

Fri, 05 Apr 2024 09:05:13 GMT

I had Part One of a root canal today and I have an infected jaw. No wonder I've been very very very tired for the whole of this year. Apologies to all. Part Two is due in August.

*crawls off to sleep*

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Apologies for absence

Mon, 12 Feb 2024 11:20:57 GMT

I've now been back in Australia for almost as long as I was in the UK, and I haven't posted since my return. Sorry about that. I had to hit the ground at a gallop as regards Things To Do, and since then it's been ME crash after ME crash. Getting very tired of this.

I don't even know if I mentioned my walk round Oxford with someone from The Flight of the Heron fandom, and I can't remember what we agreed as regards anonymity - I'm so sorry! If I try and look it up it'll probably be another couple of weeks at least before I post at all. But it was one of the highlights of the trip, especially seeing the house where Broster wrote the novel. Which is probably a good deal noisier now than it was then, but the whole world is thus.

Going dinosaur-hunting next week on the south coast of Victoria with a friend, possibly a group of friends. This is for a story anthology for the region....when in doubt, I always default to dinosaurs.

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Nearing the end of my holiday in Blighty

Sat, 18 Nov 2023 20:03:48 GMT

I've realised it's been almost two months since I've posted. I was gonna do pictures and everything, but it didn't work out that way. Maybe I'll get round to it after I go back to Australia, but up till now it's been a matter of rushing round doing things, then recovering.

But I've been enjoying myself despite the struggle of getting round in the UK. I and my Aussie pal went to the Lowlands of Scotland last month, which were very pretty, and almost deserted (have never quite recovered from the Lowland Clearances of three centuries ago) and we saw deer and wild goats and ravens and such, and had a nightmare journey of eleven hours on the trains back to the Midlands. Sigh. Some things don't change, yay privitisation.

A couple of weeks ago we went to Ludlow on the Welsh borders. That was rather simpler, just a couple of bus rides, and we stayed in genuine medieval rooms overnight. It's one of my favourite towns, and on this trip, unlike the last, I didn't get the impression that I was living under one of those huge waterfalls in South America. Ludlow is wonderful, but it can be wet.

One impression I haven't been able to rid myself of this time around is that everything in Britain is on 3/4 scale. This is possibly an effect of living in Australia for so long, and I felt it particularly in Ludlow.

Or perhaps I've grown? I dunno.

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Canalside ramblings

Mon, 25 Sep 2023 19:20:15 GMT

I and my Aussie pal, who also has ME/CFS, went for a walk up into the local Georgian town this arvo. We are constantly surprised at how much more walking we can do here than at home in Australia. We came home via the network of canals that threads through this little canal port - which is inland, and at the top of a plateau, so there are locks to look at. I was too brainfogged to explain in detail how a lock works, but she figured it out. I have cured her of referring to narrowboats as longboats ("They're the ones with the horned helmets!" (I know)) and she saw white swans for the first time in her life.

We were too zonked to make it back to our caravans in one swoop and had to stop for coffee and cake at the farm shop a hundred yards short of our destination. Just a bit too ambitious. But we had a nice walk in the sunshine, so it was well worth it.

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Back in the UK

Sun, 17 Sep 2023 18:40:56 GMT

After a long, long flight, I've returned to Blighty from Australia for ten weeks or so. I and a friend are staying in static caravans (plural: we're not daft) not far from my old stamping grounds. I'm showing her the ropes, as she's never been to the Old Country before, and we're generally settling in and recovering, getting over jet lag, etc. In a few days we may even be functioning, though I wouldn't bet on it.

So far, it's been raining about half the time. 'Twas ever thus.

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Fic: A Charming Marine Prospect (Persuasion, William Elliot/Richard Musgrove)

Thu, 20 Jul 2023 06:52:50 GMT

I wrote this ages ago for a Jane Austen LGBTQ+ anthology, where it was published under my real-world pen-name. The anthology is now out of print, so I thought I'd put it up on the internet archives, because Jane Austen characters and fossils (and fossilists) are equally awesome!

I've cross-posted to Squidgeworld as well as the AO3 because of what happened last week. I suppose I ought to post it on DW as well, now that Squidgeworld is using the same code as AO3, along with all the rest of my fic. I'll get round to it some time.

Fandom: Persuasion
Title: A Charming Marine Prospect
Characters: William Elliot, Dick Musgrove, Mary Anning
Pairing: William Elliot/Dick Musgrove
Word count: 9,950
Rating: M
[edit] Includes hints at a character death fix-it.

It feels so odd to be typing a header like this again!

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48720385 (dunno why that isn't working as a link)

Squidgeworld : A Charming Marine Prospect - Hyarrowen - Persuasion [Archive of Our Own] - hyarrowen - Persuasion [SquidgeWorld Archive]

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Apologies for absence, and adventures in unpacking with Biggles!

Sat, 20 May 2023 09:46:31 GMT

I have been iller than usual. Damn ME/CFS, anyway. In the gaps between appointments (everyone is convinced they can cure or at least treat this illness - watch this space for a flurry of Nobel laureates from Australia) I have been going to visit my mother, who is at last in a Care Home. That was the cause of a lot of my exhaustion. Those of you with elderly parents will know what I'm talking about.

On a happier note, a friend has been helping me slowly unpack boxes from when I moved into this house over 4 years ago. I'm not exactly a hoarder, but when your parents and grandparents grew up in world wars, you tend not to throw things away, in case they might come in useful. And so often, they do! I have, however, horrified said friend by ripping the covers off books and chucking the pages in rcycling. Years in bookselling have given me a cavalier attitude towards books. (I used to burn them when I had a solid fuel fire. Helped with the fuel bills, very useful when on a disability pension.)

One thing I do not burn, ever, is a Biggles book. While unpacking I fell upon four hard-to-find WWI Biggles stories with cries of joy. I can't remember whether I got these from a shop in Tintern in Wales, or from the Biggles fan club in the Netherlands, but they cost a pretty penny, I can tell you. Like, 20 pounds each. Well worth the money. Not least because one of them has a character I thought only turned up in the WW2 books, but here he is in WWI, with a slightly different spelling: Lissy, in the short story, The Fledglings. He isn't the silly ass his near-namesake later becomes, but he's every bit the same dead-shot. And he plays the piano. Chopin, in fact.

The other titles are Biggles' Exciting Night! (something to do with canals, get your mind out of the gutter), Biggles on the Spot (a grudge match with a German Squadron) and Biggles Takes the Bait, which begins with the immortal line, "Captain James Bigglesworth, of 266Squadron, R.F.C., known to his friends as 'Biggles', was peeved."

I'm going to enjoy renewing my acquaintance with these little stories when the ME lets up a little bit and gives me the use of my brain back.

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Shackleton's grave

Wed, 29 Mar 2023 01:47:29 GMT

For black_bentley - and anyone else who's interested!

The tiny graveyard on South Georgia, just outside the main scientific and admin centre, has more heroes per square metre than most. It's got a sturdy fence to protect it from the seals, and you're landed on the beach right in front of it so you can pay your respects straight away. I don't know the meaning of the star, though it surely has some significance. Those more well-versed in the historyof polar exploration than this geographer will probably know!

Above the graveyard is the end-point of Shackleton Walk, which follows the route he, Crean and Worsley took on the last leg of their epic journey. Not for the faint-hearted, says the guide-book. We were all faint-hearted, and made straight for the museum, post office and shop; or, in the case of the young couple, for the church where they got married. I didn't understand the significance of that route at the time (honestly, there was so much to take in, all the time) so didn't get a picture of the waterfall they scrambled down, but here it is: "shackleton waterfall" - Bing images It's about 1k from the graveyard, so they hiked past this spot on their way to the manager's villa.

Here's the view out to sea from the graveyard. You can see our ship, looking tiny, at the foot of the nearest mountain, just before the dip in the skyline to the further mountains. About a fifteen minute Zodiac ride to the beach. Distances are quite deceptive because the air is either fantastically clear, or...not.

All in all, it isn't a bad view for a graveyard, especially on a day like this! Shackleton's grave famously faces south, so this is more or less his view.

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Couple of books on Antarctica

Sun, 26 Mar 2023 07:13:21 GMT

Biggles Breaks the Silence

I dug this out after I got back, and enjoyed it very much, in the way 21st-century me enjoys the Biggles books; ie it’s of its time in some ways, ahead of its time in others, and probably behind its time in still others - as am I, very likely. I was very pleased, for instance, with the care and concern Biggles showed for the seals. Squirmed a bit about other aspects but that’s par for mid-century kids' books.

I enjoyed the very Sherlockian opening to the book, which completely escaped me as a nipper – two men wandering up and down the street, looking at the numbers of the houses before finding their way to the door; and, a little way into the scene, Biggles looking through newspaper articles to find the one he’s interested in. He pays a newspaper service to send him info about unexplained mysteries. I wonder if that’s where Johns got some of his own ideas from? And behold, the mystery they’re on the trail of this time originated in Melbourne, which made me prick up my ears; and Antarctica itself is described in terms which make it seem otherworldly to put it mildly. Compasses that twirl round and round madly. Skies that are green or purple, of which more anon.

Our heroes took much the same route to Antarctica as I did, once they’d reached South America, and ended up much further south, at the base of the Peninsula. The sea was open at that point, so it must have been late summer. Johns got the Weddell Sea Gyre right. He got so many things right that I began to wonder who he’d been talking to. Not many people had been so far south at this point – not since the days of the great sealing and whaling expeditions, and those were petering out by then. That bugged me until I read the following book.

Anyway, the adventure proceeds as any Biggles devotee would expect, but Biggles makes a massive mistake by sending everyone out to look for their quarry singly, which is odd, considering what a thing he’s made of the sheer weirdness of the place. The description of what they find had me reading at a frantic pace and gave me an awful shock – it’s horror at its best. Poor Ginger. And yet all is satisfactorily resolved, again as Johns’ readers expect, but in a satisfying and convincing way – and gives rise to Biggles’ immortal line, “I am an agent of the British Government.” Or some such, can’t remember it exactly. Eat your heart out, anyway, James Bond.

The skies, however, did my head in, because I couldn’t work out why they should be green or purple. Vivian Fuchs’ “Antarctic Adventure” published ten years later has no such pictures, and he specifically states that his pictures aren’t doctored to show unnatural colour. He was obviously pretty taken with the colours he saw. So I was stumped for a while. Then I read this book:

Natural History Museum, Antarctic Peninsula, A Visitor’s Guide, 2^nd ed 2019

This sorted out quite a few questions. The green sky is a result of a similar phenomenon to the tropical “green flash” – but at the Pole it’s prolonged to last for 24 hours or longer, due to the "simmer dim". Biggles and his pals never left the coast, so we never saw it in the novel. But the Weddell Gyre is spot on, as stated. I began to wonder how Johns managed to get so much detail into his book, and again found the answer here: there was a tiny British military presence there during WW2, code-named Operation Tabarin, and after the war its scientific work was taken over by the Falkland Islands Dependency Survey, later renamed the British Antarctic Survey. Also US Naval flights began in 1947 – aerial photography with a view to mapping the uncharted territory. No doubt Johns learned of these flights, maybe talked to someone from Operation Tabarin, and ran with the idea.

This little guide is enjoyable and informative in its own right. It’s a nice change to read a book on Antarctica which is a) focused on that particular area of the continent and b) not the size and weight of a paving-slab. I found an explanation for the linear clouds over the South Shetland Islands hyarrowen | Penguin Island, South Shetlands (dreamwidth.org) - they’re just wave-form clouds due to the tilting of the wind over the islands, not because of the geothermal activity in the Strait at all; and the weird solid clouds at the entrance to Wilhelmina Bay hyarrowen | Wilhelmina Bay 1 (dreamwidth.org) were diamond dust (small airborne ice particles) or graupel (larger particles) – not sure which because I didn’t know what to look for.

The book is oddly missing a map with an alphabetical legend of place-names, though on the last page it gives a website showing these – a bit late in my opinion – and there’s just one double-page map showing wildlife and nothing else on the subject at all. Nor is there anything on the plate tectonics of the region, which are lively and worthy of consideration. But it’s a pretty useful intro to the area, especially if you’re reading Biggles.

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Crested pigeon by my bird-bath!

Thu, 16 Mar 2023 23:44:06 GMT

I couldn't help but laugh out loud. Sorry, pigeon, but you look v.silly. Crested pigeon - Wikipedia They're dead common, but I haven't seen one in my garden before now, and no pic because my p[hone camera is so much more intelligent than I am.

I like the Australian pigeons. They're so much less destructive than the British pigeons. My favourite is the Peaceful Dove. Peaceful dove - Wikipedia Even its name is soothing.

In other news, the giant fruit bats, or flying foxes, are leaving the island in the local lake, and heading north to warmer climes. This is good. Nature is all very well, but there were too damn many of them, and they were doing a lot of damage in the Botanic Gardens.

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Journey's end

Sat, 11 Feb 2023 03:30:05 GMT

After one of the worst crossings of Drake Passage that the crew could remember, we made it back to Ushuaia in one piece. Most of the passengers spent the crossing in their cabins - the less said the better. I was on such a cocktail of drugs for my various ills that I was able to carry on as normal, apart from taking off from my bed once or twice or three times as we crested a particularly enormous wave. Ushuaia seemed very ordinary when we came back into port, though when we arrived there the first time it seemed like the ends of the Earth, which is what its inhabitants called it until a few decades ago.

Our ship was French-owned. Vive la France! And that's the Argentinian Andes in the background.

And finally, just to remind myself - here's me at Portal Point, surrounded by drums of Stuff. It's probably survival gear in case we got stuck on shore. I'm standing on Antarctica itself, and look at the depth of snow behind me, right at the edge of the continent. I'll never forget that day, nor indeed that entire holiday.

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Wilhelmina Bay 2

Fri, 10 Feb 2023 05:46:36 GMT

This one's on rather a tilt, sorry!

The ice in the Bay came in all sizes, from giant ice castles to tiny pancake ice; here's one of the bigger examples, with a Zodiac for scale, some distance in front of it though. I found this one rather intimidating because it had obviously rolled in the not-too-distant past, judging by the striations on it, so being up close to it was a bit worrying. The waters of the Bay were black and dark and deep - very likely thousands of feet deep, to judge from the surrounding mountains - and I get vertigo even when I'm on top of the water.

We saw a plume of snow go up from one of the glaciers dropping into the water as it calved; luckily the waves didn't reach us out in the middle of the water, nor did we hear anything. Distances are difficult to gauge when the air is so clear, and familiar landmarks are so lacking. Every now and then we'd catch distant glimpses of other Zodiacs looking like beetles among all the icebergs and piled snow on top of them.

That didn't stop me from enjoying the champagne we were given to drink to celebrate our last excursion, though I did blink a bit when the young lady who was driving our boat more or less disappeared over the blunt end to clear ice from the propellor on several occasions. Huge chunks of ice went drifting astern and the Zodiac started moving freely again... phew.

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Wilhelmina Bay 1

Thu, 09 Feb 2023 00:55:45 GMT

Apologies for the long delay, and for not replying to everyone's comments on the last couple of posts. I read and appreciated them all, but it's a case of replying to them or putting up a new picture. My CFS battery is too run down for them both.

This was our last afternoon in Antarctic waters. We were going to spend the time in another arm of the Bay, but another ship had got iced-in there (I find this hard to believe - maybe it was one/some of their Zodiacs?) So we high tailed it out of there and went to this arm of Wilhelmina Bay, which is off the Peninsula.

It was a strange journey to get there - we were, I think, sailing through freezing fog. It felt like a mixture of glacial ice and white-out weather to get there, most disconcerting, like nothing I've experienced before. This picture doesn't really convey it - it was higher than the ship, so you couldn't see anything but semi-solid white-out. Once we were in the waters of the Bay it cleared up and became very calm.

We all got into our Zodiacs and pottered about quietly without landing, feeling very insignificant.among the giant snowy landscapes. Some of the earlier boatloads saw a humpback whale. We didn't, but saw crab-eater seals, very pretty in their golden fur, on top of one iceberg, and a leopard seal, lounging on top of another and looking rather like its namesake for sheer lethal elegance.

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Post-exertional malaise is the pits

Fri, 03 Feb 2023 23:04:46 GMT

Thank-you to everyone for your good wishes, much appreciated!

So I'm hopeful I'm spelling correctly again, but am not up to resuming picspam. In a day or two, with luck. Not helped by the pharmacists, who... but folks with chronic illnesses will be all too familiar with my plaint.

But my wild trip out yesterday was worth it; I bought four nice shirts, which means I don't have to make any for years to come, and got an enlarged version of the Antarctic shoreline photo (plus frame) organised, and got rid of eight books at a charity shop! Five of them were given to me by friends who wanted rid of them and couldn't bring themselves to do the charity shop run in person... you know the dilemma... anyway, hopefully, they're on their way to new homes by now.

Also, I saw an emu on the back road to the next town. This doesn't happen very often., so I was really pleased. Couldn't stop to take a pic because I had an idiot on my tail, but still. An emu! And I also saw a whistling kite, or was it a marsh harrier, somewhere along the line. Or did I dream that? Either is perfectly possible in my current state. :/

Further birding note for regshoe : There's a spotted turtle-dove sheltering from the rain under my sun-lounger in the back garden. D'aww. This means that I can't sit up in the spare bedroom for fear of disturbing it - but it looks so comfortable!

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Taking a day off post

Fri, 03 Feb 2023 05:17:34 GMT

...due to being zonked. I drove to the next-but-one town and back. Now incapable of sensible thought. Might be back tomorrow.

Yay ME/CFS. /keels over gently

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Danco Island, South Shetlands

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 03:42:23 GMT

... I think. I was a bit hazy the morning after landing on the continent; I hadn't slept properly due to excitement and was up pounding the decks in broad daylight at 3.30am.( Which, incidentally, was the only time I saw other ships; they obviously time it very carefully so you get as complete a wilderness experience as possible.) So this is some unknown point at the northern end of the Peninsula, mid-morning, and just look at the weather! :D

I didn't go ashore, because I was done for. A shame, but there you go.

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Antarctic mainland

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 03:58:30 GMT

Scrambling ashore at Portal Point, you get an idea of how deep the snow is even at the very edge of the continent. This is at NW tip of the Peninsula. The sea was freezing over even as we were landing and there was a lot of tedious bumping around in the Zodiacs to keep the waterways open. Another ship got its boats iced in in Wilhelmina Bay which we visited the next day - but we were OK - just. We had to scramble ashore onto towels so as not to slip. All a bit scary because if you did slip it would have been curtains in a couple of minutes.

It was bloody cold once you got ashore and the katabatic winds were coming full tilt off the continent. The others dutifully climbed the little hill close by. Sue and I were like 'No bloody way' and stayed on the shoreline and just looked; we could see north, south and west and it was well worth looking around. tbh the pics from the top of the hill looked marvellous - undulating snowy hills with mountains in the background - but everyone says that doing even that short climb was a right pain in the wellies, and people were saying 'hurry up, hurry up,' quite why I don't know; they were all in lines like you see in pics of tourists going up Everest. Not for me!

Looking north from Portal Point. The granite hasn't come out quite pink enough. It was quite pretty.

That was quite a day. I had hot chocolate to celebrate when I got back on board.

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Penguin Island, South Shetlands

Tue, 31 Jan 2023 07:04:17 GMT

After rounding the southern cape of South Georgia, we left the northern edge of the Scotia Plate and cut across it to the south-west, in effect retracing the voyage of Shackleton and his men in their lifeboat but in the opposite direction. By avoiding the South Sandwich Islands at the eastern end of the plate, we avoided the most geologically active part of one of the liveliest areas of the Earth’s crust. I’m not sure whether to be glad or sorry about this. I mean, it would be interesting, no?

It took two days to reach our destination, the South Shetland Islands, just off the Antarctic Peninsula. We were travelling at about fifteen knots all the way. Shackleton and his men did this journey in sixteen days, presumably at about two knots. I absolutely take my hat off to them. It was pretty wild even in a small cruise ship.

The South Shetlands are separated from the Peninsula by a spreading ridge, under the Bransfield Strait, and just beyond them is a subduction zone. So they’re quite lively in themselves. We landed on the originally-named Penguin Island, which has a small dormant volcano, and colonies of Magellanic and Chinstrap penguins. There was time to climb the volcano or tramp along the bouldery beach to see the penguins. We didn't fancy clomping up a six hundred-foot volcano in wellies, so we visited the penguins instead. Chinstraps are particularly cute.

Somehow, I managed not to get my own pic of either the penguins or the volcano - the wind was fierce, and I had a lot of faith in the expedition photographer by then. But those are elephant seals lying on the beach, and that's Antarctica itself across the strait.

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Having a Busy Day today

Sun, 29 Jan 2023 23:49:06 GMT

...and thus, I'm taking a break from posting, commenting, etc etc etc. Manyy apologies. But if I attempted anything, I would only Get It Rong, or even worse, get today's business rong. Yay CFS.

I will hope to be back tomorrow!

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Grytviken, South Georgia

Sun, 29 Jan 2023 04:14:42 GMT

About halfway along the north coast of the island is Gritvyken, tucked into a sheltered bay with mountains at its back. Once a whaling station, it's now the administrative and research centre. This picture is taken on the path down from the graveyard where Shackleton is buried. Behind me, as well as the graveyard, is the route Shackleton and his companions took down the mountain from Stromness harbour, having already climbed the central spine of the island, after rowing for two weeks from Elephant Island... His death in 1922 is held to mark the end of the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration. It'd certainly be difficult to excel his feats.

The grass here is mostly introduced, as are the sedges, but you can see the tussac further up the mountain slopes. It isn't a great picture of the settlement but just to the right of the right-hand person's head in front of me is the spire of the little church where the young couple from our ship was getting married about this time - only the 22nd couple to do so!

It's a nice counterpoint to the graveyard behind us, and perhaps also to the elderly pair of tourists from another ship who died the next week off Antarctica itself. Their Zodiac overturned when hit broadside on by an unexpected wave. The circle of life, and all that... I can think of worse ways, and places, to go.

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King Penguins, Salisbury Plain, South Georgia

Sat, 28 Jan 2023 06:23:31 GMT

We sailed (steamed? not sure of the correct term) for a day along the northern edge of the Scotia Tectonic Plate, more of which anon, before reaching South Georgia. This is a scythe-shaped piece of mountainous land a hundred miles long, which geologically speaking is part of the Andes, honest, despite being much further from them than the Falklands. Here the King Penguins have their residence. mostly on Salisbury Plain, shown here. I didn't take a picture of the main colony because by then I was deeply uncomfortable. With runny nose, awkward hands encased in two pairs of gloves, and wellington boots which aren't the best for walking in, and snow on my glasses; I'm sure the explorers of the Heroic Age didn't let such things bother them but... Anyhow, here are just a few of the King Penguins.

I got much closer to some of them, to within a few metres, but didn't want to upset them by juggling with my phone, and anyway the expedition photographer had a much bigger camera than me. The river is glacial outwash and it's the biggest area of flat land on the entire island. You're not allowed to sit down anywhere once you've landed; TPTB are determined to stop the introduction and spread of non-native plants, having already eradicated non-native animals.

Where the ground is a bit drier you can see that it's covered with millions of tiny curled feathers from the moult. It must be very itchy being a penguin at times, and we were told it's quite a stressful time for them, which is one of many good reasons to give them their space. It wasn't the main season for chicks but I saw a few; also I saw some rather unexpected birds like teal and pipits to which I was like "Oh, yes," but they are, apparently, quite rare sightings.

My friend Sue was isolating with covid in her cabin all the time we were off South Georgia. But if there's a good place to have covid, it's in a comfortable little cruise ship off this island. For one thing, you don't have to decontaminate your clothes by vacuuming them when you get back on board.

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Gentoo penguins, Grave Cove, Falklands

Fri, 27 Jan 2023 05:56:51 GMT

I didn't realise in my gut quite how fast modern ships can travel, but I suppose 18th century ships weren't much slower. We did about 15 knots for a couple of hours and ended up at Grave Cove on West Falkland. Again we climbed over a saddle on a green island to a penguin rookery,

this time of Gentoo penguins.
Just as noisy as before, and a good deal smellier. Gentoos are big on poo, as you can see from the picture. They also like to steal each others' nest material and are quite blatant about this.

You can see the mist rolling in here. We landed and crossed the island, which is sheep-farming country, in brilliant sunshine, and came back across it forty minutes later in thick fog. This reminded me of many a hill-walking expedition in the UK.

Geological note: The Falklands are part of Africa, geologically speaking. I'd assumed they must be over a hotspot, but no. Plate tectonics are *wild.*

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Antarctica pictures 1: New Island, Falklands

Thu, 26 Jan 2023 05:49:31 GMT

Finally, I'm getting round to posting the pictures of the trip! Just a couple of months later than I'd hoped due to dear old ME/CFS. It'll take me too long to do a picspam in one day, so I'll post a picture every day for a week or so. tbh it'll probably take about the same length of time for them all to appear.

This is a small island in the Falklands, one of two that we landed on. We zoomed ashore in the Zodiac inflatables in brilliant sunshine, feeling very intrepid - it was our very first landing and we were a bit nervous, though we'd been fully briefed during the day it took us to travel out from Ushuaia at Cape Horn. As it turned out, you couldn't have wished for a better landing - jewelled blue seas, white sands, meadows cropped close by the geese which were completely unafraid of all those tourists...

We climbed the saddle of the island to the Rockhopper rookery, which was like a Cornish cove, high and steep, except for the hundreds of penguins and the occasional cruising albatross.

The noise was ear-splitting and it was all great fun - unless you were a baby penguin, in which case it was a case of watch out for the albatrosses. We stayed for about half an hour and then the fog rolled in, and we all made our way back to the beach. Downhill all the way, much to everyone's relief.

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Apologies for the long silence

Sun, 08 Jan 2023 09:11:34 GMT

I will try to get the Antarctica photos up soon. Chronic fatigue syndrome held off after I got home, but after two short breaks with friends I crashed like a felled tree each time, so have been lying very low since before Christmas.

The good news is that I've been reading again! Mostly of the Georgette Heyer/Mary Stewart/Biggles/Miss Read variety, ie stuff I already know well, but hey, it's a start.

Books sold second-hand last year: approx 20, go me! Look at that lovely gap on my bookshelves!

Books bought second-hand: approx 15. Not bad.

Books binned: approx 20. This is what a couple of decades in bookselling can do to you. You get very ruthless.

New Year's resolution, slightly late, might even count as an epiphany: Put myself first. See above notes on crashing like a felled tree. However, my friends' chooks, dogs, cat and budgies, and the friends themselves, were well worth it!

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