Happy New Year one and all, from this warm and hospitable tent in the wilds of Nodtvedt Nunataks! Yes, we have rime and ice build up on our tent, but it’s still our home for the season. We all hope you have a wonderful start to 2018, and that it’s a fulfilling year.
We’ve just had the knock on the tent side from John to inform us that the weather is still dubious. The plan is to go out and search around lunch time, if the conditions allow us to.
It’s 7.20 am here, so most of you reading from Europe or the American continent will still be waiting to see in the New Year.
I’ve been awake for about an hour, mulling over some of the poetry of Robert Service that we read last night.
The final words of the poem ‘The Quitter’ are those that inspired the explorer Mawson to climb out of the crevasse he found himself in, after losing his two human traveling companions to this continent.
Unluckily for you, and with Ioannis’ encouragement, this has inspired me to write a poem of my own. I wrote a blog about Tent Day mornings, and I plan to write one or two about Tent Day afternoon and evening too. Today, however, the first of January 2018, is about creativity. I hope this inspires you to be more creative than I can be!
Incidentally, my mother, Gill enjoys writing rhymes and poetry. I hope that this would be one you would be happy with, mum!

The title of the poem is ‘The Searchers’

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Way down in the south, where nothing else roams, Stand three tents on the ice, golden statues of stone.
Within are four guys, come to search the unknown, Eking a living out of frozen boxes from home.
Where do they come from and why perservere? To search for space rocks that might reveal why we’re here.
But nothing is certain, nothing is known, For the weather it howls and the wind it does groan.
In the frigid cold air stands wily old John, Thirty-six seasons of cold, yet still he comes home.
He watches the sky, the clouds and the snow, Can we search? Should we stay? He looks and he knows.
In the tents lie Scott from the north, and Ioannis from Greece, Both new to this place, but they enjoy none the least.
Despite the cold, the wind and the pain, Antarctica grips you, you see, there’s nothing so plain.
What’s the allure, what’s the spell, of this place that’s so white and so cold, yet so swell?
Perhaps the sastrugi, the light, and the way it plays on the ice, or the Skidoos and tracks that they leave in a trice.
Perhaps it’s the meteorites, or the freezing cold air, Whatever it is, why ever we came, Antarctica’s grip reigns you once over again.
The last of the four, I sit and I write, looking for meteorites, well that’s alright! Awake in the tent, waiting to see, if the Antarctic will unlock its secrets to me.
Now, as you read this, in front of the fire, Beware, this place holds some despair and requires, Patience and stoicism, and slow deliberate respire.
The time in the tent is time not on the ice, finding the stones that keep science alight.
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Posted by James at 8 am on 1 Jan 2018, from Nodtvedt Nunataks, Antarctica.