I am hanging out with the two Royal Navy guys one is a pilot and the other an observer. The title is a new saying I learnt from them it means something is very rare!

Well I am being given some rare opportunities down here that people would pay 1,000’s for. Yesterday and today we were doing what BAS calls jingle janglies.

Yesterday started with a 5km row on the rowing machine followed by an hour dissecting the field medical box with the Dr. The box has lots of great things in it and also going back over first aid stuff we learnt at conference including how to put a needle in someones chest cavity to sort out a collapsed lung and also injections concentrating on how to used powdered antibiotics.

The morning was spent learning how to use flares, vhf’s (a bit boring for me) and then how to use a tilley lamp and primus stove. You cook in the pyramid tents and have to know how to get the right time of flame so you don’t die from carbon monoxide poisoning. There are monitors for the CO in the tents so you don’t have to guess whether you are about to pass out or not.

We also received our P-rolls which are the bed rolls which go into the field. They are foam carry mats with a thermorest then a sheepskin then a -40 sleeping bag which has a fire retardent cover you put on top and then if you want more warmth a thick fleece liner. They are really warm and weigh around 30lbs so it is necessary to ‘car camp’ with these.

We packed all the gear into the skidoos and the snow cat and headed up the ‘Ramp’ to Vals which is a ski area 5km from base. There is a porta cabin on skis up there with a stove etc which you can go to for the weekends and this is also where the field training occurs. The picture up top is of our 3 tents after we pitched them. It takes a long time to pitch one of the pyramid tents properly. You have to dig a 4 meter by 4 meter square hole in the snow that is a shovel height deep orientated to the wind properly. You make this level and then dig a hole for each corner of the tent. So basically a lot of digging is involved.

We cooked our ‘manfood’ in the tent. Which is freeze dried meals from 2002! I am glad I am based on the base as the guys right now that are going into the deep field are going to be out for 60 to 90 days eating that stuff! We made an effort in Claire and I’s tent though and had a 5 course meal that wasn’t that bad. We started with ready salted crisps then ministrone soup and a main course of pasta carbonara. The palette cleanser was a orange granitta – snow with orange powdered drink! It takes a while to melt the snow to get water but there is an endless supply of snow to cool the drinks! After the orange granitta we had fruit crumble and custard. The crumble was fruit biscuits with custard on top.

We finally got to sleep in the broad day light of 11:30pm! The tent was very warm. Will right more tomorrow. Too much to do. Adam wants to go skiing and my legs hurt from too much mountaineering involving learning ice axe arrest!