Making It Up as I Go Along Read online

  There’s a collection of massive metal drums that look like that famous museum in Bilbao that was designed by Frank Gehry.

  Himself is palpably uneasy: ‘It’s all a bit post-apocalyptic. It’s like one of those dystopian books you love so much.’

  Really, I’m begging someone out there to make a ten-part series about a post-apocalyptic world, set here. And if it could be in Swedish or Danish or Norwegian, so much the better.

  There aren’t many penguins on this part of the island. We pass a group of four, deep in earnest conversation. Abruptly, three of them waddle into the boiling sea for a swim, but the fourth stands stubbornly on the beach. One of the penguins gets back out of the water and seems to be reasoning with the one who won’t get in. ‘Would you not give it a go?’ he seems to be saying. ‘Ah, go on, you’re making the other lads feel bad.’

  But the fourth fella says, ‘No. Don’t be “at” me. I’m just not in the form right now, I’ll stay where I am, thanks.’

  ‘Well, feck you anyway,’ says the third one, ‘you’re after ruining it for all of us.’ And off the third one goes.

  The Asian hipsters are wearing wonderful things. Even their waterproof trousers aren’t boring black ones, like everyone else’s, but blue, red and green. Also, they are garlanded with many ‘items of flair’, for example Securicor-glasses has an ‘ironic’ little black cuddly dog hanging from the zip of his rucksack.

  Sideshow Bob is lying on the snow on his belly, taking an up-close photo of something, and I said, ‘There he is, instagramming the living daylights out of a rock.’ And Himself said, ‘Instagram? Not at all! He’s on some new, fabulous social-media thing that we won’t hear about until next July.’

  7 p.m.

  We try hard, for once, to not be the first people down for dinner. But alas … Mind you, we are not alone. It’s a stampede.

  We notice that the lone Asian young man has been co-opted by the three Asian hipsters! I tell you, it would gladden your heart! There they all are, the three hipsters and the very ordinary-looking other bloke, all chatting and laughing away in their shared quare foreign tongue.

  The expression on the ordinary-looking bloke’s face is a delight! He is lit up like a Christmas tree, and you can tell that he’s thinking to himself, ‘I can’t believe these hipsters have befriended me. I am so lucky! I wonder if they’ll still be my friends when we get home to Japan/Korea/maybe Taiwan?’

  I’m going to give you a quick example of what a day on board looks like. Please bear in mind, the times are all approximate.

  7.30: Awoken by the bing-bongs for an excellent buffet breakfast.

  9.30: You put on all your weatherproof clothes and go off in the Zodiac to land on an island with penguins or seals or other lovely things.

  12.30: Lungeon back on the ship.

  14.30: Another expedition off the ship.

  16.30: Tea and cake served in the bar.

  18.30: A recap of the day and a ‘first look’ at the plans for tomorrow. Also hot savoury snacks served.

  19.00: A magnificent four-course dinner.

  After dinner there is sometimes a talk on ‘Bayshtes of the Antarctics’. Or similar. Also there is a film on your telly in your cabin.

  Just an observation: people are very prompt for mealtimes, and the snacks with the 18.30 debrief prove particularly popular.

  DAY EIGHT

  Mainland Antarctica!

  I ‘take agin’ Argentina!

  7.30 a.m.

  It’s snowy and blizzardy when we wake up. We’ve been lucky with the weather until now, but not so much today. I elect to opt out of this morning’s excursion because I have to wash my hair and I haven’t the energy to do both. You’d think the bracing cold would make you more alert and full of vim, but actually it’s the opposite. The extra effort the body has to make to not succumb to hypothermia makes people chronically tired.

  Even the protective clothing is exhausting because it’s so heavy; the neoprene boots each weigh about a stone, so taking a single step is knackering.

  So anyway, under the best of circumstances, washing my hair is a major operation, but harder here because although the shower is sometimes hot or sometimes perishing, whichever flavour you get, you only get a thin trickle. (This is the only non-de-luxe bit of the trip, the rest is fantastic and really cushy.) I am too cold to take all my clothes off, so I wash my hair standing in my neoprene wellingtons and my togs.

  11.50 a.m.

  Himself returns with photographs of baby penguins hatching from their eggs and I am sickened with jealousy and regret that I stayed home and washed my hair.

  12.30 p.m.

  The bing-bong announces lunch and we break into a run, colliding with everyone else in the doorway to the dining room. We take our lungeon with a delightful couple of newly-weds and no one asks what anyone ‘does’.

  2.20 p.m.

  We sail into Paradise Bay and the snow has stopped and the sun has come out. Once again, the landscape and colours are different from anything we’ve already seen. The sea is like diamonds which have been melted down, all silver-grey and crystalline, almost syrupy, like water that sugar has been dissolved in. There are lots and lots of icebergs; maybe it’s the melting snow that’s giving the water such gloopiness.

  Suddenly a ghostly ship appears out of nowhere; it’s entirely dark brown, just like a shadow. It’s not like a modern ship, but like one from Pirates of the Caribbean, in that it has three rigs for sails, which is mandatory for any ghost ship, no? I have to check with Himself that I’m not hallucinating it.

  He confirms that he does indeed see it and says that there’s an Argentinian military base near here, and we conclude the ghostly ship has something to do with them.

  2.30 p.m.

  An announcement! The Argentines will not let us land! Feckers! We are standing by, sweltering in our eighteen layers of clothing, awaiting further instructions.

  Another announcement! The Argentines definitely won’t let us land! Plan B: we are to go out in the little Zodiac boats for a mini-cruise.

  I shake my fist at the Argentine ghost-ship and shout, ‘I have TAKEN AGIN you!’

  2.45 p.m.

  Himself and I have a conversation where we do the Irish version of whatever the Argentines said when they wouldn’t let us land. ‘A ship, you say? And you want to land here? Yes, but I don’t know if I’d be let. I mean, it’s against regulations. I’m sorry now, I am. We’re all sorry, but it’s more than our job is worth. I’d better go now because myself and the lads have a lie-down every afternoon between 2.30 and 5 p.m. Dead to the world we are. We notice nothing. Nothing at all. Well, good luck now and enjoy your trip and you didn’t hear any of this from me.’

  3.15 p.m.

  As we board the little Zodiac for our mini-cruise, a man, a US person, is complaining bitterly about what cheeky bastards the Argentine military are, and I look at him and unwelcome words come into my mouth, looking for escape: ‘No, indeed, it is not like your military ever behave in a high-handed fashion!’ But I suck my tongue and suck my tongue and swallow down the thoughts and eventually the words go away.

  3.30 p.m.

  The sun has come out and we’re on a huge silver lake, in the centre of a circle of radiant white mountains. The water is dazzling and shiny and very still, like a flyblown mirror (but in a nice way). Icebergs, like frozen waves, break the surface. These are some of the shapes I see: a giant crocodile; a helter-skelter; the starship Enterprise; a Mr Whippy ice cream; a comb going through curly hair; the royal palace in Lhasa; a jet ski; t
he back end of a whale; a brain; a giant anvil and a white Crunchie. Some of the icebergs are white, but others are a luminous blue colour, as if they’ve got LEDs built into them.

  At times I feel as if I’m in a huge modern sculpture museum with giant sculptures made of white glass or white marble.

  We’re on the same level as the water, which makes everything shockingly immediate. I could jump off the boat and sail away on an iceberg if I wanted.

  Every now and then there are deep boomy noises like thunder – ice avalanches. Then we actually see one happening – a huge chunk of ice tears away from the rest of the glacier and topples into the water – and we’re told to brace ourselves for a massive wave and I am really, really worried that I will get Water in My Bad Ear (I have the ‘Keyes Ear’, and at all costs must avoid getting Water in My Bad Ear). Mercifully the wave doesn’t make it as far as our little boat and my ear is saved.

  6.23 p.m.

  We leave our cabin for the daily debrief. We are seven minutes early but I’m thinking of the snacks that are served – lovely things like you get in Marks & Spencer at Christmas time, for example cocktail sausages and mini-onion bhajis and spring rolls – and I really want to be at the head of the queue.

  6.24 p.m.

  There are already sixty people ahead of us. ‘Honestly,’ I say, in tones most judgemental, ‘you’d swear no one ever got fed around here.’

  7.03 p.m.

  I formally withdraw my grudge agin Argentina. Life is too long.

  8.16 p.m.

  Himself’s face is bright red – he’s after getting sunburnt! In Antarctica! I give him a stern talking-to about using sun protection. Tell me, what is the problem with mens and sun factor? They behave as though it is a girly affectation and a sign of weakness.

  9 p.m.

  Himself leaves for his overnight outdoor camping on the Antarctic ice shelf. I was meant to be going – before I’d left home, I’d signed up for it and already had my boasting prepared. ‘Oh yaze, well, I camped outdoors in the Antarctic. Cold? Oh yaze, shockingly! I thought I would die. But I reached deep inside myself and found the inner strength.’

  But yesterday the preparatory talk put THE FEAR OF GOD in me!

  Dave the guide said several things that made me reconsider:

  1) There would be no coming back to the ship, no matter what. If a person changed their mind and found it too cold and windy and life-threatening, that was TOUGH! No one was going home till morning.

  2) The temperatures would go down to minus 10, maybe minus 15.

  3) It would be better if you had no wees to make, as to do so you would have to get out of your sleeping bag and put on your hefty boots and four layers of trouser and several protective jackets and walk ‘some distance’ on the ice and through the snow and wind to find a makeshift jacks. Seeing as I generally have to get up about twelve times a night, this is a worry.

  4) The important thing was to try to stay warm, but this would be very difficult.

  Then Kevin the guide came on to give his advice and he said, ‘The important thing is to try to stay warm, but this will be very difficult. Some people dig trenches down into the ice, but if you do that, please fill the hole in when you leave. Try not to drink anything at all tomorrow because it would be better if you did not have to get up in the night to make your wees because you could get cold, and the important thing, the really important thing, is to stay warm and this will be very difficult.’

  Then Dave the guide came back and said, ‘One more thing: the most important thing is to stay warm, but this will be very difficult.’

  Then Kevin the guide came back and said, ‘One more thing. You could be ett by a tiger seal in the middle of the night. Finally! Stay warm! But it will be very difficult!’

  So it is sad, but I will not be able to swagger about in boasty fashion, bragging of my icy endurance.

  DAY NINE

  6.30 a.m.

  Himself is returned to me after his night camping on the ice. He says that the group was composed almost entirely of mens whose wifes had intended also doing the camping but changed their mind after the scary talk from Dave and Kevin. Apparently the wees-makingness was a big deterrent.

  So anyway, Himself found a sheltered spot and created a little ice wall up around his sleeping bag. But there is a young man among the passengers, from a snowy Scandinavian country – we will call him ‘Rolf from Sweden’ to protect his identity – and Himself says that Rolf got a hold of the shovel and, in a blur of activity, dug a hole about six feet into the ground, and people were slagging him for digging his own grave, and Rolf took it well and said he needed to do a bit of exercise. Then Rolf dug a tunnel connecting his little icy home to the centre of the camp (where the makeshift jacks was). Then he started digging branch-lines to connect all the other sleeping bags to the centre of the camp. Then the shovel had to be taken off him. ‘Calm down, Rolf, calm down, or we’ll have to send you back to the ship.’

  General information that I want to tell you but isn’t connected with any particular time of the day

  There is tons of food and everyone is sleepy a lot of the time and we’re all strangely passive. We get up when we’re told and eat when we’re told and go to briefings when we’re told and it’s all really nice. I’m feeling quite well in the head. I’m tired more than usual and finding it easier than usual to sleep, but I don’t feel in the horrors, far from it.

  We were told at the start of the cruise that every day we’d be dealing with sensory overload, and it’s true. It’s just too mad to look out of the window and see a three-mile-high snowy Everest-lookalike looming in at you. There’s probably a point where my brain thinks, ‘Right, that’s enough of all this unbelievable stuff, let’s go into cocoon-mode and stay safe.’

  Another thing that’s nice is that the mood on the ship is deeply unglamorous – no one dresses up or even combs their hair. It’s days since I’ve bothered with make-up. It’s all about keeping warm.

  2.30 p.m.

  We’re due to make landfall at a little place called Port Lockroy. But the wind, as the ship approaches, is at fifty knots (I don’t really know what that means, but the ship is leaning on its side, if that helps). And, oh my God, Port Lockroy hits a new level of bleak! It’s a tiny, grey, wind-scalped rock with a black Nissen hut perched on it. Apparently four people live there (doing some sort of scientific work, I don’t mean like normal living) but they’ve no fresh water, so they’ve no washing facilities, so they have to wait until a friendly ship comes to visit and lets them on board.

  This is where we were due to post our postcards and get our passports stamped, but we’ve just been told that the winds are too high for us to make anchor. However, the scout Zodiac has whipped over to the island and brought one of the people back to talk to us.

  Also, we’ve been told that we’ll wait it out for a while and see if conditions change for the better. I’m going to try to put into words how absolutely incredible the guides on this ship are. They’re very safety conscious, which is a comfort, but they’re unbelievably innovative and resourceful and manage to adapt to extreme and constantly changing weather conditions and do their utmost to make sure we get the best possible experiences. Also, they’re constantly cheery, upbeat, informative and funny.

  4.03 p.m.

  The wind has dropped enough for us to be let over to Port Lockroy, and over we go in the nippy little Zodiac!

  On the island, there are gentoo penguins everywhere, in every crag and on every rock, and there are many newly hatched chicks, being fed by their mammies. I di
e! ATYPS (as the young people say).

  Also, there is a gift shop! And post office! And museum!

  And the best bit about the museum is that it isn’t like a museum (i.e. dull but worthy) but like an Antarctic house from the ‘olden days’, maybe sixty years ago. There’s a kitchen with – what’s that word for little red-and-white squares? Gingham! Yes, gingham. Yes, gingham curtains.

  And cupboards full of tinned food, for examples sardines and Spam and other foulery. Also powdered stuff, for examples custard and blancmange! (Blancmange! Let’s start a campaign for its return.) There’s a range, and airing above it are long johns knitted in really, really thick, very itchy-looking wool. There’s a (perishing cold) sitting room, a radio room, a washroom and a bedroom with very narrow bunks and – yes! – with pictures painted on the walls of ladies with extremely large knockers!

  In the post office, we post our post cards and purchase souvenirs.

  6.19 p.m.

  Back at the ship. Himself has just looked over my shoulder to see what I’m doing and said in a portentous voice, ‘Day 9, and the penguins were getting restless …’

  7.36 p.m.

  At dinner, Himself is staring at another table for ages. Then he says, ‘Has your man done something to his hair …?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The ordinary-looking Asian lad. The one with the hipsters.’

  I take a look. He is right. The ordinary-looking lad’s hair has a definite ‘coiffed’ air to it.

  Also … we say it together, ‘He’s wearing a lumberjack shirt!’

  8.04 p.m.

  Himself says he has a confession to make. ‘I’ve never done it before,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what came over me and I’m certain it was just a one-off, but …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘… but …’

  ‘TELL ME, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!’

  ‘Today … I … looked in a bird book …’