Counting down . . .

I woke up planning on today being about getting gear and finishing off a paper at work, but it turned out to be a lot busier than that.

The University Press Office and the Smith School, where I work, have been working on getting some coverage of the expedition and the calls have all come through this morning.  Before leaving home, I had a newspaper interview and another meeting for later, plus radio and TV interviews for tomorrow!

I did a phone interview with the Oxford Mail and arranged for a photographer to meet me later at the office.  For this, the suggestion was to wear my Antarctic gear – which I hadn’t bought yet.  For about a week I’ve been telling people, “Yeah, it’s been pretty busy; I still need to get my gear.”  Well, it’s the day before I leave, so no time like the present.

I was a bit worried about the prospects of shops selling Antarctic-worthy gear here in England, but a friend told me about a good place just outside town.  Glancing at the long list of gear we were sent by the expedition coordinators, I steeled myself as I entered the store for the financial pain that would result.  As I’ve learned, trying to skimp on appropriate clothing is a false economy.

If there was any doubt that what I’d just bought would be warm enough, a quick test was soon at hand.  I got back to the office and met with the photographer from the Oxford Mail.  His suggestion was to put on all my gear to lend an air of authenticity to the story tagline.  The only things I left off were my boots, rucksack, and ski goggles – and those only because we needed them as props to put on a table in front of me.  A half-hour of takes from all angles reassured me that I would, indeed, be warm enough in Antarctica.

And now for the biggest task of the day:  cleaning up my room for the TV crew coming tomorrow.  They want to do an interview with me as I do my final packing – and as I told them, this won’t have to be staged like the photo shoot today; I actually will be doing my packing just before I head to the airport.  But if I thought my room was a bit too messy to have friends over at the moment, imagine having a TV crew show it to half of southern England!