This week at Casey there’s been no work that particularly marks the week from any other, although you will see from Nick’s report below that that the Red Shed project is cracking along with plans for us to be celebrating Midwinter’s Day on the new first floor and in the new bar. Oh, and the Brew Team marked their 10,000th bottle… don’t panic, we’re not drinking that much but recovering from a very busy summer and stocking up for another.
But I wouldn’t say that it’s ‘groundhog day'; how could it be when we have a sunrise that merges into a sunset for three hours each day? Unlike Davis or Mawson we do have the sun still (even at midwinter we will have two hours of sunlight), but it just really pops up over the horizon to the south-east and then travels along shining glorious light on the distant icebergs and creating beautiful rainbows in the diamond dust, and then pops down in the north-east. So much for the sun setting in the west! Not down here in winter!
Many of us have taken to having our cameras constantly at work, ready on a tripod to drag out onto the front porch, when another unmissable shot shines through our window. The incredible beauty of this long sunset (or sunrise) makes the long hours of dark all worthwhile. And maybe we all worship the sun that little bit more because of the darkness.
It’s funny how little points in the weekly schedule quickly become habit and something to look forward to. Many on station are reliving the trials and tribulations of the TV series Game of Thrones, re-watching from series one three episodes each Wednesday night. It’s something to look forward to on hump day as we enjoy seeing the reactions to another key character’s death on the faces of those who haven’t watched before. We're up to series four already, and we’re not sure what we’ll do with our Wednesday nights when it’s all finished (suggestions welcome).
And then there’s the quiz: our daily efforts on The Australian newspaper’s mind games quiz. Read out with much delight at smoko each day, often with much laughter at the pronunciation of some of the names, it’s frequently pushed onto someone else as the person closest to the iPad doesn’t want to have to deal with said pronunciation. We battle with the trivia author to try and ensure our score is at least five out of 10. What joy on the one day so far when we’ve managed 10 out of 10 (photo ensued as proof)! We’re quite happy when we get a very worthy eight.
We all look to Catz our doctor whenever there’s a medical question. She panics slightly until proven correct! Troy is our resident know-it-all (but in a nice way), but especially for geography and history we look to him. Dom gets called from the kitchen whenever there’s a foodie question and we look to those who might be a little older on station (names not supplied) when there’s a mid-century political or musical answer required. Two dogs is our modern music go to, George is our quiet cultured dude, and Shane the Mann is the champion of the eeny-meeny-miny-mo when we have absolutely no idea of the answer (he has a surprisingly high success rate). We’ve all fit into our little place on station and never is it more evident than at the smoko daily quiz.
Now, if only there was a question about Game of Thrones!
Rebecca, Casey Station Leader
