My father, bless him, who taught me to sail, was a naval pilot in WW2. He told me the story of one of his Captains, who was a respected horse breeder in his spare time, and who was writing his annual flimsies – reports on the conduct and efficiency of his officers, written on very thin ‘flimsy’ paper. Of one particular officer, he felt it appropriate to write, copied to the officer and the Admiralty : ‘I would not breed from this man.’ Only bettered, I think, by Dorothy Parker and ‘No Leica.’
To all my three Consultant Physicians – DRs. Jasper, Dr. Pete and Dr. Steve, – your potions and elixirs have matured superbly. It is a shame you are not all here to sample – and therefore perhaps evolve and improve – your offerings. However, emphatically, I would breed from you all!
Now – to the smelly, daggy stuff – mostly for Belmore South. Do we wash? – no. Do we smell? maybe, but you wouldn’t notice if you lived here. I have been wearing the same two shirts since we left Sydney – I rinse one in salt water every couple of days and squeeze it out carefully while wearing the other. Unlike McQ, I don’t wear knickers because they do dreadful things to my bum when salty. Just the same two pairs of shorts, rinsed likewise. I shave every three or four days and my whiskers have almost stopped growing. The bum gets treated daily with Savlon and, when sore, as now, with Betadine and I’m being rather careful to sit on it only when essential. We sweat rivers – Niagaras – especially here inside the Cone – and we drink lots of water. I pee into a plastic bucket, (instead of the energy sapping alternative of actually fighting my way forward, opening the two toilet valves, going through the process of pumping out and flushing and closing the valves again) so I can actually look at and assess the colour of my pee. Really useful as an indicator of general health and hydration level – if it looks pale and straw coloured, it’s perfect for Sydney, but I’m drinking too much water for out here (or perhaps better expressed as drinking far more water than necessary for survival out here). If it looks dark golden, it’s about right. I don’t do supplementary vitamins, so no odd variables there.
Hope all that’s useful!
The logs ramblings can be cryptic, so we have added: