The M&G ISA CHALLENGE extends to all readers of their new Progress Report page a warm welcome from the cool climes of southern Chile. The knowledge that there are readers out there following our progress towards the South Pole will be of great encouragement and comfort to all of us on the team.

Through these pages we will try to pass on informative and educational news gleaned from the meteorological, biological and physiological data we shall be collecting but also to convey the awesome beauty and might of Antarctica. We will be sharing with you our adventures and misadventures, experiences both out on the ice and within our tent, good times, bad times and bad hair days etc.

A brief review of the starring roles:

Ann Daniels: Mother of triplets, (and they don't mind coz they get to have Christmas twice.) Duties include the upkeep of the dry log, navigation, cooking the evening meal, stoves, fuel and helping to melt snow bricks for water.

Caroline Hamilton: Expedition leader... very, very clever, very, very eccentric. Responsibilities include photography, navigation (in and out of the tent), writing the book on our expedition and of course all the responsibilites assumed with being boss, not least of all snow-shovelling.

Zoe 'I speak my mind' Hudson: Our Yorkshire contender takes nonsense from nawt, is a chartered physiotherapist and thus in charge of the biological and physiological research, as well as the 'Blue Peter' Department (i.e. kit and techno) plus batteries and communications (BT Iridium and Argos). Worth staying nice to, in charge of first aid including dental fillings. Not above snow-shovelling duties.

Pom Oliver: Brave enough not to have cold feet over getting icy hands in taking on filming responsibilities. Other duties include preparing breakfast, monitoring food rations and snow-melting just to inflict further hardship on her hands. Vital role in anchoring the tent when making and breaking camp - if she blows away it will help give the meteorological department a good idea of wind speed.

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Rosie Stancer: Rosebud, finds herself a long way from the shops of London's Sloane Street and will be hurrying along to the South Pole to check out whether there is anything she can buy there. In control (as much as she ever is) of all meteorological matters, (a rather cold and lonesome task), snow-shovelling, interior photography, expedition cartoonist, website writer and washer-upper despite lack of training.


PROGRESS TO DATE - Lesson Number One

Antarctica is teaching us our first lesson. Patience.

It might not have escaped readers' attention that since our arrival in Punta Arenas, progress has been limited to runs to the seafront and to date the only expeditions undertaken have been those to the corner cafe.

It has not taken long to recognise who is in charge down here and afterall, who's going to argue with the weather gods? Or the local pilots. The former have been blowing their damnedest, so rather than blowing our own tops, we´re staying ice-cool over the 20 day (to date) delay. (Putting commercial flight delays owing to 'missed slots' into a low blood pressure group.)

So whilst 'progress report' could be verging on an oxymoron, we are pleased with the use we are making of this bonus time...

- Unpacking and sorting. We flew with more luggage than Joan Collins - 18 boxes (not Louis Vuitton), plus a further 22 in freight. Miraculously, the circus arrived with all luggage and boxes intact and the only loss was one of humour on the part of our Punta Arenas hotel landlord. 40 boxes takes some sorting.

- Honing down pulk weights. All expedition equipment, kit, clothing and food (including 350 Mars Bars!) has to be weighed to the last gram and distributed amongst our five pulks (polar term for the fibreglass sledges which we are to pull). Fuel will be added later. With our surplus time we have honed down our respective pulk weights to 135 kilos. Pencils have been snapped in half, wrappings removed from every item, spare clothes kept to an absolute minimum and personal items kept to a weight ration of not more than 17 grams. What did we each finally select as our personal luxury within that weight limit?
Ann: a miniature of perfume
Caroline: a pair of nail-scissors
Zoe: nawt
Pom: tapestry
Rosie: a sheet of Shackleton poetry to memorise (and a pair of earplugs if you have to know)

- Pulling one's weight. Weight-training and running remain a feature of our lives until departure.

- Putting on weight. Punta Arenas could be seen as an ideal pre-expedition fattening up pen. It´s vital to keep piling on those excess pounds which will disappear all too rapidly once in Antarctica. This is not overly challenging with the diversity of the local culinary diet - chips, chips, chips, pizza, chips, chips chips.

- Blue Peter activities. Kit modifications and clothing alterations (e.g. adding large loops to the end of all zips for easy undoing and doing up with mits on, adding extra insulation layers to soles of boots)

- Safety drilling. No presumptions about our flawless safety and rescue routines. There's no harm in fine-tuning until swifter than Schumaker's pit stops.

- Brainstorming sessions on fund-raising ideas for our charity, Special Olympics.

Other rather more extra-curricular activities have included appearances in both the local newspaper and on television. The latter involved a popular Chilean live Saturday night show and an interview by a most lively and very suave Chilean called Flavia. It was conducted entirely in Spanish which none of us speak. Caroline however, caught the jist of his question on the marital status of the team, and, being single, seized the initiative and, looking the camera in the eye, made a most moving national appeal for "hombres, hombres, hombres". Despite having to move hotel the ensuing morning, it is none-the-less quite pleasing to be recognised about town now in our dapper red Marks and Spencer jackets. It's good to feel you have left an impression.

And leaving is precisely what we hope to be doing imminently.... Our next progress report should be reaching you from the Antarctic continent via our BT Iridium telephone.

Once the 'scramble' call is put out and we take off in the Hercules, we will be thinking of all our families, friends, hombres and sponsors who have, by way of their own support, become part of the M&G ISA Polar Challenge team. They shall all be in our heads and hearts. And as we land on the ice-strip at Patriot Hills, so too will our hearts be in our mouths.

We will be staying in touch.
THE M&G ISA GIRLS.

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