Considering I died on Monday I’m not feeling too bad. The cause of my death was hypothermia – a slow way to go, but relatively painless. My brain slowly cooled causing me to become passive and disorientated. Finally I drifted into unconsciousness and death.
But although the method of my death wasn’t too bad, the reason for my death was really annoying. We (my team and I) forgot our stoves, which meant we couldn’t melt snow, which meant we couldn’t cook food and, as we’re in Antarctica, that very quickly led to us expiring.
Luckily it was all a rehearsal and the deaths of the entire team have been forgiven by the expedition leader, Steve. We were actually on a training expedition in the Lake District, practising camp craft and movement on ice. It didn’t go well. One of the team turned up in the wrong boots, we had packed far too much stuff, we forgot our stoves and – once we had retrieved the stoves – we produced a foot-high flame rather than an inch-high flame. This would have burned the tents down had we been in them.
If it was report time, ours would read something like this:
“The four teachers taking part on the Fuchs Foundation 2007 Antarctic Expedition show massive potential for improvement. They currently lack many abilities. However, if they learn from their mistakes, their time in lessons will be very productive.”
