cuddly gentoos

We have been overrun with thousands more gentoos! but they are quite manageable and are resting in boxes at the moment. They are soft and furry and about 6 inches high with Port Lockroy written on their tummies. We had a visit at long last from HMS Endurance, who had left the UK in November with more supplies for us on board, more leaflets, more shopping bags, more propane cylinders (hooray, we'd been eking out the one we had, trying not to put the fire on too often). And they brought us the cuddly gentoos that had missed the boat and were not ready to come down with us in October. We have spread them around the shop, in every nook and cranny, as advised by last year's postmistressing staff. They look lovely! and at least they'll be here for next season - I doubt we'll sell them all in the last few weeks.
Yes, and we really are on the home straight now, less than 5 weeks to go, only a month - and I can't imagine how we will get everything done that needs doing before we go. The last mail will go to Stanley on the 26th of this month, along with all the gear we picked up on the way down - oh but if we send the cancels back then how do we frank the mail for the last two weeks? hmm, and I ordered more stamps under the assumption that we will need them for the last few weeks of mail, but if we can't frank them then we don't need the stamps - this all needs a bit more thinking about! Not that straightforward being a postmistress you know! let alone dealing with the customers who want to know why on earth we have run out of one colour of t shirt, and why couldn't we have brought more stuff with us ... More stuff! really not possible. If only they'd been there at midnight on the day we arrived, when we finished unloading the first 500 boxes.
To more cheery subjects! - the baby pengys really are running around now, they have dried off, cleaned up and are very fluffy themselves, to rival the toy ones in fact, but even cuter of course. We are still in a social whirl and wondering how we will eat all the food parcels that are being pressed on us, when in fact we are out for dinner every night. Just returned from a barbecue (indoors thank goodness) tonight actually, our hosts were on the other time zone, so we were home, fed and showered, by 6pm! nice to have the whole night left without any washing up to do even. I've even turned down a few invitations recently due to a flu bug which has now got my throat rather badly - saw a nice doctor on a cruise ship who gave me some penicillin - hope that will clear it up soon. It's not good being under the weather here, there's not much chance to take a break without leaving your colleagues over-worked. February is looking pretty busy, but manageable, with the odd free spell h

ere and there. I do hope we get some more sun though - it's still pretty thin on the ground, was snowing hard again this morning - when will I get all the painting done?!