Finally a day with little wind! We bolted the clamp that holds Nigel's fibre holder to the porthole cover and I clambered onto the roof, cover in hand. (Clambered is about the only appropriate word here, there is nothing graceful about climbing up a ladder and onto the roof in ECW). While I sat on the roof and Jon tried not to fall off the ladder, we fed the fibres through the holes in the fibre holding masterpiece and taped everything in place with aluminium tape. This was done in two rounds as we had to take a break in the AASTINO to defrost our hands. Returning to the AASTINO, Jon warmed up by giving the Stirling engine a hug - quite and effective method and I switched Nigel on to see if we had done any damage to the fibres. As the first sky spectrum of Dome C came through a hush descended on the AASTINO...tada! 6 fibres seeing the sky! (the crowd cheers).

Jon decided to swap all the plugs on the power distribution board - for reasons best known to himself and the board - and, just for something different, burnt his hand on the soldering iron. This adds to the collection of burns on his hands. No matter how many times I tell him that the silver bit on the end of the soldering iron and heat gun are hot he still touches them. I searched around the place and *finally* found a piece of ice to make an ice pack with to cool the burn down (okay, I stepped outside the door and picked a piece up). Jon went back to work with icepack in one hand and soldering iron in the other.

After lunch we found ourselves a skidoo and just before we set off I noticed that the power cord was wrapped around Jon's foot. When the skidoo's are not being used they are plugged into the station power using cords strung along a wooden frame. I unwrapped it and we commented on how nasty that could have been. Jon sped off and "CRACK", he stopped, we turned around and found the wooden frame broken off and casually laying in the snow behind us. Oops, the pesky power cord had got caught on a handle on the skidoo bringing the frame crashing down behind us. Being typical Italians, the station folk were very good about it - "it's alright" - and waved us on our way...this has happened before...although we have now have the names "Demolition Man" and "Demolition Women".

Our destruction for the day finished we decided to put COBBER back on it's pole while the wind was still scarce. Being a gentleman, Jon let me carry the ladder out while he carried the screwdriver and spanner. I climbed up a few steps of the ladder and jumped up and down to foot it in the snow. Jon watched as I did all the hard work screwing COBBER back onto the pole and I promise I didn't purposely drop the nut in the snow for him to find.

Jon went on with mark 2 of the roof cam heater while I watched on, astounded at his skill with the jigsaw - somehow he managed to need about 10 cuts to cut a square out of piece of wood...most people would have been happy with say 4...but Jon is the perfectionist. The roof heater finished and the AASTINO covered in sawdust, Smokey Smurf the cleaning man went around with the vacuum cleaner, making the place spotless.

This evening a big party was organised in the free time tent. The normal working hours at the station for the French and Italians are 8am to 7pm Monday to Saturday, so it's good to have a party every so often to relax and let off steam. Jon and I started the night playing a game of "billiardo", the Italian version of billards. Rounds of limoncello were brought around which went down at lot better than the VB - whose idea was it to bring VB down here??

The party was kicking off in the next room with a fair bit of dancing going on in various shapes and forms. The three women at the party were soon dragged onto the dance floor by popular demand. The party raged on until the wee hours of the morn and it was like some kind of surreal night club out in the middle of no where. The windows in the tent were covered over to stop the light coming in, but if you had to go outside - to say powder you nose - the sun was up and the sky was a bright blue. I think this is the only night club where it is ok to turn up in your thermal underwear. A Twin Otter arrived at about 3 in the morning bringing in 8 more people, some of whom made it to the party - perhaps a bit bewildered about what goes on at Dome C.
- Suze