Two questions I was pondering as I plodded round the track this morning. (Another question I was asking myself was “what on earth am I going to think about through 110 days of this?”) What I am looking forward to, and what inspires me to do all I can to get the expedition off the ground, is the moment when the plane flies away and leaves Ben and me alone, completely alone. Alone at the very edge of Antarctic. The bright sky and the silence of the ice all around and the moment when I think “wow! Antarctica! I am here.

are here.” What a privilege!

I think that that is the biggest appeal for me of the entire expedition. Secondly, to walk alone to the pole: that’s a big deal for me. And thirdly, to turn around, to walk back again through all the memories of the pain of those miles, back again to the very beginning: that’s the icing on the cake for me, the thought that makes me want to laugh out loud at the sheer craziness of it all. If we pull it off, when we pull it off -no, it’s certainly an “if we” not a “when we”- if we pull it off, I will feel deeply, deeply satisfied. But to stand on Antarctica for the first time and inhale a gulp of fresh, frozen air: that will be the whoop out loud moment for me.