You're going to need a bigger coat...

Yesterday was a weird day. Whilst being accused by a troll of ruining the women's movement with my regressive and sinister blog, I had a phone call. That phone call went something like this:

"Hi Sian, I'm Tristan and I'm calling from Phillips. We'd like to invite you on a trip to the Arctic Circle."
"Oh right, is that a new bar in London? That sounds fun."
"No, I mean the real one."

I had to explain that I'm not a moron and there is a bar in Greenwich called the North Pole. I had my first real cocktail in there. It took me years to work out that I don't like martinis. But I digress.

I am indeed going to to the Arctic Circle next month.

Blimey.

Phillips make these wake-up lights and they're going to try them out in the Arctic Circle, just to see how effective they are in a place with no light for four months of the year. I've always wanted to try one of these. I'm not what you'd call a morning person any time of the year but in Winter I'm much worse. But then, I don't live in Longyearbyen in Norwegian Svalbard. No sunlight for four months.

That's kinda hard for me to get my head around. It's not that it's just not sunny, I think anyone who is in London right now can understand that (heh, as I wrote that, the sun came out). But it's dark. For four months of the year. Not pitch black, apparently. Just a kinda 6am haze, throughout the whole day. For months. And that's blows my tiny little mind.

And here's the other thing: I like adventures, but I don't really like the cold. I like coming in from the cold. I like gloves and hot chocolate and all the things about cold weather that basically mean I'm not cold. Although I'm quite well dressed in winter, I don't think that my little wool dresses and knee high boots are going to cut it. But I do enjoy making snow angels. It's my favourite thing about going home to north Wales.


I can't wait until next month. I'm so so excited. This is the second time this year I'll have been somewhere mad and crazy. I'm not really one for normal holidays. I've never been a sit on the beach for a week kinda girl. I want adventures. I want to see new places and do new things and after three hours on a beach, I'm kinda done. I like things that are just a little bit unusual. My last trip to Norway wasn't planned very far in advance which meant that we missed the Northern Lights by a day. I'd really like it if they turned up this year.


I've been really lucky with my travels this year (having been to Paris, Kenya and Estonia) and after a really very hellish week I needed some good news. All of my travelling this year has been accidental. I'm a lucky little kitten, and I'm going to wrap up warm, like Julie Christie in Dr. Zhivago, rock the fluffy hat and enjoy every minute. This trip is going to kick ass. I have no idea what to expect. I think that's what I'm most excited about.

Image of the lights from Image Editor. Longyearbyen image from soknet. Both are from Flickr. Image of Dr Zhivago rudely nicked from the interwebs. But the blog title was a pun that I nicked off Gemma, that's heaps worse.