We've been overflown by skuas for the past two days. Normally they don't bother us much before the chicks hatch, they're not big enough to take on an emperor at the start of the breeding season so they usually steer clear. Cozy reckons they're spying for the Kings so he suspended all practice while they were overhead. Not that a skua's necessarily bright enough to (a) work out what we are doing and (b) report it accurately but there was still the chance that they might relay enough to the Kings to give them the right ideas.
Now I don't hate skuas, not hate in the way you lot hate (mostly each other), but I don't understand why they do what they do. They're quite capable of catching fish and molluscs and stuff and they do, so why, every year, do they come and make our life so miserable? They don't have to! Havelock says it's because we're easy targets after the chicks hatch and they're just being lazy. He's probably right but I sometimes feel so sad that we go to all this trouble to get away from our predators so we can breed in peace and then these sodding bonxies evolve to follow us, however far inland we go.
Perhaps that's what's wrong with you lot, no skuas, no orcas, no leopard seals to teach you your place. Perhaps we penguins need a God? Maybe then we wouldn't need to worry about skuas.
Just joking!
Managed to placate Cozy this morning. Found the code for the cupboard. Inside a mug full of pencils! I could only get one as there were only four left in the open box. I think if I'd taken two, someone might have noticed. I'll keep checking back just in case someone opens another box. Cozy seemed happy enough with the one but I think he really wants two. Ho hum.
I also managed to steal a resealable sandwich bag as well so we can bury the flare and not have it damaged. The bag didn't smell too good, bit like Sparky's wing tip the other day, but I don't suppose the flare will mind. I've never read that flares are sentient so I'll assume they're not. Although given the whiff coming off that bag, I think we'll find out soon enough if Wikipedia has got it all wrong again.
We had a visit from the 'great and good' yesterday. En route south to investigate a lake. Yes, that's right, a lake! Not ice, but water! Only trouble is, it's underneath two miles of ice! Now, if you ask me, and remember I live here, well I'm only here part of the time, tax reasons, but this sounds like one big funding scam to me.
Seriously, if the water's turned to ice for two miles down what's stopping the lake from freezing a further 150m? Doesn't make sense to me. Ice is ice and I should know, I live with it plastered to my bum for the thundering penguin knows how long every year. This sounds like the outcome of one of those brainstorming sessions they have here regularly about how they can justify the money that gets spent and how they're going to stop the station being closed down. They all sit around with a big piece of paper and write down any tom fool idea they have, pick the six craziest notions and then spend the next four weeks writing grant applications so they can get some poor hapless newbie down here for three years to investigate why penguins do the conga!
I mean, even the names sound made up to me, Athena Dinar, Catriona Kelly,Katrina Alnikizil, sounds like they've just pulled words out of a dictionary or used the scrabble set! No doubt somewhere in that grant application was the idea that they might, only might, mind, find the Loch Ness monster's cousin! Worse thing that ever happened, I think, fishing up that coelacanth. Living fossil, my arse! Now all anyone wants to do is find a plesiosaur! Believe me, I've been around, if there were any plesiosuars in the sea, I would have come across one by now! Oh well it's your money and if you want to pay someone to tell you how it's all gone horribly wrong and you're all going to die, then that's up to you.
To be honest, sometimes I wish you'd just shut up and go the way of all flesh. WE, and our children, might get some peace and quiet in the niche we've evolved into then. Oh well, I'll be long gone by the time you lot reap what you've sown. Just hope my kids have gone too!
And Cozy's getting to grate a bit. Coming back from burying the flare, he waddles past and says, "Any chance of some string?" What does he think I am? WalMart?
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