Karen Sharwood - March 07, 2002: Beach daze - I have been defrosting back in Cape Town for a week now, and have to say there is no other place that I would rather live than right here in Kaapstad. I guess you never really appreciate everything at home until you are away from it for a while. It's the little things that really make the biggest difference, too, although the 30° Celsius heat and Clifton beach may also have something to do with it.

It seems as though everything is still going well back over in Russia. The boys haven't starved to death as they all thought they might, even though there have been the odd phone call and SMS asking me how much soya sauce should go into the chicken and how exactly do we cook the rice - some things will never change.

While the cat’s away

Bad news for Mark though, through the marvel of the Internet, I have been able to track every exercise session (or lack thereof) by looking at the heart-rate recordings that have been emailed to me (geez, talk about Big Brother!). This is really one of our main aims for this project – to show that we are able to monitor someone from a distance, be it someone in Pofadder, Russia, or in space. This way, we are able to get some of our knowledge to the public, beyond the boundaries of our building in Cape Town.

Other than Mark slacking off, everything has been going well and I have been using this time at home not only to get my tan back, but also to catch up on some thesis work issues and to finalise data analysis procedures. Doesn't that sound exciting?

I am heading back to Russia again on Tuesday and will be there until after the flight. I am beginning with baseline testing next week and so my science hat will be worn full-time and things from my side will really start to get going. There will be a test performed once a week from now until the flight and then immediately after Mark has landed. This testing should be really exciting and will provide us with a substantial amount of data, all of which will be added onto the website.

Thought I would just include a picture of Clifton to annoy Dale and Karl (and everyone else in Star City)…