I stumbled into this job. I’d finished my surgical exams and wanted to work in some remote area of the globe. A colleague said she’d found the perfect website for me. We loaded the page and there was the advert for the British Antarctic Survey Medical Unit. I hardly expected to land an interview, let alone the job.

First thing I do is look out of the window and pinch myself to prove I’m not dreaming. At present I get up and it’s dark, but when I arrived, in October, it was the beginning of summer. I had expected a bland landscape, but the sky at dawn and sunset was a feast of pinks and oranges. I’ve been learning to climb, and some of the deepest, most unimaginable shades of blue become apparent when you’re dangling off a rope 20ft down a crevasse.

Once the alarm goes off I’m up and out of the door. Summer means 24 hours of light — it was ace being able to ski until 11pm. Now it’s winter, so we only ski when it’s full moon. I don’t bother with make-up. I spent three weeks in the field at Fossil Bluff, reeking of aviation fuel and with only water melted from snow to wash with. I’m off to the gym for 7am — I’m learning to love sit-ups. They wake me up better than coffee. I have cereal and maybe toast and Marmite. But no fresh milk — I grew up right by a dairy but now I have to make do with the powdered article.

My working day starts at 8.30. We do administrative stuff before checking on e-mails — contact with family and friends is paramount to morale in a remote place. The surgery deals with mainly minor things: scratches, bruises, sprains, coughs and sore throats — after all, you have to pass a stringent medical to be here. But I have to be ready to do anything, from dentistry to radiography, ophthalmology to diving medicine. We have equipment to deal with most major things and we can get advice from the medical unit 24 hours a day. Everything’s done to ensure safety. Diving work is very important to global science and some of the results are startling, but there are inevitable risks — in 2003 Kirsty Brown, a marine biologist, was snorkelling when she was killed by a leopard seal. We’re all friends and colleagues here, so if anything bad did happen we would be hard pushed to be detached about it.

At the mid-morning break we have a healthy crossword war with Tim Burton, the base commander. Lunch is at one. We have an excellent Belgian chef, but at this time of year all our meals are prepared with tinned or dried food. We’re even out of potatoes. In summer we get fresh food. Satsumas are my favourite — this is such a smell-less place that the aroma carries through the whole room.

The building is hot and full of static, so when I can I look for something to do outside. I’ve painted signs, put flags up to mark safe areas and crevassed areas, helped build weather stations and gone out in the field with the scientists. And I’m in charge of rubbish management, which involves recycling and sorting out waste to ship back to the UK.

I’ve had incredible Antarctic moments. Co-piloting a Twin Otter was awesome. We flew over the Rutford ice shelf, a white desert of snow riddled with hideous crevasses, then got a view of the Vinson Massif, Antarctica’s highest mountain. That rates along with seeing a lost emperor penguin on Rothera Point. They’re massive, a definite must-see.

Work finishes at 5. It’s dark and I’ve become addicted to the indoor climbing wall. After an hour or so we pick up a late tea. Then we usually take a quick walk and, if we’re in luck, see millions of stars. When the weather improves we’ll walk up to the Cross, a memorial to those who lost their lives here. It’s a great vantage point for sunsets and for spotting wildlife. There are adelie penguins, like miniature clowns, and Weddell seals, like overstuffed sausages. The first time I was there, in winter, I closed my eyes and the silence was deafening. But when it’s summer and the ice regresses, you can hear waves lapping and birds calling.

The evening is rounded off with a chat over a drink or two. Teamwork is a big part of the ethos and the camaraderie is fantastic. We may have a game of pool or watch a movie before the short walk back to bed and time to contemplate the best job in the world.

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