Bald-Headed Men - Alone in Antarctica: The First Woman to Ski Solo Across the Southern Ice - page 138

I need it. Secondly, while at the Pole, someone had mentioned
that there were over 9,000 people following the messages I sent
from my satellite phone through to Twitter. I was astounded.
On leaving the UK a few months before, the figure had been
little more than 400. The next time I picked up the satellite
phone to laboriously type in a message to the expedition
Twitter account, the thought of the number of people reading
them made me pause, as if struck by cyber stage fright. Until
now, Twitter had been a form of comfort in that it provided a
way to record what was happening to me. It ensured that my
existence was registered somewhere, a link, however tenuous,
with the outside world. Now that I knew so many people were
following, the link took on more substance. Even though I
wasn't able to see any of the comments, replies or retweets, just
the knowledge that people I had never met in parts of the world
I had never seen were watching, caring and willing me on had a
huge impact. They seemed to fill the tent with their presence so
that I didn't feel quite so alone. It provided proof that I wasn't
beyond the reach of the human family after all but was still
connected to the larger social tribe. I noticed that the satellite
phone was the first thing I reached for when I crawled into
the tent - even before I had removed my boots or jacket - and
that I sat with the handset permanently nestled in my lap like
a child's comforter. It was undoubtedly the piece of equipment
most precious to me, above even the stove or my sleeping bag,
because just as my tent was a safety net against the cold, the
satellite phone was a safety net against my alone-ness and I
found the isolation far more terrifying than the temperature.
On Christmas Day the sun finally reappeared as a hard-
edged disc in the sky behind the layers of cloud, as harmless
to gaze at as the moon. It gave no texture to the snow surface