Winter was the time when I felt the most as an outsider to this country. The grey skies, cold snaps, and relentless wind, were ruthless reminders of everything I missed, the dreadful antithesis of the mild, dry, and sunlit wintertime I used to enjoy so much as a little girl living in the Southern Territories.

This winter, the coldest anyone could remember, the icy weather that was tearing me apart was also tearing down power lines, causing major outages. The early storms had taken everyone off guard, and at the Huntstown Power Station, we were working some pretty long days trying to repair the failures.

Bounded by work and wintry gloominess, my whole life felt out of control. I was miserable, constantly worrying about Molly, my three-year-old daughter, and about Conor, my husband, who had been deploye...

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