In the freezing sea ahead, seals twisted and turned, their little black heads just about discernible above the lapping waves. Others lounged on plates of ice, the one closest to us almost regal as she watched them all. She was the largest of all the female seals, a barrel of flubber with black skin stretched over her large belly. We’d all taken a liking to her and given her a nickname: Duchess. But her most precious cargo was huddled close to her, her growing seal pup, born nearly a month ago and still so small. But soon he would be left alone to fend for himself as Duchess would be forced to go on the hunt for food. I’d been there to witness his birth and now I was waiting to see how the pup coped on his own. Any day now; it was just a matter of time. I could already sense the Duchess’s restlessness.

Behind me, in a large navy-blue tent, new food supplies were being unpacked. I walked over to help my producer Julia haul out some tins of food, my muscles aching as I bent to lift them. It had been a physically tough expedition. We’d been out there for nine months filming all over Iceland, one of the longest shoots I’d experienced. And over Christmas and New Year too, which had been tough for Julia as she had kids at home. But seals didn’t stop for the festive season and, so it seemed, neither did documentary makers. At least this was the final stretch now. Just a few more days on the Diamond Beach – as it was known – to capture the pup’s first taste of independence, then we’d be done.

‘Got any plans when you get home?’ Julia asked me. She had a penchant for wearing expensive garish sunglasses over her kind brown eyes, their mirror lenses reflecting my own dishevelled hair and tired face back at me. She always had this look about her, like she was on the verge of telling a joke: a sparkle, a tilt to the mouth. And God, she could tell a damn good joke. But she could be deadly serious when she wanted to be, especially when it came to her work. Like now, a clipboard in her hands, cheeks red from the cold. ‘Will be nice to have some alone time after nine months hauled up with this lot, right?’

I thought of returning to London on my own. My heart sank. I lived for the months I was shooting. Some had families to return to, like Julia with two teenage girls and her husband waiting for her. Those without families would catch up with friends when they got home … not that there were many friends. Jobs like ours meant you missed key milestones, the big life events. It was too easy to lose touch.