This Christmas my presents were dominated by a chilly and — to some, possibly particularly to me — chilling theme: namely, how to keep warm and safe in conditions of minus 30 and how to keep one’s mind occupied for the duration of three to four weeks’ waiting time in a tent in a makeshift camp in Antarctica.

My younger son dropped heavy hints about the nature of his gift in the agony of suspense which is the build-up to Christmas Day: “You won’t have much else to do but read, will you, Mum?” It later transpired that he had told the bookshop assistant that his mother was going to be “in solitary” for quite a long time; a fortuitous slip-up that may well have resulted in a massive discount.

Actually, to be fair to him, the idea of my prolonged confinement in a tent had rather taken on the prospect of some sort of prison sentence. I had told more than one person that this must be my opportunity to acquaint myself with the whole of the Bible and A la Recherche du Temps Perdu — in order, you understand, that my time there would not be lost.

Among other less rufty-tufty presents, I received an emergency whistle and pen on a neck-cord, stripy cashmere socks and down-lined boots (from my husband); A Hundred Years of Solitude (that book from the younger son); and more hours of solace in solitude with Daniel Deronda (older son).

The reason for all this angsty preparation was that I was leaving London on New Year’s Day for a month, and maybe more, in Antarctica to cover Simon Murray and Pen Hadow’s expedition to the South Pole, which will raise money for the Royal Geographical Society’s archive appeal. By the time you read this, I shall have flown via Buenos Aires to Tierra del Fuego, en route to sailing through Drake’s Passage — one of the wildest stretches of water in the world, where the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans meet — and on to marvel at icebergs and penguins before landing at Patriot Hills, in the shadow of Antarctica’s highest mountain.

Simon has warned me that my time there will be “quite challenging” and that I will find the wind blasting through my tent “absolutely terrifying”. Pen’s view was that as I fly in to base camp — a handful of tents surrounded by thousands of miles of white nothingness — it will probably be “a bit out there” for me.

So how exactly do you prepare for weeks at a stretch in the most remote, inhospitable and beautiful place in the world, particularly if you are, like me, the most armchair of polar explorers? Incidentally, after almost ten years of intermittent travel to the polar regions, I have come to the conclusion that among one’s friends and acquaintances there are those who instantly understand why you are drawn to these parts of the world and those who never will.

Since there is nothing more miserable than feeling utterly incapacitated in rugged conditions, last September I resolved to sort out a long-term ankle injury which refused to right itself on its own. Our wonderful NHS has looked after me almost every week for the past three months at the St John’s Therapy Centre, in Battersea, and the combination of manipulation and specific targeted movement in addition to two-to-three sessions a week of fast walking and back-strengthening exercises seem to have paid off. That is, I feel — perhaps over-confidently — that I’ll be able to wriggle out of my sleeping bag in the middle of the night for a pee in the pee-bottle in my tent without going into a spasm. Mentally and emotionally, it has been a little more complicated.

Although I have been dreaming of going to Antarctica ever since I read Sara Wheeler’s amazing book Terra Incognita (1996) about her travels around that continent, now that it has come to the reality of actually going there I find myself afflicted with a bad case of cold feet.

Like the victim of the Chinese proverb, I do find myself being wary of what I have most desired. More than once, lately, my sleep has been disturbed by dreams of walking out into a white-out, falling through snow, down, down, down, and — possibly as a consequence of watching too many of Britain’s favourite books on telly programmes, with their heavy emphasis on J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S.Lewis — finding myself in a tunnel-kitchen being tended to by some cosy creature.

When the news came that Simon Murray’s wife, Jennifer, had crashed in a helicopter in Antarctica shortly before Christmas (she suffered no more than a broken arm, thankfully), it was my 16-year-old son who was most concerned about the implications of this accident. “Couldn’t that be you, Mum?” he kept saying, along with, “You will be coming back, won’t you?” All of which begs the question: why would you put up with the likely level of discomfort to your own person and the — admittedly unlikely — possibility of your family being affected by something disastrous which could happen to you? Jennifer Murray and her copilot’s setback certainly made me look into my own life insurance policies, which would in no way cover my family’s needs were anything dreadful to happen to me.

So is this pursuit of one’s own adventures and dreams selfish? My husband, on hearing that I had the unusual good fortune of being paid, in effect, to go to the South Pole, was the first to encourage me. “Look, you could always get run over crossing the road,” he said. “And how often do you get the chance to do something extraordinary that you’ve always wanted to do?” More pertinently, when he read Simon Murray’s explanation for why he chose to walk to the South Pole at the age of 63, in my interview with him in The Times, my husband told me that it could have been me thinking aloud: “I suppose in life there are opportunities that pass by your window and you either jump on or you watch them go past, and then you say, ‘I wish I was on that particular boat’. ” Well, this time — lucky me — I am going to be on that particular boat.

Ginny Dougary’s reports will be published in T2 on Thursdays. An extract from her journals kept in Antarctica will appear in T2 on her return

ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY APPEAL

The Times is supporting the Royal Geographical Society’s project to conserve and digitise thousands of maps, photos and documents from its polar archives, which will be put online for schools to use.

To make a donation to this or any other Times charity, visit Times charity appeal