As reported yesterday, today was a 'rest' day but although we spent the day in Base Camp we were not inactive. Individuals attended to vital items of personnel admin such as clothes washing and a brave few christened Neil Greenwood's outdoor shower in a snow blizzard!

As well as attending to personnel needs all hands were set to the pump (under the watchful eye of our food man Colin Scott) to repack our food into ration packs for the mountain. As I write work continues, but by close of play today we will have packed over 300 x 2 man ration packs. In addition to the rations our resident doctor Andrew Hughes has been putting together medical packs for each of the camps. Although this is a 'rest' day for us and our 4 Sherpas it should be remembered that behind the scenes our Nepalese cook team are working harder than ever with everyone in camp to feed and water.

Suriya and his cook team in their kitchen.

These boys are a breed apart within the culinary profession and constantly strive to meet high standards in very basic conditions. Our cook, Suriya, has 2 assistant cookboys, Mingma and Pemba as well as two extra hands, Norbu and Thundu, who double as kitchen assistants, mail runners and water gatherers. The latter is a particular chore as there are no running streams at this altitude and all our water has to be collected from a glacial pool about 20 minutes walk away!

Another thing to remember is that when we moan about having to get up at 0400, they have already been up an hour boiling up water for our morning tea! Suriya and his boys are definitely our ëmen of the dayí. The weather is a little unsettled at the moment but that should not prevent us doing a full carry to Camp 1 tomorrow and as befitting the theme of the day most of us will be carrying rations!