I know I mentioned a more exciting photo today, but I’m afraid I wasn’t actually out there to take any. That elbow bruise that I briefly talked about in my last blog disappeared on my left arm last night, but got quite nasty on my right arm. It swelled up and I have quite a limited range of movement with that arm, so to keep it safe and give it time to heal I was ordered to stay behind from the training today and ice my elbow instead. I still listened to the lesson on belaying (again, a recap for most of us) and then went and sat in the kitchen tent and chatted to Jenny, our chef, while she made bread. The others returned saying that the extra practice was good, but that they hadn’t learnt anything new, so hopefully I should be fine to slip straight back in tomorrow.

The afternoon was dedicated to resting, and I took the opportunity to file my fairly blunt crampons back into sharp points, apparently an extremely useful activity for its results on the Lhotse face. I don’t really have anything else to report. I feel as if I’ve acclimatized well to this altitude, and haven’t suffered from any type of headache in days, touch wood. The team is all eating well, and anyone feeling the altitude seems to be dealing with it successfully. The only thing left for quite a few members to kick is the cough that’s all too common from the dry, cold air up here. However, we have just had a second Sherpa helicoptered out because of illness, and we all hope he’ll recover quickly back down at a lower altitude. Hope everyone is enjoying the spring time, ttfn.