The builder arrives

OK Guys I'll apologise in advance for no photo and try and publish it on the next posting on its own! Typical of today really!!!!!

Well at 7.30am on the dot a man with a van arrived at our house - he merrily squirrelled away digging holes, taking deliveries of skips and building supplies and then filling the aforesaid hole with concrete and left again at 4.20pm

Doesn't sound much but a real start has been made on the foundations of the conservatory.

I would pop in a picture of this concrete except I'm not quite that sad and of course it's dark out there now so I can't :o)

Nigel has decided to have tomorrow and Thursday off to supervise so things are moving along nicely now

Neil (that's the builder) should have the dwarf wall completed on either Friday or next Monday. We then have a weeks gap before the men with the glass arrive and please God the top fits on the bottom. Nigel has been out there tonight already with the measure tape to check everything looks about the right size.

Then the week after the glass men the final fit men come along to do the internals, plastering, finishing the floor etc

Whilst he was off over half term Nigel got all the electrical works sorted out ready for them so we're all on schedule

God willing, with a following wind we should be finished by 1st December but I'm counting no chickens until we're a bit nearer.

Someone asked me about mitring the corners on my celtic knotwork. It's a little difficult to explain in words but I'll have a go.

When I get to a corner I tack nearly up to where the mitre will be. Then I fold the tubing back on itseld exactly on the line that the outside edge of the following bit of tape will take. I then fold back the tape over this and tuck any excess in under itself and tack it down quickly before it has chance to slip. Sounds a bit fiddly and I suppose it probably is until you've practiced a lot (which I have) but it works for me. Then as you hand-stitch the two sides of the tape down you secure across the mitre line in ladder stitch making any final adjustments with the needle turn edge of your needle as you go along. I have to say if I get any choice (and obviously with the twist and turn of a celtic pattern it isn't always possible) I always endeavour to stitch the outer edge first thus securing the point of the turn before having to faff about with the mitred bit. Hope this is a bit clearer than the mud on our building site :o)

A few developments with my father this week.

He was transferred to Sheffield by ambulance this morning with a view to them carrying out the angioplasty procedure this afternoon. However best laid plans and all that, unfortunately they had too many emergency procedures to carry out and so he never got as far as the operating procedure. They have assured us he should have it done tomorrow.

We were under the impression that the fainting fits he had been suffering were now thought to be due to his heart beating irregularly - sometimes it races uncontrollably, other times it goes on strike and is too slow to send sufficient oxygen to his brain - hence the faints.

They had led us to believe that the insertion of a 'defibrillator' at the same time as the angioplasty would tackle this problem.

It now seems that, as this little piece of kit costs in the region of £30,000 they can only insert it once the expenditure has been approved by the NHS Trust Finance Body. Accordingly he may well be sent home and put on a waiting list until they've authorised the spending basically!

The real question is what happens if he keeps having faints as before - Mum is not strong enough to keep manhandling him and it could happen as he crosses the road in front of a 40 tonne truck!

So we'll see what tomorrow brings - it sadly all boils down to resources and the NHS is currently very strapped for cash indeed across all departments. There have been some very sad high profile cases of people not being funded for breast cancer drugs, alzheimers drugs and a host of other expensive procedures in the media of late. It must be awful to be a pawn in such a political funding game but that may be exactly where we are about to be.

I've told mum that if they do send him home without one and he keeps fainting that she has to dial 999 for an ambulance each and every time - eventually they'll get so hacked off with carting him in there to the Casualty Department that they might sort it out for him - I do so hope it doesn't come to that.

I went back to work today after the two and a bit weeks half term break - I was not at all keen to go back at all - as expected it was yet again three steps forward and four steps back. I keep hoping that eventually, once I get the job and its procedures under my belt, the forward steps might outnumber the backward ones but at present I'm wading through treacle with my snorkel getting ever longer just to maintain the air supply :o( To quote Winston Churchill 'I'll just have to keep buggering on!'

Lets hope for a better day tomorrow - please!

The photo shows a little bit of hand applique I did for the centre of the Christmas present bag I'm going to make for our Secret Santa group in blues and naturals.