Lemon Grass

Lemon Grass, a photo by jemmans on Flickr.

grass

grass, a photo by jemmans on Flickr.

Lemon Grass

Lemon Grass, a photo by jemmans on Flickr.

End wall with chimney

Robs new extension starting be finished. The bricks are a good match and the roof tiles are same colour and as close a match as the originals.

Wheat is ready for harvest, the stalks are dry enough to cut

Emmans Family

Emmans Family, a photo by jemmans on Flickr.

Irish painting

This painting is an original by Philip Childs. The country scene is a romantic style and maybe a imagined scene. 

Making a Wooden Ring

First job is to select the wood, my supply came from the back garden yew tree.

The wood came from logs and they are then axed to correct size. Now the small block is cut out. This gives the ring its width and best grain is chosen. The block of wood then is marked out with the hole position to give the best grain position. The outer ring is marked and cut away carefully by chisel. The middle is drilled out, having a nice drum drill of the correct size is best. Now the ring is ready to be shaped.

Ring

There are a few websites that take orders for wooden rings that can cost up to £150+ for a wedding pair. These top quality rings are made using a special steaming method that curves thin layers of wood into a ring. This is the stronger way of making wooden rings because the grain is unlikely to crack all the way through.

The cheap easier way to make rings is the block method normally you would drill out a ring using drum drills . I choose to make a ring the hard way all by hand tools

This is the starting block of yew with outer circle already cut. The middle I am beginning to cut out by hand.

Here you can see the ring beginning to take shape with the width reduced to the desired size.

The surfaces are rounded off using a knife carefully, the grain does not cause problems and the wood is very strong and hard. This is the near finished ring, all thats needs to be done is increase the hole size to fit size 4.5 in US scale.

Here is the finished ring with correct size hole. It nearly fits my little finger, and i really love this ring it feel more like stone than wood, and looks really what I was looking for.

And here is the matching pair.

http://www.fortheloveofwoodrings.com/Gallery.html

Resdential Medical Training Week

Baxters is the medical company contracted to the NHS. They supply the machine and organize all delivery including teaching. This is my bedroom.

The training center is design for 5 students set in a homely environment.

Automatic PD Dialysis Machine

This is the complex machine that will dialyzes me at night, my job now is to learn the procedure , pipes computer menu and sterilization etc.

The machine is call an APD machine the model is HomeChoicePRO, it uses special software that get upgraded occasionally.

The bag on top of the machine has a automatic heater with thermostat.

The blue cassette organizes the pipes and gets changes on each dialysis session.

Fluid Heater

This device heats your dialysis fluid to body temperature. This makes it more comfortable and prevents shock also. This device is for manual P D dialysis, the auto machine has a built in heater.

Catheter Photo

This is the first time to see the tube while the exit wound was being cleaned. This happens once a week now. You can see the valve that will transfer the dialysis fluid to and from the adominal cavity. The section exiting the body must be keep very clean to prevent any infections that risk illness. Any day now I may start dialysis and some time during next 5 weeks.

Peritoneal Catheter

Here is the exit site with dressing ready for healing. It takes 6 weeks to heal.

The operation was done with local anesthetics so i could feel what was happening. It is more painful operation than the biopsy operation.

After the catheter was inserted in the abdominal cavity they tested the pipe with half a liter of fluid. It worked nicely. After my recovery I will be trained how to do peritoneal dialysis by machine overnight. The training takes a week.

We pay too much for security, not enough on poverty.

According to the Zedillo report to the UN, the MDGs will cost approximately the following to implement:

These contrast with the following spending figures (for 2005):

This Photo sums it up very well..

Nurse visit

Today i was being prepared for my operation to inplant a dialysis tube into my abdomem.
They did a CRT scan. Took lots of blood samples and two swab samples.
The day before my operation i will take a drug to clean out my guts which involves explosive diarrhea! They warned me i will not be allowed a bath for 6 weeks!

The result of my scan blood pressure was a little high.