Pain, Peceptions and What Not (by sarah)

As those who follow me on facebook, twitter, text message or in the flesh will have detected I am in pain at the moment - I am having a flare up not just with my back and shoulder but also with my hands. Not surprising really as it is pregnancy hormone that kept these pains at bay for the last few years - instead giving me the pelvic issues. My hands are not working brilliantly but they have also been a lot worse in the past.

They are not completely useless lumps of rubber like they were at the end of my degree.

But they are weak, I can not open the baby's beaker so we need three of them so I don't have to refill whilst Al is at work. I can't open cans nor chop veg or lock/unlock the door. We have ways around most of this and those we don't we are working on.

But it is always depressing but I am being kept in ok spirits by Alaric and friends.

I am also awaiting the stuck coil to be removed and the pains associated with that which is stressing me out - I just don't like the idea of it being there at all now plus it is now spiking me. I'm trying not to be negative about things but I am being overly persermistic about stuff. Pain killers make me thick, pain makes me thick, I feel thick and dull and fat and boring to be quiet honest.

But again I have ways around this so it isn't really that bad - I just need to moan about it. Hopefully I can stop boring everyone with it all now!

Also I had injections in the top of my spin in 2003 to help with inflammation and pain and stuff - it feels like these have worn off? Is that possible? I was hoping to get longer out of them as I was told I could only ever have the injections three times in my life.

Day 1 of making the ladder (by alaric)

This weekend, I am attempting to make a fixed ladder, mounted to the wall of my workshop so I can fix the roof more easily.

First, I had to tidy up in the workshop to make room. I bought a set of four folding chairs for guests which are rather in the way (the chairs, not necessarily the guests), So I screwed a few bits of scrap wood up between the beams to store them:

See all that damp on the ceiling, by the way? That is the enemy! Eradicating that is the long-term goal of this whole mission.

With the chairs out of the way, I could get on with the task at hand. Here's the bit of wall where the ladder will go:

And here's the pile of steel I ordered from Hindleys to make it from:

The ladder is being made mostly from 1" square steel tubing, which needs to be cut into bits of various lengths with my trusty angle grinder. Here's the rungs (longer parts) and the spacers that will join it to the wall:

However, for extra strength and extra not-having-a-sharp-corner-ness, at the bottom it will be joined to the wall by an angled spacer on each side. The spacer will be at forty-five degrees to the vertical (and to the horizontal, thanks to the magic of maths), so I need to cut twenty two and a half degree angles onto the bottoms of the ladder uprights, like so:

Also, I needed to cut out two spacers with twenty two and a half degree angles at one end (to mate with the uprights) and forty five degree angles at the ends which will mount onto the wall, bringing my pile of various lengths of steel tube up to this:

Where the tubes need to attach to the wall, I'm going to weld them to flat steel plates, which will be drilled for the bolts that join them to the wall. All of the tube ends I've cut will be welded, so the fact that they're rough angle-grinder cuts doesn't matter, but these edges will be exposed, so the fact that they are nasty and burred offends me:

But a quick run along the bench grinder each has given them nice clean edges:

Sarah turned up and took a picture of me, just as I was finishing. Check out my lovely protective clothing - I take my safety seriously when dealing with forces that can make metal flow like honey:

Finally, I measure out the layout of the angled spacer, to check I'd done my maths correctly to make it the right length to produce a 30cm spacing, to match the straight spacers, and that the angles were right:

Tomorrow, I will go out shopping to buy some anchor bolts to mount it to the wall (I can't drill the holes in the plates until I know the diameter required), welding magnets so I can make sure the angles are exact as I weld it together (I don't want a wonky ladder), and some metal paint so it won't rust when it's installed - then it's time to start welding. I plan to start by making the sides with the angled and straight spacers so I can check they align perfectly by placing them one on top of the other, before welding the rungs in between them.

Continue to day 2...

Snow Garden (by sarah)

More snow fell after I took the pics and I regret not having gone out with the birthday money sooner and gotten my camera as it ment I was restricted to the half an hour of Al getting ready for work and his smart phone! However I did discover that the broken camera still records film ok so I did take some vids of the girls which I will attempt to process later on!

I made Al stop to take a pic of him as he left for work but alsa the camera went with him!

But here is what I got! None of the kids paying sadly 🙁 Though it turned out Mary hated the snow where as Jean spent hours out in the garden making snow angels and just walking around in it, sticking it too the walls etc... I made soup out of frozen veg in the freezer, and then Mary went down for her nap so I ended up building a snow man with Jean and having a snow fight where we both got covered!

Old Snow Pics from The Bakery (by sarah)

With the snow falling and having a broken camera I decided it was about time I dug into the archive and aired some of the snow pics that have been lurking around for the last few years. As I said yesterday I am both sad and happy not to be there anymore where snow is concerned. It was fantastic for sledding and pretty pictures but our water used to freeze and we couldn't look out the windows of the house for having to put bubble wrap on them to try and keep warm.

The new house is very different with double glazing and central heating and so snow is not the issue it used to be. A heavy frost could have us stranded in the valley so snow was a complete grind everything to a stand still.

Enjoy the pics - I'm sure there will be more!

Snow At The Snell-Pym’s (by sarah)

There will be more photos later but I am restricted to Al's camera phone at the moment and he is now walking into work!

I think this pic sums it up nicely though! (It was taken through the double glazed door as was a video of her pouncing the snow which I will try and process and youtube late today 🙂

Obviously the girls have not gone to school and nursery and so I will get no work done today (boo and hiss no really I do mean that). Jean is excitedly hunting out her warmer clothing and disguessing snow dragons with me - apparently there needs to be a story about them for bedtime tonight :/

I think today maybe a diet breaking day as I have to take them out in the snow to play and I am not feeling too hot at the moment so hotchocs and marshmallow floaters are my self bribe for going out there. It's options hot choc for me and I may even skip the marshmallow but we will see.

The snow is getting heavier so I think it's here to stay for a while.

I am systamatically sad we are not at The Bakery for the snow and really exstatic we are not at The Bakery for the snow but more on that later!