Pither.com

Liz's kitchen is small. Not the smallest I've ever seen, but small enough that it can't really hold more than two people at once. It is also quite feature packed - washing machine, dish washer, fridge, freezer, cooker all built in. One thing that is not built in is a rubbish bin, or indeed any space for one!

For the last year of living here we have tried various combinations of hanging carrier bags from the kitchen door handle and sitting a black sack on the floor. Both of these are far from ideal. The only floor space available for the black sack is directly in front of the freezer, which means accessing the freezer requires moving the rubbish. Hanging bags from door handles comes with fairly obvious problems, notably closing or even just moving the door. As there isn't much clearance between the door and the worktop it would often cause the bags to be knocked off.

For some months I have been convinced that the only place available for a bin is attached to the back of the kitchen door, high enough to be above worktop height (so as not to interfere with access to the dish washer). The trouble is most bins aren't designed for mounting onto a door. A few are designed for mounting inside cupboards, but seem to either expect an actual cupboard (eg are rail mounted) or are really small.

To further complicate our requirements, we didn't just need one bin. As is the trend these days, we're trying to recycle what we can (curiously Reigate and Banstead Council really don't collect much, basically just paper and tins!) and picking recyclable items out of the rubbish after the fact is not very pleasant. So we could really do with two bins.

Given this information, for the last few months I have been gradually formulating a plan. I finally concluded with a basic frame, attached to the door with mounting hooks for a couple of carrier bags (plentiful supply and easy to tie up afterwards). Now I just needed something to build it out of.

Then I looked on the Internet... D'oh!

After attaching them to the (surprisingly tough) door, our kitchen has been transformed into a far more comfortable living environment (although I confess not very "smart" - now just to find trendy carrier bags!)...

If only we'd installed them last year. If only I'd designed them before someone else did!

Last week I placed an order with Lakeland for two identical items. Later that week a package arrived from Lakeland as expected. However opening it revealed two items that I had not ordered.

I phoned Lakeland on Monday this week (while heading into town with the incorrect items, ready to post them back). Not only did they answer the phone quickly and without an incomprehensible Indian accent, but they then proceeded to look up my order, take a note of what I'd been sent and promptly told me to keep the incorrect items and to expect what I had actually ordered to be delivered shortly.

I was shocked! I would like to officially congratulate Lakeland for their excellent service.

The next box from them has now arrived and even contains the correct things! :-)

Just a quick photo update...

I am now officially trying the freelance approach to employment (complete with my first project, thanks to Tim Small)

I have my own limited company, lots of highly marketable skills (Linux (high availability and clustering), Java, Perl, etc) and lots of real life experience making a large web application work better, faster and stay alive longer.

Things I am particularly interested in (and have strong experience of) working on at the moment are:-

• large web application deployments
• Java debugging, profiling and optimization
• Server automation, eg Puppet
• Shibboleth consultancy and support

I am happy to provide advice, consultancy and planning services as well as to get involved in parts of or complete larger projects. Tim and I also have a strong working relationship and we are able to offer joint services where extra man power or speed of delivery are required.

Please let me know if you're interested or would like further information.

I am very pleased to announce that Edward is no longer a strange shade of dirty yellow and has instead developed a fairly pale skin tone.

His jaundice has lasted roughly four weeks, having started within a day or so of him being born. He can thank it for an extended initial stay in hospital, complete with some time under blue lights, plus two further trips back to hospital.

He has had many (I've lost count) blood samples taken from his heels and one much less pleasant looking one from a needle stuck into the back of his hand. He's also clocked up two (although it took three attempts!) urine tests.

Thankfully, after the early blood tests that led to the phototherapy, his blood tests have all come back clear.

The first of his urine tests however did return a positive for galactose, which is what led to the next test. Apparently false positives for this test are relatively common, and after a short physical exam, the doctor didn't seem too concerned. We still had a fairly worrying wait from Friday morning to Monday midday for the second result. Thankfully it was clear.

After all of that, the final result was that we just needed to wait a bit longer. Indeed some extra time, and moving Edward onto formula milk, has left him putting on weight and clearing the jaundice nicely. :-)

For once, and despite the inevitable worry involved, I have actually been quite pleased with the speed and thoroughness of treatment that we've received for this.

As one would expect, shortly after Liz discovered she was pregnant, a (community) midwife was assigned to her. During the following eight(-ish) months Liz saw him (yes, not what I was expecting either) twice(!) and one of those was at the hospital after they had incorrectly told the community midwives we had already been discharged!

I think twice for any single midwife was matched by a couple of others, but stayed as the record.

Now this wouldn't be too bad if they all provided consistent advice, shared opinions on jaundice and could actually keep appointments. But it seems they can not!

Edward has had trouble putting on weight, it seems due to difficulty breast feeding. While they all seem very happy to promote breast feeding, they do not seem to be able to agree on the details - like the best positions or how long it should take or how long to spend winding, etc, etc. None of them volunteered to actually witness and check him feeding. Nor did any of them mention the option of changing to formula feeding.

They did, quite promptly, after a couple of weeks with Edward having lost so much weight and not shaken his jaundice, arrange for an appointment at the hospital for him to have a number of further tests.

They also told us that they would not discharge Edward to the health visitor until he was back to his birth weight. The trouble is that they also told us that they normally discharge people before referring them back to the hospital. And that they don't wait for birth weight, just for an improvement!

Worst still though, they didn't keep their (expected) final visit - no warning, they just didn't turn up. We had to call them to arrange another visit. At which point a midwife (who we'd seen while Liz was pregnant, but not since) turned up and said "are you able to visit the hospital today for further jaundice tests" to Liz, who was at home on her own at the time! After that fright, Liz managed to advise her that we'd already had the tests done and were just waiting for the final result. Now actually looking at our hospital notes, she changed her story too "slightly early (ie 37 week) babies often take longer to recover from jaundice, the other midwife sent you to the hospital a week too early, you really didn't need those tests"!!!

Arrgghhh!

We are now finally discharged from the midwife madness though. Our first health visitor appointment seemed to go well, but we'll have to wait and see how things last.

That's the very firm message that is presented from all directions. Even the formula manufacturers print it on all their packaging. Reports I've seen about and comparing formula foods all start with half a page telling you how none of them are as good as real breast milk! The hospital has counsellors on hand to help you with breast feeding and Cow & Gate provide a midwife helpline who are also happy to help with breast feeding advice.

This is great when you need a little bit of support, some technical information on how to aid attachment or a new position to stop your arm aching. But when you'd really like to breast feed and it's just not going so well, and all they can offer is "keep trying" it adds so much extra pressure and extra guilt to the idea of giving up that it's actually not very helpful at all.

With Edward a little over two weeks old, he has lost nearly 15% of his birth weight, is still very jaundice and does not appear to be gaining weight at all. Each feed is taking somewhere between 1 hour and 1.5 hours and Edward is generally awake and hungry again 1 - 1.5 hours after he had last finished. At various times we have (at the advice of the hospital) been offering formula top-up feeds, which then take a further 30 minutes or so, plus all of the bottle preparation and cleaning time. Edward has visible bags under his eyes. Liz and myself are somewhat (ie extremely, to the point of regular, unfounded frustrations) sleep deprived (about 4 hours in each 24, with no more than 1 hour at a time!) and Liz is especially feeling very worried about Edward not putting on weight and quite stressed by the fact that it might be her breast feeding that is at fault.

When we visited the hospital about Edward's jaundice and talked to them about this, they continued to encourage breast feeding, saying that we should give it longer and that breast milk can take a couple of weeks to fully kick in. However they didn't volunteer to actually witness him feeding or to check how it was working - despite us being in the hospital across two feeding times.

After several days of discussing it, we have finally decided to gradually transition Edward from breast feeding onto formula feeding.

Just a day later, the transformation in the house is remarkable. We all seem to be so much more relaxed, Edward is taking his formula feeds in a much shorter time and is sleeping for a little longer afterwards. The full transition will probably take several weeks, but hopefully this will be the start of his recovery from jaundice and regaining of his missing weight.

We suspect the problem to have been caused by a number of factors. Edwards tongue tie and jaundice led to him not breast feeding well initially, which probably also caused Liz not to develop her milk supply quite as quickly as normal. Even after Edward had his tongue tie fixed, his feeding ceased to be so painful for Liz, but didn't really improve in any other way. In fact, he now often "plays" with his tongue and seems to get it wrong, ending up pushing away with it instead of suckling. Due to his jaundice, the hospital also started us on top-up bottle feeds while we were there, apparently bottle feeding babies early can cause "nipple confusion" which could well have also have contributed.

Let's now hope Edward manages to develop well on his "Closer than ever to breast milk" formula milk. I'll keep you posted! :-)