We are rubbish at using vouchers. We usually leave it until the last possible chance, which is exactly what we did with some vouchers for gardening stuff that we were given last year!
So away we trundled to buy something for the garden. We were thinking maybe a planter for some herbs that we could put on our deck. Well, the planters are quite expensive and it seems like they are a lot of money for what they are. So we decided to use the scrap wood we’ve got at home to make one ourselves.
So we purchase some herbs and spinach and head home to make the planter. As with all my recent woodwork projects they start by looking at what we’ve got and the simplest way of cutting it down to make something. After a quick check I could see that we could make a simple trough style planter with some framing timber and old cedar cladding.
It was all going brilliantly and coming together very nicely when there was an ‘incident’. I didn’t realise at the time, but the guard on my cross-cut electric saw (a high speed circular saw blade) had stuck open and failed to automatically cover the slowing blade from the last cut I made. As I reached to clear my last piece of work from the saw I caught the back of my hand on the slowing saw blade.
My instincts pulled my hand away as I stared at it, cursing my clumsiness and waiting in that time-stands-still kind of way whilst you figure out if this is a sticking plaster or hospital job.
Well it looked pretty messy and slowly started to bleed. I did a quick check, I could still move all my fingers and the rate of bleeding wasn’t fast enough to have hit anything major. Think I had a lucky escape. But it certainly wasn’t a sticking plaster job either, so I headed inside to ask Josie to take me to the walk-in health centre. That’s always a tricky one to broach. I went for “Please don’t panic, but I did just catch my hand on the saw and need to get it seen to”. I’m pretty proud of the fact that in medical situations we are not panickers. We quickly collected up the kids, grabbed some entertainment for them and a book for us and headed out of the door.
By this time I’d managed to get a plaster on it.
The first plaster
After a while we were seen and I was congratulated on my lucky escape from anything serious. The doctor gave me a local then set about cutting out the straggly bits left by the 2mm wide saw blade.
I was given a comedy ‘Mr Bump’ style bandage to keep pressure on it and protect it from knocks. It also meant I effectively couldn’t use my hand because it was not to get wet or be subjected to any pressure (to help it heal).
Well the planter looked lovely and over the last few weeks it’s certainly done the job with the herbs we planted flourishing.
I feel proud of our planter and know that it took just a little blood and sweat to build it.
about twenty days later and of the original 4cm deep laceration I’m left with a tiny 2cm white line, surrounded by a little pink skin. It’s amazing how remarkably well it has healed. Maybe Mr Bump bandage was there for a reason.
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