Pictures

Not a huge amount to say, other than work continues apace, and introduce some nice pictures of the site, including the newly sited roman well and a sample layout of one of the rooms.

We are named!!!

You may notice from the change at the top of the page that we are now officially the Eagle Wood Neurological Care Centre.

The name was suggested by William Flanagan of Werrington Primary School as part of a competition we ran in the Peterborough Evening Telegraph, William's was one of many excellent entries.

Jan Flawn presented William with a Kindle e-book and the headmaster at Werrington, Mr Ben Wilding, with a laptop. We suggested that William's end of term report may be better than normal this year!!

Congratulations

Simon Waters our Construction Manager has been nominated as Construction Manager of the Year by the Chartered Institute of Building!

Congratulations Simon, this is a very prestigious award and we wish him luck for the Gala Dinner on 13th October when he finds out the final result.

Camera

The Webcam is up and running now.

You can see a series of stills and keep an eye on the build here: http://www.pjcare.co.uk/newhome.html

Enjoy :)

Hello Brad

And you thought I'd forgotten!

Brad wanted a mention, so hello Brad! Simon says put the kettle on ;)

What the papers say

We're in the Milton Keynes Citizen this week http://www.miltonkeynes.co.uk/news/business/caring_16_5m_1_2626303
From the looks of it this was placed by the very nice man at Clydesdale Bank.

Happy reading.

Walls

No not the ice cream, but real solid internal and external walls.

Apparently the bricks are a pig to lay, which might slow them down a little, but even with an extra week off they're still three weeks ahead of schedule so I'm not going to worry about that....

Residents enjoy a day at the Rugby

Milton Keynes Rugby Club opened its doors for its first formal event at its new clubhouse at the weekend, they invited PJ Care along as club sponsors and some of our resdients went down to watch a godo days rugby. Well on one pitch anyway (I was playing on the other...) Check the link and see if you can spot our Chair enjoying the atmosphere.. http://www.buckstv.co.uk/buckstv/sport/rugby/milton_keynes_rufc/moved_into_emerson_valley_at_last.html

FLOORED

The beam and block is all down in section A of the building and the insulation is nearly complete too, the excelent weather is still helping and they expect to start pouring the concrete base for the floor tomorrow!

Our sign has finally gone up, so now everyone can see how to get hold of us, there is also a notice board giving information about the site and PJ Care and Castleoak, so if you're passing stop and have a look.

Attenuation

Lovely aren't they? Part of the environmentally friendly approach to our buildings is this pile of vegetable crates (not the guys in the Hi-Vis) these actually make up the attenuation tank that will hold the surface and rainwater for other uses, this tank will flow into a pond designed to encourage wildlife and will hopefully dramatically reduce the amount of water flowing into the public sewers.

The crates are an incredible design, that enables us to put the tank in with minimal future maintenance and zero contamination. They are wrapped in waterproof lining and will hold thousands of gallons invisibly.

Storming ahead

Another visit to site and we're even further ahead!

The excelent weather is really helping as Simon and his team plough on, the beam and block flooring was being delivered today and some of them are already in place and safe to dance on...

If they continue at this rate we could be opening early!

Ahead of Schedule

As you can see from these pictures, things are moving ahead at a great pace, some good weather and excelent work from Simon the Site Manager and Steve Hill's ground workers sees us ahead of schedule everywhere except with Anglian Water who can't quite manage to connect two pipes together (a whole ten minutes work).

The water isn't a problem though as the Roman well is providing more than enough to mix the mortar and I think this is very apt - using water from the site to build the site. The build team haven't quite dared to use it for their tea yet though!!

Ground Broken

The Groundbreaking ceremony all went off very well last Thursday, we were joined by the Mayor of Peterborough, as well as many other local dignatories. We even got Jan into the digger!

Although a huge amount of the preparation work has already been completed, we had a clear area by the Oak Tree. Coupled with unexpected sunshine, the ground was firm enough to pose for some shots, before heading back to the site cabin for tea and home made cake (thanks to Seb and Krissy for that!) Alex the Archaeologist brought some of the finds from the well and everyone had a play with the two thousand year old pots and coins.

All in all a really good day.

And again...

And another appearance in the Evening Telegraph today, with a piece on the Roman finds on the site. All very exciting and hopefully we'll get a closer look on Thursday as the archaeologist is bringing some with him to the ground breaking. Personally I think the shoes and coins are fab, but the experts are getting worked up about the stone lining on the well... Shows what I know!

by the way thats a shoe in the picture - a Roman size 36 I think...

In the papers again

We were in the papers again this week, with a little piece in the Milton Keynes Citizen, not about the Peterborough site this time but a report on the awarding of Gold Standards Framework and Beacon Status to Bluebirds Nursing Home, the first home in Buckinghamshire to achieve this and one of very few homes nationally.

We're hoping to see the press on Thursday at the Oak Tree site for our ground breaking ceremony, the Mayor of Peterborough is coming and I have spoken to ITV and the press who have all shown an interest.

Watch this space!

What do we do?

A lot of you reading this will be fully aware of what PJ Care do, who we care for and why we do it, but it occurs to me that not everyone knows, and rather than keeping this a secret I thought it might be a good idea to share, particularly with a focus on Peterborough.

So what do we do? We provide specialist care to people with physical illnesses, restricted mobility and challenging behaviours as a result of organic, degenerative or neurological disorders. These include Acquired Brain Injuries, Strokes, Huntington’s Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Muscular Dystrophy, and Spinal Cord Injuries, as well as various progressive terminal illnesses and early onset dementias. We also specialise in providing care for complex Frontal Lobe Dementias like Alzheimer’s and Picks Disease.

As you can see this is quite a wide remit and although these conditions individually only affect a few people, collectively they affect a very large percentage of the population. When I say affect this includes knowing someone with one of these conditions.

As medical care and practice improves we are living longer and surviving accidents and illnesses that only a few years ago would have killed us. Unfortunately survival sometimes comes at a cost, that cost can be an ongoing need for continuing care. This is where we come in, often freeing up a blocked hospital bed by providing high quality on-going care designed for an indivual.

For more information on PJ Care please visit our website www.pjcare.co.uk

And we're off

OK it might be a bit of a slow start, but like the old man on the bike, we're off. The Castleoak team are on site and work on the build has begun.

The surveyors are measuring the land levels that have all been messed up by the archaeologists, trying to work out what we've got to put back and what else we've got to take away.

The next couple of weeks see all the preparation work, making sure that the site is safe and clean, then the big yellow machines will start to roll in and the real work begins!

The official ground breaking will be on February 10th, hopefully we'll have all the brass there in shiny hard hats. Can I get Jan Flawn to sit on a JCB? Although with her busted ribs, she may be a little wary of climbing onto anything for a while!