A few more things have been sorted out this week. I checked my UK bank account last weekend and my first paycheck has arrived in the bank. That meant I could go into my local branch and set up a standing order for my rent. The teller did point out I could have done it online, and in time I will work on that because I know I’ll have to, but for now it’s a novelty to have an actual branch I can go into and people I can speak to that doesn’t involve a thirty hour drive to get there.

I’m enjoying the small things. I stopped at Tebay services on the way up the M6 and drank a coffee looking at the view. By the time I turned off the motorway and onto the A75, the sunset had turned into a line of liquid fire on the horizon, so I stopped for a moment and stepped out of the car into the frosty evening to capture it.

I completed my first welfare case at the beginning of the week. Hopping from tuft to tuft in a churned up field on a (fortunately) frosty morning taught me how unfit I am. The animals were in good order though, which is the most important thing. My colleague C came with me and she did something I had never once done in Norway, which was to ask the farmer if we could feed back our findings to the person who had complained.

So for the first time ever, I sent an e-mail message to the person who had sent in the report, explaining that what we had seen was normal for extensively farmed animals in Scotland. Muddy fields may not be ideal, but given the climate, they are inevitable and the animals are probably still better off outside. Housing them brings different problems. The law is different here regarding shelter. In Norway, some kind of building with walls on three sides was required. Here the shelter can be from dry stone walls, trees and features of the landscape and that is because the weather here is not so harsh.

C has been taking me out and about and has also been taking me to a few local haunts for meals along the way. We’d headed out so early for my welfare visit that I hadn’t eaten breakfast. We stopped on the way back to the office and I had coffee and an almond croissant in The Frothy Bike Co. in Dumfries. I’ve never been in a combined bike shop and cafe before, but there’s a first time for everything!

I also did some socializing, meeting up with old friends and new. On Monday evening, I drove up to Larkhall to meet Lara. I worked with Lara before moving to Norway and though I we hadn’t met for years, she was with me online at various significant moments, including helping me to write during Covid and being with me on Facebook messenger as I shakily typed in my first bid on the house I bought. We took a punt on a bar I found on TripAdvisor – the Applebank Inn. The food was good, the company great. Hopefully there will be a repeat performance in due course.

I also attended a writers group on Wednesday. It’s six months since I did any writing other than this blog and I made a pact with someone else who was struggling to make a start before the next meeting in two weeks time.

Yesterday I finally got Wi-Fi at home, and along with it, Netflix. Last night, I binge watched Fool Me Once., though I haven’t reached the end. This weekend will be the first time I’ve stayed in Dumfries, rather than heading down to Yorkshire. I have made myself a shopping list, which includes items like measuring jugs and a chest of drawers. Half my life is still in boxes at the moment and I need to find a cooking and eating regime that works for one person. I suppose I’d better buy in a few stock food items as well. They keep threatening snow on the weather forecasts and though getting snowed in here is highly unlikely, I’d look a bit of a numpty if I moved down from the Arctic, only to go hungry in Southwest Scotland because I didn’t buy in a few cans of beans.

Have a good week and thanks for reading!