All posts by Sarah McGurk

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About Sarah McGurk

I am a veterinary surgeon and author, living and working in Scotland with my lovely Kooiker Triar.

A Return to Blackbird Lane

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I’m back in Dumfries for the weekend. I came down to get a prescription and to get my glasses fixed. I’ve returned home a couple of times now and it’s been a quiet reminder of how peaceful it is here. Sometimes I miss being married and I absolutely miss the Arctic days when all my adult offspring returned home (thanks Covid) but there is a lot of peace to be found in the solitary life I’ve carved out here and Blackbird Lane is an integral part of that.

Triar and I walked down there yesterday afternoon. The warmth of the day had been cooled by a rain shower, which had left behind it the scent of damp earth. Early summer has filled it with vibrant green leaves and dancing insects. There were flowers too. Lots of them, hiding among the hawthorne and standing tall in gardens.

Triar came with me into the optician’s. I had lost a nose pad from my glasses a couple of weeks back. Working in Dunfermline, in an office in an industrial estate, with a half-hour commute at each end of a nine to five day, doesn’t make it easy to get the little things done that I would have done at lunch time in Dumfries. Anyway, Triar loves going into Frances Dunne’s. The entire staff come out a coo over how cute he is, with at least two of them petting him at any given time. He takes it as his due with a wildly wagging tail and the kind of writhing ecstasy that only a truly happy dog can bring.

It’s been a decent enough week at work. I was out with Ben at the start of the week and with Naomi at the end. She and I had a trip down to Carlisle to see some laying hens. She weighed some of them using some very natty scales and her extensive experience was obvious. She showed me where red mite hide and pointed out some maintenance issues that I might not have picked up on.

Red mites are evil little critters. They hide under the edges of the nest boxes and when the poor hens go in to lay at night, they sneak out and bite them. With a really bad infestation, not only do you get problems with itching and feather plucking, but the birds can actually become anaemic. The little horrors breed quickly in warm weather as well, so the last few days will have sent them into overdrive.

It’s one thing spraying your hen house if you have a few chickens in the garden. You can put the birds outside the house, wash down their shed and apply treatment. It’s quite another trying to eradicate them from a large shed, where the birds are mid-season in lay. There’s no way you can move them all out to clean down their shed. There are treatments that go in the drinking water, but they need to be used responsibly. As we’ve seen with antibiotics, the overuse of any drugs can render them less effective over time.

This does also raise some questions about free range. A lot of my job now is about biosecurity. The high value flocks I used to visit with APHA used almost no medicines in their birds. As part of my check, I would look at their medicines book. Many of them had no entries for years and that was broadly because the outside world was strictly kept out. Staff showered as they entered and left, and when inside, you wore only clothing and footwear supplied to you by the company. The clothing didn’t leave the building either, but was washed on site.

But if you open the doors and let the hens outside, you can’t protect them from anything. Wild birds fly in, bringing everything from red mite to avian influenza. While I have loved visiting some of our farms and seeing hens scratching around on grass, under trees, there is a balance to be struck. Sickness also causes welfare issues.

So life in the poultry world is the same as all other areas of life. A balance must be struck between aspects of freedom and safety. It crossed my mind as I wrote this, that one of the things I have already learned about my new industry is how many vaccinations are used in laying hens. Most are given early in life, so that the hens remain healthy throughout their laying time. In fact, I did think about calling this post, “Anti-vaxxers shouldn’t eat eggs,” but perhaps that isn’t the audience I want to attract!

I will leave you with more flowers. These are in my garden. Thanks for reading and I hope you have a lovely week.

Foxes and Hens

Blog, Food, Holiday, The Vet Who Came In from the Cold, Travel, Vet, Yorkshire Dales, , , , , , , , , , , ,


I went to my first ever Eurovision party last weekend. Coincidentally, it was Lissie’s birthday. Lissie had children at the same time as Valerie and me and she’s also Christadelphian. I remember her children as toddlers, so it was lovely to meet them now they’re young adults. Val and I (well mostly Val) made a birthday cake. I definitely need to get some icing/piping equipment so I can do this again!

Eurovision was as mad as it usually is. We had Prosecco and strawberries along with pizza and other munchies, but the highlight was Valerie doing the Bangaranga dance around the living room with Lissie’s son, Jonathan.

I came to Yorkshire on Tuesday night. Mum and I had dentist appointments on Wednesday, so I now have lovely, clean teeth and no fillings, which is always a relief. Ben was on holiday, so he had passed an APHA pre movement blood test and flock inspection on to me for Friday. That was in Penrith, so rather than going back to Dunfermline on Thursday (a crazy amount of driving) I asked whether I could have some visits in Cumbria for Thursday. He gave me two more visits to do, so I had a pleasant couple of days, meeting new clients and looking at their chickens and hens.

My knowledge is still patchy, but what I do have is a new set of eyes and an interest in problem solving, so I hope that I will be able to bring something new to the farmers in my region. I also just like talking to people, and farmers are some of the best. Ben had told me one of the farm managers talked to her hens. My immediate reaction was that she and I would get on well and meeting her didn’t change that opinion. I have promised to take her some chicken pens next time I go, so I’d better put some aside before they all disappear.

Yesterday was a beautiful warm day. It really felt like summer for the first time this year. Driving through the Dales was just an added benefit.

Today, I walked Triar around Settle. As always, at this time of year, it is filled with flowers. Mum, Dad, Triar and I then walked to The Folly for coffee and cake. I had an almond croissant. Very nice, though the coffee was so hot, I didn’t even try to drink it until I’d finished the croissant. I know some people prefer their coffee piping hot, but I prefer mine to be drinkable as soon as I get it.

Anyway, I shall leave you with some photos from my morning dog walk. Hope you have a good week and thanks for reading.

From Baptism to Chicken Pens

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Last weekend already feels like half a lifetime ago, but last weekend, for the second time in my life, I was baptised. The first time, back when I was living in Ilkley in 1993, I felt washed clean and whole. I’d had a hard time and some bad relationships at university and it felt like a whole new start. This time, it felt more like a renewal.
For years in Norway, our church attendance as a family lapsed. That is something I regret now, but it is a recurring realisation in my life that we can never go back and fix things and can only move on from where we are now. I have a chequered history, but now I have joined the Christadelphian faith and I am trying to be a better person. I know that Christianity is reviled by many in modern society, but for me it is something to hold onto in a world that is moving too quickly.

Monday was spent in Dunfermline, but on Tuesday, almost the entire Inchcolm staff decanted to Birmingham, where we had a stand at the Pig and Poultry Fair at the NEC.

If you look closely at the centre right of the photo, behind the table, you will see that we arrived with some traditional Scottish fare, as well as with a lot of leaflets and some pens that would prove to be very popular.

I knew it would be difficult representing Inchcolm, having only been with them for a few weeks, but as the two days passed, I became more comfortable in explaining the role I hoped to take and the other staff were there to answer questions about how everything worked and the full extent of the services we offer.
Most of the exhibitors were offering some kind of merchandise and it became obvious that some were being sought after more than others. One of the drug companies had coveted pig and chicken balloons, another company was offering handy carrying boxes, some had fabulous food (I’m going to put in a quick shout out to Griffith’s eggs, who had a chef, who made me a delicious omelette) but it became quickly apparent that our chicken pens were one of the most popular items. Fortunately, we had a lot of them, and could keep up with all the visitors who came just for that.
After the long days, we went out together for food. The first two nights we went to a pub near the house we were staying in. The food was unremarkable, though I did have a lovely waffle with ice cream and Biscoff.

On the last night though, we went to The Boat at Catherine de Barnes which was in an entirely different class. The menu was so good that it was difficult to choose, but bream has long been my favourite fish and I have no regrets in having chosen Black Bream with Crushed Lemon Potatoes and Samphire in Sriracha Mussel Butter. Delicious!

There had been some discussion about the fact that battered fish was served, in that part of the world, with skin on the fish (a travesty – surely soggifying the batter) but the bream skin was perfectly salted and fried to a delectable crispness. The potatoes were soft and succulent with no hint of dryness. They contrasted well with the mild crunch of the samphire.
I followed up with a British cheese board so full that almost everyone at the table shared it. I somehow failed to take a photo, but as well as one blue cheese, two red and two white, there was quince jelly, fig relish and some very crispy cranberry and raisin crackers. I know some will think me a philistine, drinking red wine with fish, but the large glass of Rioja I had chosen went well with both courses and I finished up with Bailey’s coffee which rounded off an almost perfect night.

The house we stayed in should have been fabulous, but in truth, it was more funny than fun. I’d been told when I first joined Inchcolm about the rented house with its massage beds and projectors in every room. Add in electronic toilets with automatically lifting lids and heated seats. Add in space age showers with a multitude of knobs and functions.

Someone obviously had a whale of a time, importing electronic gear and dreaming of a futuristic abode with all mod cons. Unfortunately, they forgot the basics. I sat on my space-age toilet (mine didn’t actually work anyway – no regrets) and (am)mused on the fact that they’d forgotten to provide a toilet roll holder, so it stood in one of the shelves in the cabinet.

There were no curtains or blinds and on the third night, we couldn’t turn out the lights on the outside of the house, so I had to jam a towel over the edge of the window to keep the room dark enough to sleep. The cabinet with the toilet roll overhung the small sink so that I had to bend awkwardly to spit out my toothpaste. Still, it was clean and tidy and the beds were comfortable. Those things matter more!

Anyway I had better go. I’m going to a Eurovision night tonight and Valerie and I will be making a fox birthday cake for one of Val’s friends as it’s her birthday. Next week, I’m going to be out on the road more, so there’s plenty to look forward to.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a good week.

Light switch. Once the lights were out, I didn’t touch it again… just in case!

Project Ground Elder and Logic Puzzles

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It’s been a month now since I started working at Inchcolm Vets as a poultry vet. I’ve learned an enormous amount already, but as I’m still based in Dunfermline, it’s also been a month since I’ve been living at home. This week however, on Thursday, my much delayed carpets were laid and so I spent Wednesday and Thursday nights in Dumfries.

I’m very pleased with the carpets. The stairs and one of the bedrooms are now resplendently burnt orange. I may shortly be open for visitors again, assuming I actually move back there some time (working, linked up laptop still required).

But rather than spending time in the house, I spent most of my time doing a quick garden tidy. Of the three terraces, I’m only marginally in control of the top one. Ecologists recommending letting gardens run wild would be proud of me. My neighbours, perhaps not so much. Anyway, as well as strimming and mowing the lawn (which, by the way, was ominously white in patches, due to an excess of dandelion seeds) I planted some plants I had bought with Valerie a couple of weeks back.

Regular readers will remember that, back in March, I dug quite a bit of ground elder out of a smallish flowerbed that had become over (and very much under) run. Post Different

Inevitably, given I hadn’t finished digging it all out (and anyway, removing it all is almost impossible) a lot of it had regrown. I had planted some geraniums, in an attempt to compete with the ground elder and, pleasingly, they seem to be surviving and one even has some small flowers on it.

Anyway, I dug out some more and planted my new plants, watered them well, and now have abandoned them to their fate. Only time will tell!

I also planted some small plants in the three pots by the back door. Currently these are still dominated by the daffodil leaves. There’s a woman at the other end of the street, who has two beautiful planters that she maintains year round, with plants of differing heights and colours, as well as gorgeous flowers. Maybe one day, I will learn too, but currently, mine look like this.

Learning to garden at 57 is fun. Better late than never!

Poultry vetting is also all new, albeit with a lot of background knowledge. I’ve only been out to one farm this week, but I thought, as I prepared for my visit, that most of my cases are going to be complex logic puzzles. When I was working with APHA, I often felt I was dealing with farmers who were probably having the worst day of their farming career and, though this week’s case probably wasn’t that bad, it was still severe.

There had been masses of deaths in a newly placed flock of broilers (rapidly maturing chickens, bred for meat). They started to die, in huge numbers, soon after being placed in the shed. There were three sheds on the farm. Two of the sheds were filled with perfectly healthy, fast growing chicks. The third was a disaster zone.

I read up on possible causes before going there. It seemed there were two likely scenarios. One was that the eggs were infected and the poor chicks had arrived loaded with bacteria they were never going to survive. The second was that, for some reason, the chicks had failed to find the water drinkers or had otherwise not managed to drink. My job then was to find out whether either of these fit. If not, it would be much more complicated, but that would be a whole new story.

The first thing I asked on arriving was who had been looking after the chicks over the weekend when they arrived. Ben (one of Inchcolm’s partners, alongside Eduardo) had told me it was not uncommon, after a weekend, for farmers to report a problem, only to discover that the weekend worker had failed to follow the normal routines and had missed a feed, or similar. With birds that grow so fast, it doesn’t take much to disrupt them.

That was quickly ruled out. The farmer had been caring for all three sheds himself. Nothing had gone wrong. Preparation for all three sheds had gone to plan. The sheds had been preheated to 30°C as they should. Water lines and drinkers had been checked. Feed had been provided appropriately so that it was easy for the chicks to find.

I double checked the water intake, which the farmer records daily. Though the chicks in shed 3 had drunk a little less than the other two, they hadn’t drunk significantly less. With the water theory ruled out, I had to check the evidence related to problems at the hatchery the chicks came from. If the chicks in sheds 1 and 2 were from the same batch, then it was more likely to be something that happened after they arrived.

But the evidence there was clear. Sheds 1 and 2 were from different parent flocks. The birds in shed 3 were from parents which were 26 weeks old. 1 and 2 were from rather older parents. Quite apart from the possibility of infection, chicks from younger parents are harder to look after as they are a little slower to regulate their body temperature (see how much there is to learn here!).

So before I even went into the sheds, or saw a single chick, I already had a lot of clues as to where the problem probably lay. And when I went into the sheds, they were lovely, clean and warm. The chicks were well spread out, which means they are not too hot and not too cold. The litter underfoot was dry: no sign of catastrophic water leaks or flooding. Everything was still pointing to infection.

I did a post-mortem on six birds and the signs were obvious. These tiny chicks showed all the signs of severe infection. Given they had started to die so soon after they arrived, it was almost certainly a problem in the hatchery. The farmer had done everything he could, but the whole thing had been horribly put in train before the chicks were delivered.

I wanted bacteriology done, but I wasn’t going back to Inchcolm for over 24 hours, so I popped into the SRUC lab in Dumfries when I got back. I had hoped they could do bacteriology on some samples I had taken. However, after speaking to one of the vets there, it seemed it would be much better for the farmer to take some birds into the APHA lab in Penrith. This was actually a better solution as, if the farmer wanted to claim compensation from the hatchery (which I hope he does) then an independent assessment would be massively helpful.

The vets at Penrith were super-helpful. I arranged for the farmer to drop off chicks on Thursday and they rang me with preliminary results on the same day, then sent a preliminary report yesterday. It confirmed my finding – that these poor chicks were overwhelmed with infection, likely E. coli.

This isn’t a happy story. I hadn’t just read up on the investigation. I’d also read up on treatment and the reality is, that for tiny chicks like these, where they were infected while still in the egg, there’s nothing you can really give that helps. Ben had given antimicrobials as soon as the problem raised its head and I left a vitamin B supplement to try to help, but really the improvements needed are in the hatchery.
Both Eduardo and Ben had told me this when I first arrived. If the UK broiler industry really wants to cut down on antimicrobial use, then the improvements need to start there. In my first few weeks, almost all the problems I have seen have involved birds that arrived on the farm already infected. Whether anything can be done about that is another story, but I am already thinking about possibilities. I have come from Norway, where almost no antibiotics are used in poultry production, so it isn’t impossible.

Ah well. Tilting at windmills is something to be done while I’m still new to all this. I don’t have many tools, but my mind is already working on it. I’m wondering whether APHA might have some levers. Nothing wrong with giving it a try. Meanwhile, my poor farmer is the one weathering the storm.

I will leave you with a picture of the delicious Cumberland sausage in a roll I had at Cairn Lodge Services on my travels. There’s something very satisfying about putting a spiral sausage in a roll. It’s much less likely to fall out than two traditional sausages.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a good week.


Not Too Flat

Blog, Scotland, The Vet Who Came In from the Cold, Vet, Yorkshire Dales, , , , , , , ,

I was bursting with excitement when I wrote my last post. So much so that this week’s might seem flat in comparison. It’s also lacking in food photos, though we did have KFC last night, which was delicious, but not very photogenic.

I was planning to go to Dumfries today. It feels rather odd to have deserted my little witchy house for so long. I’ve bought flowers in pots and a couple of shrubs for my recalcitrant ground elder flowerbed and the lawn must be getting overgrown, but I’ve chosen to stay at Valerie’s in Airth, partly because it’s more restful and partly because it’s a long drive, fuel is expensive and I’m whacking miles on my car like never before with a thirty minute daily commute. There’s a reason I bought a house four minutes from my previous office.

Last weekend, Mum and I finally got her old house into shape for selling. The garden still needed a tidy and some cleaners were going in, but all the boxes were cleared and it all looked neat and in good order. As we stood in the kitchen at the end, I apologised to her and said I hoped I hadn’t made her feel too hen-pecked. She told me that conversations among her generation frequently included comparative discussions on how much their offspring heckle them. Apparently I was relatively moderate! Who knew?

I did find the energy on Sunday morning to take Triar out from the centre of Settle and up through the steep lanes and picturesque cottages to the edge of the fells. The photo at the top of the page is from that walk. It was a beautiful morning.

Work has been all about paperwork this week, with no new flights of fancy. I have courses to do so I can be an “Official Veterinarian” – ironically some of it is the kind of work I was doing at APHA where I began doing that work before I had any qualifications. Yesterday morning, realising my Avian Influenza (AI) course had expired quite some time ago, I pinged off an email to the OV team, then received a phone call to say I couldn’t retake the course because I would have to sit the Essential Skills course.

I was confused by this news. I completed Essential Skills in November 24, a year into my two and a half year APHA career. Before that, I had what were called, “grandfather rights”, which meant that, in essence, APHA accepted I had enough experience to do the work without having completed the course. The qualification has to be repeated every four years and therefore runs out in November 28. I have already signed up for three export courses, in my new job, that I can’t use without it because I don’t have an OV stamp. I had the APHA equivalent, but handed it back on leaving.

I queried it. Of course I did, because it’s insane! I’ve actually been doing AI work at intense APHA, report case levels. I was told that a Vet Lead would have to be consulted. I asked if it would be one of the Scotland Vet Leads, thinking I could simply call one of them and ask them to confirm, but apparently it’s a special, OV Vet Lead, so I couldn’t. Maybe it’s some crazy idea, so a private practice can’t benefit from employing an ex APHA vet to do their OV work, but really? It’s not saving the public purse anything. I very much doubt APHA are about to be reimbursed for the unused two and a half years and for me, it will mean wading through around 8 hours worth of turgid information to sit an exam, which is often unrelated to said turgid information. At least it’s in English and not Norwegian, which is about the only good thing I can say about it.

I also spend some time editing the Broiler Vet Policy. Every one of our farms has to have a Vet Policy each year (to do with legislation – I must read that part again – good to know why I’m doing things). Having completed it, it transpires there is more than one broiler policy. That was the version for farmers in the Red Tractor scheme. There’s another for those without, and that’s before we get onto the pullets and layers and whatever other kinds of flocks we cover. It’s a useful exercise for me, and for the practice. I found at least one reference to 2013 RSPCA welfare standard revisions. The last revision was last year and I don’t know how many there have been in between, but it looks as if my editing and page-numbering skills, honed through writing Hope Meadows (and other unpublished work) will be almost as useful as my client and veterinary skills!

Monday is a bank holiday (hooray!) so next week is a four day week. I have to be in Dumfries on Thursday because someone is coming to fit carpets. I also have to pick up a painting I took for reframing, tidy the garden, move the remaining boxes upstairs and generally pick up the strands of my Dumfries life again, even if only temporarily. Life is rushing in unexpected directions at the moment.

I’m loving it here in Airth and Dunfermline. I currently can’t return properly to Dumfries for work as I still don’t have access to the practice database on my laptop. Nor am I completely sure which clients will be “mine” or how I will structure my visits. All clients need at least one visit per year, to coincide with the issuing of the Vet Policy, so once I have a list, I can start to work through that. Those visits will be done alongside any diagnostic visits, requested by farmers when there is a problem.

I did get some nice work news this week. The aggressive birds I visited last week have stopped pecking each other so much. Thanks go to Naomi for that one, with her excellent information on the destressing of high performance laying hens. I thought I knew quite a lot about bird welfare, but nowhere near what she knows. I love learning though, so by the time I take on a few more cases, I will have soaked up that information and will hand it out as if I’ve known it for years. Really, that is the core of successful veterinary work, at least in the farming sector.

Anyway, I will leave you with a picture of wild garlic, growing near my parents’ house. It appears to have outcompeted the bluebells and it’s almost as lovely, though the aroma is quite different! Thanks for reading and I hope you have a lovely week.

Fabulous Food and Fat Friday

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The remainder of my weekend in Armagh was very pleasing. Lara and I went to the Titanic Museum in Belfast. It would have been more enjoyable if six coach parties hadn’t been trying to look at the exhibits at the same time as us, but it was still interesting. They had all the witness statements from survivors on a huge wall. I only read a couple, but would be interested to read more. I expect I can find them somewhere online, if ever I have the time and inclination simultaneously!

In the evening, Lara introduced me to her pizza oven. Rather like the rambling, Victorian house, the garden and something I want to call the Mews (a lane round to some ramshackle garages – though those belonging to Lara and Mark have been rebooted, as it were) feel like a pleasant wander through a slightly overgrown past. The neighbours garden is filled with forget-me-nots. The yard where the pizza oven resides is overlooked by vines growing up the ancient wall and an apple tree (I think) festooned with multicoloured Christmas lights.

The blue door in the photo, as you might expect, leads to a room with a drum kit and a jukebox. Up a vertical ladder, in the roof space, is a miniature cinema. What a delightful house to grow up in!

The pizzas were predictably wonderful. Lara and I had bought toppings on our way back from Belfast. I’d suggested blue cheese with walnuts and honey, so with a creamy chunk of Cambazola and a handful of nuts, this one tasted wonderful.

More contentious, though equally delicious was the chocolate pizza Lara put together for dessert. She tells me she had to perfect the technique, which involves partially cooking the base first, then adding Nutella and chocolate, cooking some more, then adding the marshmallows for a final toasting. The result was a wonderful, melting concoction, not too sweet: utterly delicious.

I returned to Airth on Sunday night with a promise that I would return. Lara is arranging a McGonagall night as a kind of Scots Poetry balance to Burns night. I agreed to do a reading, though I will probably want to go with one of the more traditional Silvery Tay poems.

Sunday night was also punctuated by an unexpected call from my new boss, Eduardo. I told him about blogging yesterday afternoon and his response was, “Make me famous!” He’s kind of the opposite if a shrinking violet, so that wasn’t too much of a surprise. He cautioned me about client confidentiality and I assured him that I understood and respect that concept completely. Anyway, back to Sunday night.

He texted me just as I was leaving the airport, asking for a chat about Cumbria. I wanted to drive back with a clear mind, so I drove all the way to the edge of Airth, then pulled into the road to Airth Castle and called him. With hindsight, I think he was hoping I would volunteer to do it myself on Monday, but I missed that nuance and we discussed possibly going together on a different day. Anyway, a few seconds after ringing off, I got a text asking me to go solo. Slightly daunting I thought, but never having been one to shy away from a challenge, I agreed to meet him in the morning at the practice to collect kit and discuss approach, then I would do the call in the afternoon.

So much for all the promised training and expected introductions. First flights are always an adventure. I looked at the chickens, then carried out some post-mortems. It involved a lot of glove changes as I was taking photographs throughout. The liver and kidneys looked very odd, but I didn’t know what that indicated. I have a lot of useful and relevant experience, but once I was finished, I had to send the pictures to my other new boss. He asked me, “Do you understand what you are seeing?” Honesty is always the best policy, so I simply said, “No.”

Apparently my distinctive photos were enough for distance diagnosis. The birds had adenovirus. Back at the office, a treatment regime was assembled and sent out, while I washed my hands on the farm and discussed the fact that I would find out about cleaning regimes (and adenovirus) and would get back to them with the information the next day.

I learned a few things that day, other than about adenovirus. The most obvious one was that medicines are sent out from the clinic at around three thirty in the afternoon, so if I want farmers to get their treatment the same day, I either need to correctly predict what I need and take it with me, or I need to complete my visit before the three thirty deadline.

I must confess that, on the way back up the road, I sighed rather as I passed Gretna and realised that, instead of the thirty minute drive home, there were still two hours of motorway driving ahead of me. I sent Valerie my ETA and drove on.

Speaking to a friend on Tuesday evening, we discussed the fact that, in so many jobs, thorough training is offered along with mentoring and introductions. What actually happens is that something crops up and you are asked to go out because it’s busy and afterwards, there is no reversion to the plan. Once you’re out there, that’s it. This prediction proved correct as when I went in on Wednesday, I was asked to go out to two more cases. I can’t say I have any regrets. At 23 years old, the first time I stepped solo into veterinary work, I didn’t know if I would cope. At 57, it’s difficult to hold me back. I love fieldwork and I learn by doing. I’ll not forget what adenovirus looks like, which is just as well as I saw it again on Wednesday. There’s still a long way to go, but I love the journey. A steep learning curve (and the expansion of the mind that accompanies it) fills me with joy.

On Thursday evening, after a twelve hour day on Wednesday, I was exhausted, but Valerie persuaded me out for a fish and chip supper beside the cherry blossom trees in Dollar. What a magical evening, sitting on a picnic rug, shaded by trees, listening to the calming flow of the water.

Back in the office on Friday, I also told Naomi and Eleanor that I write a blog. They agreed it was fine with them. They’ve made me feel wonderfully welcome, so I’m glad it’s okay. There are a couple more people to ask, but hopefully I can do that next week. Naomi, as well as being a whizz on the topic of stressed hens does Fat Friday in the office. The photo at the top of the page was yesterday’s loaded fries. They were indeed, extremely loaded, as you see! I showed Val the picture and she says I have to order some and bring them back to eat one evening. That will definitely not be any hardship (assuming they do food in the evenings).

Anyway, after all that food, I’m looking forward to a weekend in Settle. Who knows what that will hold. In the meantime, thanks for reading and I hope you have a good week.

A Trip to Armagh

Blog, Food, Holiday, The Vet Who Came In from the Cold, Travel, Vet, , , , , ,

I’m writing this from a narrow bed in the drawing room of Lara Wilson’s home in Armagh. Around a year ago, Lara invited me over and, so busy are our respective lives, that it’s taken all that time to get round to it, but here I am. From what I’ve seen so far, it’s a fascinating old house, built in more gracious times, back when convenient plumbing was actually having a WC indoors, that actually flushed. The sink is in a more modern looking bathroom next door.

I imagine Lara knows more about the history of the house, including how long she and her family have owned it, but we arrived after midnight, having spent yesterday evening at the AVSPNI dinner in the Europa Hotel in Belfast. Until yesterday, I’d never heard of AVSPNI, but it stands for (having to look this up as I’m writing – hope you appreciate the effort!) Association of Veterinary Surgeons Practising in Northern Ireland.

It was part of a conference that we didn’t attend and Lara hadn’t mentioned it was black tie (apparently with the theme “sparkle”) so Lara and I were slightly underdressed for the occasion, but it didn’t seem to matter. We were there because Lara is standing for a position on the RCVS council (you probably know that one, but it stands for Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons) and wanted to speak to the great and the good in NI, hopefully to gather more votes.

I will say that the Europa Hotel certainly puts on a good bash. The food at these big events can sometimes be less than excellent, but the meal was fabulous and served seamlessly, so all the tables were catered for with admirable efficiency. Obviously I’ll have to share the menu with you!

The starter was Glenarm Smoked Salmon Roulade with dill pickle, tarragon crème fraiche and water cress. I was fortunate enough to have two of these. There was a spare seat beside me and my neighbour, two seats to the right had put her handbag on the seat between us. This apparently fooled the waiting staff into believing someone was sitting there, which happily continued throughout the meal. The roulade was delicious enough that I enjoyed my double portion.

24 Hour Braised Beef followed. We were in Ireland, so I was pleased to see there were two different types of potato on the plate. Can’t beat a good Irish potato! I’m no longer able to eat double my weight in food, so this course was passed round the table, but the meat was so tender that you could cut it with the proverbial spoon.

And to finish there was a dark chocolate torte. Very nice indeed, rich and full of bitter chocolate tones.

All in all it was a good meal. There was a band to follow, who played an eclectic mix of songs. The move from Suspicious Minds to Galway Girl was achieved via Abba and Erasure and Lara ran off to dance, while I danced more lazily in my chair. She did try an introduction circuit for me, but the band was loud enough to make introductions complicated, and she was better able to persuade people to her cause without having to shout who I was in people’s ears. I’m sufficiently self contained these days that I was happy to people watch while doing a tap-footing seated dance in happy comfort.

Travelling here yesterday was quite an experience too. Lara had booked tickets with RyanAir and I had carefully packed my bag with the assumption that its size might be interrogated to within an inch of its life. What I hadn’t thought to check was whether my Norwegian driving licence was adequate photo ID. I was in the office yesterday morning, looking forward to getting a Fat Friday carry out lunch, when it crossed my mind I ought to double check. That was when I discovered that RyanAir only accept passports and national identity cards, even on domestic trips. I was north of the Forth Estuary and my passport was two hours away in Dumfries, so I had to call my brand new boss and ask for permission to leave with immediate effect. Fortunately the traffic gods smiles on me and I arrived at Edinburgh Airport to see Lara getting onto the car park bus.

Security was interesting, not because of any fuss about my bag dimensions, but because Lara was carrying some work equipment that showed up on the X-ray. She often carries the doggy equivalent of those CPR models that are used to teach CPR, but this time, she went one better and had some faje dog skulls that are to be used teaching people how to take good radiographs. Obviously this caused some confusion and she had to unpack her bag. An interesting diversion on what was otherwise a smooth trip through the airport.

It’s been a good week at work. I still haven’t mentioned blogging to my new colleagues, so I won’t say too much, but I am impressed so far with their knowledge and professionalism. I’m also picking up useful tips on how to detect flickering lights that might upset chickens (use the slow -mo on your phone apparently) and I know which technician to refer the farmers to if they’re not sure how to get rid of rats or if their hens won’t take their medicine!

And now, I have to go. Somewhere, outside in the multi-storey hallway, a voice announced that breakfast will be at nine, so I’d better get dressed.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this whistle stop tour of my Northern Irish adventure, which is only just beginning. Thanks for reading and I hope you have a good week!

Poultry Vet

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It’s important to start at the beginning, or maybe the end, so the first triumph of the week, and the last from my old job, was that our team of intrepid APHA vets did manage to escape from the India room at Escape Hunt in Glasgow. We did so with less than four minutes to spare, but this was a deadline we didn’t want to miss. I am going to miss my colleagues enormously, but Josephine agreed that I can continue to be invited to the quarterly Escape Escapades, so that is something to look forward to.

Storm Dave hit while I was traveling home. Donna had kindly taken Triar in for the afternoon and I arrived in their living room so soaked that I couldn’t even stay for a cuppa, which was probably a first for me. I was very happy that she and Will had taken Triar in though. The bus to Glasgow was very late in both directions and it would have been a long day for him on his own.

I went to the dawn communion service at church on Sunday, which was beautiful. When I was younger, Christmas was always a deeply happy occasion, but Easter has a quiet solemnity and depths of pain and joy which suit the older me. I am incredibly grateful to Fran, the minister, for the hard work she puts in to all these occasions, when most of us get to rest. That said, slightly to my shock after years in Norway, most of the shops seemed to be open, even on Easter Sunday. The UK has become a deeply secular country, where Christian rest days and marking the seasons are becoming things of the past and instant gratification is the order of the day. I don’t feel this is a change for the better. In Norway, almost everything bar the emergency services, is shut over Easter and everyone seems to manage.

Triar and I then travelled down to Yorkshire. I suppose, given what I just said about it not being necessary for everything to be open, it’s a bit hypocritical that I stopped off and enjoyed a coffee at Killington Lake services. That said, had it not been open, I would have taken a flask. It was a beautiful day for travel.

I spent the first part of the week with Mum and Dad. We’re making good progress on getting the old house ready for going on the market. As well as box clearing, I did some painting as well, mostly on the ceiling of the room with Dad’s model railway in it, which was stained where there had been a leak in the roof, which is now fixed. So now I know about special paint for covering stains. It’s never too late to learn about DIY. I need to learn about hanging heavy mirrors next, but that’s for another day.

On Thursday, I started my new job. I’m now in the slightly complicated situation where I can’t write too much as I haven’t run the fact that I write a blog past any of them yet. The daughter of the senior partner has told him I’ve written some books. Apparently she’s reading them, which is lovely. I’m still incredibly proud of the work Vicky and I put into writing them.

But everything so far about my new job seems almost uncannily positive. Both partners have outlined their hopes for what I will become and it seems to draw perfectly on all the varied experiences I’ve had through my career. It’s like they looked at my CV and everything I have done is relevant and of use. I feel almost as if I am falling into a place that was almost carved out for me, but they also want me to make the carving out all my own as well. There’s another new vet who has recently started. She is learning all about the lab work and has already begun to teach me. The stains at the top of the page are for identifying bacteria. I haven’t used them since I was at vet school, more than 30 years ago. The other staff have also given me a warm welcome. They all have their own place in the practice and a lot to teach me about poultry and how everything works. I am looking forward to getting to know them better.

But this blog entry will end as it began, with my old APHA colleagues. For all the seeming promise of my new job, I am really going to miss them. Love to all of you.

And to all my readers, regular and new, thanks for reading. I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Happy Easter

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It’s been a pleasant enough week, if rather quiet. Monday was my last day with APHA. A group of us went out for lunch at Dolce Vita Restaurant in Dumfries. They have a wood oven, so I decided to have pizza. I swithered between haggis and red onion or pepperoni, but in the end, I went with pepperoni and didn’t regret it.


I received some lovely gifts. I’d recently bought a flower vase, so I thought I had things covered, but it turned out I didn’t. I don’t think I’ve ever received three bunches of flowers in one day before, but I felt very loved.

I also got two lovely china mugs, one with Highland cows, the other with those teddy-bear sheep with black faces and floofy white pom-pom foreheads. There were also scented candles, chocolate and sweets and a fabulous painted slate from Lauren.

Last, but not least, Scott the local authority inspector gave me his walking stick. He lent me it when we were climbing down a steep bank in the woods back in November and I discovered how useful a sturdy stick can be when you’re fifty six and your balance and ankles are not quite as good as they were when you were in your twenties. I’d asked him where I could buy one, having looked and not found a worthy successor. Instead of telling me, he gave me his own. It’s in the car now, waiting to be used.

At the end of the afternoon, I handed back my computer, my work phone, my door key and all my ID cards. It left me with an odd and empty feeling. My job has been a huge part of who I am for the last two years. It crossed my mind that usually, the last day at work heralds the upheaval of a house move and lots to do with a short deadline. This time, there was work to be done and things to organise, but nothing urgent.

I have done a few things through the week. My mortgage has come up for renewal and my advisor has found me a new provider, so there were lots of documents to send off. I’ve tried to sort out my Norwegian tax, though I will have to chase up the message I sent. The lack of an email acknowledgement suggests it hasn’t been received. Norwegian authorities normally do everything by the book.

My car also got a new (well technically second hand) steering rack yesterday. I hadn’t realised how heavy the steering had got until I drove away from the garage and suddenly found I could steer the car with one finger again. Apparently the steering rack on my car has a computer at each side, which means it is constantly calculating how to help. Thanks very much to Aker’s garage for keeping my much-loved car going for a bit longer.

I’m writing this on Friday night, because tomorrow I’m heading up to Glasgow to meet some almost ex colleagues. I’m about to be locked in an escape room with them, so my new employers had better hope that we get out in time! Technically they’re not quite ex colleagues yet, because my last day is the 9th April. I’m really going to miss them.

So I shall leave you with my best wishes for a lovely Easter. After a sunrise communion service at church on Sunday, I will be heading down for lunch at my parents’. Helen and Corinna are there and we are going to have haggis. Happily, I managed to source a veggie version so everyone can get their fix of Scottish food. Not your typical Easter feast admittedly, but it will be delicious nonetheless. I may have accidentally picked up some Irving’s sultana drop biscuits as well. Irving’s was a great bakery, many years ago when I lived in Castle Douglas and it seems that standards have not dropped!

Thank you for reading and I hope you have a good week.

Winding Up

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It has been a bit sad, sorting out everything so I can leave with everything in order. Because I haven’t been given any new cases, most of what I’ve been doing is making sure all my cases are completely up to date, before I hand them over. The welfare investigation report is done, though I think it will now go in with someone else’s name on it. The cleansing and disinfection at the bird flu premises hasn’t really got under way yet. The completed paperwork is filed, so nothing more to do there. That leaves my three TB outbreak cases.

Amazingly, the earliest of those cases, which I’ve been working with since summer last year, completed its second, clear, short interval skin test on Friday. Cleansing and disinfection there has already been completed and certified, so as long as the test is completed on the computer system (SAM)by Monday, my last act will be to lift the restrictions so that cattle can move on and off the farm again. That’s always a very satisfying moment. The other two are waiting for their final short interval tests.

There has to be 60 days between skin tests, so cases where TB is confirmed usually take at least six months to get to that point. For both of those two farms, I spent a day there doing a Disease Report Form (or DRF) which is a deep dive into the way the farm runs, to assess where TB might have come from and the risks of spread. On one of them, I joined the Animal Health Officers at the Gamma test, so spent several days on the farm. Over the months, dealing with queries and finding solutions, I have built up a relationship with that farmer.

I haven’t yet told him I’m going. That will happen on Monday, but I’ve set up the test and pre-written a Veterinary Risk Assessment so he can move his young stock outside in spring. The monthly report is completed, as is the completion report on SAM. I’m hoping there will be a smooth run to restrictions being lifted there too. I haven’t been told who I’m handing my cases on to, which is a shame as I’d have liked more time to introduce whoever is replacing me, but it is what it is and I’ve done what I can.

I was on “ready to go” duty from the weekend until Thursday morning, so everything had to stay in my car. I cleared out all my gear yesterday. I’ve emptied my cupboard and my desk. Some of the paperwork will have to be kept because there may be court cases to come, or queries made. But Monday is my last day and a lunch has been arranged. Sadly, some of my best friends can’t come as they are busy, but I’m not moving away, so fully intend to keep in touch.

Next week, I hope to meet another ex-APHA vet for lunch and next Saturday, a group of APHA vets and I are meeting for another escape room experience, so still lots to look forward to, as well as all that is to come with my new job. It’s also spring and the birds have started their courting songs in Blackbird Lane. The variety of daffodils is very pleasing. I’m sure, when I was young, they were almost all identical.

Anyway, I shall leave you with a few pictures of those. Thank you for reading and have a good week.