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.

All Good Things…

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

I have Gregg’s bakery to thank, this week, for sending me off on an adventure. I was working Monday, Tuesday and Friday. The job, with its intense neutering programme, and the commute, which includes a mile-long walk each way, is tiring enough, so I was looking forward to a quiet day off. Every morning, as I leave for work, I pass the Gregg’s bakery and I have been hankering after a latte and a warm croissant, so as I returned from taking Triar for his Wednesday morning walk, I decided this was the day.

I was stopped at the door by a sign that said, “No dogs except assistance dogs.” Don’t get me wrong, I accept the right of any food outlet or shop to exclude animals, but it put paid to my breakfast plan. Rather than take Triar back up to the flat, I decided to go and see whether the Square Café Bistro next to the Gilmour Street railway station did croissants instead. The word bistro always conjures up something slightly upmarket and perhaps a bit French, though Wikipedia tells me that a bistro, “in its original Parisian form, is a small restaurant serving moderately priced, simple meals in a modest setting.”

One of the things I am loving about Paisley is that it’s still a very real place. There’s no gentrification, despite the beautiful buildings. Every day, as I walk Triar, I meet different locals. Last night there were teenage girls on the park bench, swearing about effing boys. One evening there was a young woman who kept her hoodie up because “I’m banned from this area,” and often there are alkies sitting there, but they all take the time to tell me that Triar is a lovely dog. So the Square Café Bistro fits in perfectly as it is a fairly classic, Scottish greasy spoon, which does indeed sell, “moderately priced, simple meals in a modest setting.”

Reader, there were no croissants, but I decided to stay and have a square sausage in a roll, or a “roll and sausage” as it would more generally be described locally. I ordered a latte as well. Better still, the man behind the counter asked whether I’d like, “a wee sausage for the doggie as well?” Of course, I said yes. What arrived was a very decent, hearty breakfast with a good enough latte and a wee biscuit. I don’t think Triar could believe his luck though, when his breakfast arrived too.

When I went to pay I found, to my amazement, that my roll and latte were only £5.35. Triar’s sausage was on the house. I asked if I could add a tip on the card, as I had no cash, but the café owner turned it down. “We love our doggies here,” he said.

I was so cheered by this whole encounter, that I decided not to go back to the flat, but instead went to the station, next door, instead. The trains I take to get home to Paisley go to one of three different places; Gourock, Ayr and Wemyss Bay. I decided, without any particular reason, on Wemyss Bay. I assumed there might be a nice beach for Triar and I was aware that the railway station was worth a visit, which seemed enough.

I did rather question my decision while I was waiting for the train. I had no coat or bag, only the summer clothes I had been wearing to take Triar to the park, but the two flights of stairs up to the flat were enough to stop me going back. Triar was perfectly laid back as the trains came and went and when the time came to board, he jumped on willingly and we were committed.

The station at Wemyss bay was indeed rather beautiful with its Edwardian curving, steel and glass design. I wish I had taken a better photo, but here is the one I took.

I was also intrigued to see that there was a wooden, covered walkway down to a ferry terminal as well. CalMac ferries could take me to Rothesay on the Isle of Bute. I could just imagine the Edwardian people in their beautiful clothes, taking the trains then walking right down to the ferry without even having to go outside. It was built nine years before Titanic sailed and fits well with that imagery.

Anyway, I decided we would go and explore Wemyss Bay before deciding whether to travel further, but when I got outside, there was very little of Wemyss Bay to be found. Perhaps, in turning right, we went the wrong way, but after a brisk walk along the shore line, I saw a boat coming in, so I decided to go and find out what was on offer.

To my amazement, a ticket for me and Triar to go to Rothesay was only £8.70. Soon, we were enjoying the view as we left the mainland for the Isle of Bute. I think my parents went on holiday to Rothesay once, when young, and were not impressed. To be fair, it is a very quiet place, where tourism is probably the main business. For me, it was nice to be somewhere where, for much of the time, there was no car noise. It’s quite unusual in any town these days.

There were lovely views across the Firth of Clyde and a sleepy, Scottish town centre. I noticed a couple of hotels or guest houses for sale, including this one, which is a fascinating building, but I imagine getting someone out to fix the rather rusty cast iron crown on its turret might be quite costly.

I took a photo of the lamp posts, which were ornate and had the Rothesay coat of arms, as well as being marked with a date in Roman numerals. I was somewhat amused when I worked out that the date was only 1995. I had fondly assumed they were much older!

As you can see, it was a grey and cloudy day, but beautiful nonetheless with the heavy skies over the island scenery.

We arrived home tired, but happy and on Thursday, I did manage to rest, which was just as well as Friday’s neutering list consisted of two bitch spays (a German Shepherd and a Shih Tsu), two dog castrations, two cat castrations and three cat spays. Luckily, one of the cat spays didn’t arrive, but I didn’t get finished until ten to five, having worked more or less flat out all day. The nursing staff (and everyone, in fact) continue to make me feel welcome and useful and my surgical technique continues to improve. As far as I know, everything went safely home, despite the busy day.

Yesterday evening, I was genuinely exhausted, but Triar begged me for an evening walk and I’m very glad he did. It was a lovely sunny evening and I soon forgot my aching feet as I decided to explore in the direction of the river and the mill buildings I could see in the distance.

The White Cart river with the Town Hall towers and the Abbey in the background
On the right is the Watermill Hotel.

The 17th Century Watermill hotel used to be a flour mill, which made oatmeal and pea flour. As you can see, it backs onto the river. Rooms at the back must be filled with the sound of the waterfall, day and night.

Across the river from the Watermill is the Anchor Mill building, which was built in 1886 and closed in the 1980s, then saved from dereliction and converted into apartments. This was the building that I saw that drew me to walk to this, traditionally more industrial part of Paisley.

Seeing more brick towers, I walked further and came across a gorgeous mural. I should have taken more photos (and may go back) but I particularly loved this six (or seven?) eyed cat!

And this was the final identifiable mill I found: Mile End Mill with its magnificent chimney. As well as office space, it apparently houses a thread museum, which is only open on Saturdays and Wednesdays and, as I don’t have another Wednesday off, and this might be my last weekend on Paisley, I may have to make a decision shortly on whether to walk back there this afternoon!

The last photo I took on my evening walk is at the top of the page. I’ve been hoping to get a cityscape picture and I’m pleased with that one.

I went back to the Square Café Bistro this morning. The bacon roll I chose today didn’t disappoint and neither did Triar’s sausage. This time, I had planned better and had cash for a decent tip in my pocket. And if you’ve made it this far, through this long and winding post, I will say thanks for reading and I hope you have a good week.

Unwanted and Underwhelming Events

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

One of my bitch spays bled on Monday. I had operated on her in the morning and was consulting when she was checked with ultrasound and taken back into theatre. Obviously these things are terrifying for the owner, but they are awful for the vet too. Which part of what I did went wrong? Will they find work so bad that they won’t feel safe with me working here? Will the poor animal die? It’s all my fault…

The realization that she was bleeding internally was also so late in the day, that I had to go home without knowing the outcome. Thankfully, the lovely vet who did the second surgery let me know just before 9pm that the bitch had been transferred to the overnight vets, so she had obviously survived the operation and was fit to be transferred, but I still didn’t sleep well.

I guess this is a particular peril of returning to something I haven’t done for a long time, but I have received incredible support from all the PDSA staff, as well as a vet friend. It was a very large dog and a breed which, so my vet friend tells me, are very prone to bleeding. To understand more, when vets do a spay operation, it’s necessary to tie off the fairly large blood vessels that supply the ovaries at one end of the uterus as well as the ones that supply the cervix and the uterus itself, at the other end.

Tying off the ovaries can be difficult because they are tied to the body wall by ligaments that attach high up near the spine and kidneys. These ligaments mean that you cannot easily get the ovary up to where you’ve made the incision, near the navel. They can be stretched a bit, but that carries its own risks. Anyway you can probably imagine, it’s easy to tie a knot round something when it’s clear of all obstacles. It’s much harder when bits of fat and other abdominal contents are all trying to get in on the act. You can’t afford for any of them to be caught in your knot. Your knot also has to be far enough away from where you eventually sever the artery, and tied tightly enough, that it can’t slide off.

But from what I understand, the main bleeding was from the other end of the uterus, down at the cervix. My ligature was still in place. I had stitched it in. She just bled past it or round it somehow. She was also bleeding a lot from other places, such as the layer under the skin. Some times, that’s just how it is.

Fortunately (to my huge relief) she lived. I am very grateful to the vet and nurse team that recognized there was a problem and fixed it, but it has shaken my confidence. I did two spays yesterday. The first went perfectly, I tied everything off without problems and the abdomen was dry with not a trace of blood. The second, which I had expected to be easier, was actually more difficult and the operation took a lot longer. I have modified my ligature technique and have learned to tie a self-tightening Miller’s knot. Even with that, I still stitched up that second spay with trepidation, but she went home fine, at the end of the day.

With time, it will all fade, but I can still remember, with horrible clarity, back in 1992 when a bitch I was spaying because she had pyometra (infection in the womb) bled out on the table. That one was my fault. I didn’t have enough experience back then and should have made sure someone was assisting me. I did learn a lot that day and my record from then till now has been good, partly because I’ve been careful and partly down to luck. This time round, it was a combination of things, but mostly just unfortunate. I will learn and move on, but this is one of the things that makes being a vet hard.

I haven’t done much this week, outside of work. Looking back through my photos, I see I took one of Triar last weekend. It’s not one of my usual shots of his shaggy, smiling face. It’s a shot of the back of his head and neck after he decided to explore a bush in my garden. I didn’t know there was Galium aparine under there, but I do now!

I guess if you’re reading this in a distant part of the world, you won’t have experienced the eclipse on Thursday. Not that it was worth noting in Paisley! It matched my memories of the one in (I think) 1999, which was another partial eclipse where I was. I’m sure seeing the real thing, where the sun is completely obscured, would be amazing, but on both occasions I’ve experienced, all that happened was that the light went a weird, dull grey colour for a while and that was that. Polar night is much more interesting, though I can see, as with the aurora, why our ancestors might have marveled or been afraid.

I’m thinking of visiting Crookston Castle today, after breakfast out, probably at Harry’s Fuel Bar. Hopefully next week at work will go smoothly, though as I said before, the staff could not have been more supportive and I am incredibly grateful for that. I will leave you with a few more photos from Paisley, taken as I wandered at different times of day. The picture at the top of the page is a lion from the 2016 exhibition, “Pride of Paisley”. I see it every time we walk to the grass in the morning.

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

Exploration

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

I’m back in Dumfries today, because I’m going to another “mini writing retreat,” with A Novel Approach, the writing group from Lockerbie. Not that I have done much writing recently, outside of this blog. Life has just been too full-on for me to find the mind space.

It’s been another great week at the PDSA. As well as neutering, I’ve started to do some consultations. I’m not very confident yet, partly because the PDSA provides care that is, by necessity, somewhat more limited than private vets might offer. It’s also more than twenty five years since I was in general practice in the UK. I did emergency work after that, and also worked in a small animal practice in Norway, but all those things were different, so I’m feeling my way back in. Happily, I’m getting plenty of help from all the staff, from the animal care auxiliaries, nurse and vets.

On Saturday, following a recommendation from Martin in the comments last week, Triar and I visited Barshaw Park. My original intention was to go in the afternoon, when the miniature train might have been running, but I wasn’t hungry first thing, and felt at a loose end, so decided to go in the morning, with a view to going back later. As it was a half hour walk, and I wanted to save energy for when I got there, I decided to go on the bus. It was easy enough to find where to get on, but when I told the driver I wanted to go to Barshaw Park, she didn’t know where it was. On the spur of the moment, having seen an all day ticket advertised, I decided to go for that. So Triar and I went on the bus to Barshaw Park.

It was a nice park, though we didn’t explore too much of it. I saw the track for the little railway as well as a boating pond with lots of birds and an adventurous looking play park. There were a lot of dogs though and as Triar tends to get excited when that happens, it was not the most relaxing visit. Still, we enjoyed our walk around the pond and then took the bus back to Paisley centre.

As I was now hungry, we went to Harry’s Fuel Bar, where I decided to get the pancakes again. I continue to be amused by the sign on the wall beside the counter. The pancakes were just as delicious and filling as they were the first time.

On leaving Harry’s Fuel Bar, I noticed the bus stop outside, which said the bus went to Clydebank, so on a whim, given I had bought an all day ticket, I decided that we would go there and see what Clydebank had to offer. With Triar in tow, rather than walking round the town centre, I decided to go find what used to be the docks. Clydebank was once a huge shipbuilding hub. There are few signs of that history left, other than seeing the sturdy bollards along the river bank, where the ships used to tie up, and standing alone, the massive Titan crane. At 150 feet tall, it dominates the landscape. It was open to the public for a while, but the maintenance costs are so high that it was closed in 2018 and now its future is uncertain. For now though, it stands as a reminder of Scotland and the Clyde’s shipbuilding past.

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Triar and I continued our walk along the river bank, then back round into the town, to catch the bus again, back to our temporary home in Paisley.

I had a day off on Wednesday and decided to go and explore Paisley Abbey. It’s now the Church of Scotland’s parish church, but was originally established as a priory, back in 1163. The current church is a mosaic of buildings, created at different times. The oldest part is from the 12th century – a Romanesque door through which visitors now enter. Parts of the building have fallen down, been sacked and burned, rebuilt and restored until as recently as 2012, though most of the rebuild was completed in the 1920s. There is beautiful stained glass, old and new. Perhaps the most striking is a window near the organ, designed by John K Clark, dedicated to James Davidson Drewette Shaw and representing light and music.

Then, for contrast, I visited a much more humble offering: Sma’ Shot Cottages, which were originally a weaver’s cottage from the 18th century and a slightly later house that belonged to the foreman of a nearby mill in the mid-19th century. It’s always a salutary lesson in how fortunate we are now in how we live in the western world. Whole families used to eat and sleep in one small room, cooking over a coal fire that would have had to have been lit, summer and winter, to make food and boil water. The (restored and working) looms were in a room next door. They didn’t have to travel far to go to work!

If, like me, you are wondering what a small shot is, there’s an explanation here:

Anyway, I had better go now. My writing retreat starts at 10, so I’d better get organized. Thank you to all of you who’ve read this far. I hope you have a lovely week.

This was the only photo I took from the mill manager’s house – a beautiful writing set.

A Whole Lot of Walking

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

This week started, like last week, with a breakfast from Harry’s Fuel Bar. This week, as you can see above, I had sourdough toast with smashed avocado and poached eggs. Like the pancakes, it was beautiful to look at, as well as delicious. The sourdough toast was crunchy and substantial, the eggs perfectly cooked and the swirly patterns on the plate were sweet and punchy as well as decorative. A good start to the weekend.

Round about lunchtime, I took my car out of the locked car park, where it had stood safely all week, and drove to Yorkshire. The weather was a good bit cooler than it had been, and I discovered, when I took Triar out in the evening, that I had a whole lot more energy than I’d had before. I’m not sure whether it was all down to the weather. I have been (sourdough toast aside) eating low carb to try to lose weight and it always takes time for my body to adjust. I’d also been walking from Central Station to the PDSA every day, so likely my fitness improved, but suddenly, after months of walking being a tough drag, I could walk again without every step feeling heavy. It was wonderful.

I walked up a steep Settle lane and (despite the low clouds) there were lovely views when I got higher up.

Sunday’s walk was even better. I had headed up towards Constitution Hill, thinking I would take the bridle path towards Lanhcliffe, when I saw the gate that leads up to Castleberg Crag was open. There’s a flagpole on the top of the crag that can be seen from all over Settle and I’d been hankering to go up there for a while, but for the past couple of years, every time I’ve passed the gate, it has been locked. Now there it was, inviting me in. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’d been told it was a tough scramble, but instead, I found well marked paths, zigzagging up through ancient trees. There was quite a steep drop on one side, but fortunately Triar behaved himself. The views from the top were very much worth it.

After the crag, we continued along Constitution Hill onto the high road towards Langcliffe, then back through the town centre. While we were wandering, I was very impressed with the number of flowerpot critters I saw, scattered around the town. The Flowerpot Festival is in full swing and everywhere you looked, there were animals and birds and all kinds of brightly coloured potty things.

I returned to work on Tuesday and worked Thursday and Friday as well. By the time I finish my PDSA stint, there will be a whole lot more neutered animals running around Glasgow. I’m still enjoying it and am now approaching form on that as well. Next week, I will be doing some consultations, so I’m hoping I can find my way back there as well, without too many problems. The nurses and animal care auxiliaries are all fabulous and taking very good care of me, which is always a massive help.

And so today is likely to start with another breakfast at Harry’s Fuel Bar. There’s a lot of good stuff on the menu, but I’m not sure I’ll get past the protein pancakes to try anything new. While low carb, is by far, the easiest way for me to lose weight, it does get a bit samey and fresh flavour can be lacking. While the protein pancakes undoubtedly contained more carbs than is ideal, they did keep me feeling full all day.

Later on, I may go to Barshaw Park, as Martin recommended in last week’s comments. There is still a miniature train there, apparently, so Triar and I will likely make our way over there this afternoon. Tomorrow, I may take him on the train to Gourock, as that’s one of the places the trains that I catch from Central back to Paisley end up. It’s at the sea side, so maybe well see the sea!

I will leave you with a few more photos from my wanders around Paisley. It really is a fascinating place, with lots of cobbled streets and wynds as well as churches. Thank you for reading and I hope you have a good week.

Further Adventures in Paisley

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Well it’s a dreich morning here in Paisley. For the first time since I’ve been here, the streets are wet. Nonetheless, they are setting up market stalls in the square outside the flat and Triar and I will go explore those later. We will also be going out for breakfast at Harry’s Fuel Bar, a café just the other side of Gilmore Street railway station. We went there last Saturday before heading to Dumfries and had the protein pancakes and possibly the most daringly overfilled (but not spilled) latte, both of which which were delicious!

I took the photo at the top of the page last night, mostly because one of the most outstanding features I’ve noticed as I’ve been walking around Paisley is the number of churches. In addition to the cathedral, there’s an abbey, and seemingly churches of all denominations and none. Some of the buildings have been repurposed – like the PACE Youth Theatre at the top of School Wynd, but there are a lot of beautiful buildings, which I will probably try to capture at some point. In the photo above , you can see the top of the PACE building on the right and there are spires of two other churches also visible, just in one small area.

Although I mention Paisley in the title, I actually spent more time this week in Dumfries. I didn’t get the chest of drawers put together, but I did mow the lawn and get the bedroom partially cleared. I’ve been living with hundreds of boxes and a floor-drobe for most of the past two years, so it’s taken some sorting. Next time I go down, I will find the energy to complete the job.

On the way down, I got stuck in a country traffic jam, which looked like this.

It was a lovely contrast between the city life and the countryside I spend more time in. I had three whole days down there and I wanted to make the most of the time off as well as trying to keep up the number of daily steps I have been doing with walking Triar from a top floor apartment and walking to work. I didn’t quite make it, but we did get out for some lovely strolls.

The first was an old favourite – the path that leads through the woods beside Castle Loch in Lochmaben. I think I’ve shown some of the wood carvings from the forest before, but this heron carving looked particularly serene among the greenery.

It was cool and shady among the trees, but sun baked whenever we emerged, and filled with summer flowers.

On Tuesday we walked down Blackbird Lane and around in a circuit nestled in some scrubby fields near home. There were flowers there too and it was overgrown with summer.

Wednesday saw us going a bit further afield, towards Dalbeattie, where we stopped at a little car park beside Flycatcher Trail. This was another lovely wander through woodland and up a hill, from where we caught a brief glimpse of a lovely view.

After our walk, I checked Google for dog friendly cafés. It came up with Brambles just outside Dalbeattie, so we made our way there. The gardens were amazing and we sat in a courtyard surrounded by flowers.

I’m trying to eat low carb, which was unfortunate as they had lots of delicious sounding sandwiches and paninis, but I went for the 5 breakfast items of your choice, which was very well cooked and filled with thick cut bacon, tasty sausages and a perfectly fried egg. I will go back though, to try something else. They were incredibly welcoming towards Triar, which is always lovely.

The past two days at the PDSA have been very enjoyable. The staff have all made me feel very welcome and they have a lot of laughs in between the hard work. Again, I was neutering lots of animals. For those who don’t know, the PDSA (People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals) is a charity that provides veterinary care for those on benefits. They do a great job caring for animals that otherwise might not get treatment.

And now, Harry’s Fuel Bar should be open, so I am going to head down, see what they are selling in the market and then over for some breakfast. I will leave you with another view from last night’s walk. Thank you for reading and I hope you have a lovely week.

Triar and the Bull

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This morning, I’m listening to the sobbing of gulls outside the window, but I’m not at the seaside. I’m in the heart of Paisley, which is a few miles west of Glasgow, though there’s no longer really any gap between the two. My friend Lara has kindly lent me a bedroom in her flat there while I’m working in Glasgow.

City life is certainly very different. To get to work in the morning, I take the train into Glasgow Central, then walk twenty minutes or so to Shamrock Street. The work is also very different from what I’ve been doing. It’s odd because I had occasionally (and rather regretfully) thought I would probably never do surgery again as I was unlikely to return to practice, but here I am, doing surgery all day from nine in the morning until five in the evening. It’s very intense. On Thursday, I did four cat castrations, three dog castrations, two cat spays (one midline) and a bitch spay. I’d have done the same yesterday, but two of the cats didn’t turn up, so my day was marginally easier.

There are benefits however. I only worked three days this week: Monday, Thursday and Friday. So Tuesday and Wednesday were all my own. I started both days with a walk with Triar to It’s Noe Coffee, where I bought a latte and drank it on a bench. The second day, the bench was near Paisley Abbey, which is when I took the photo at the top of the page. There are lots of fascinating old buildings scattered around the town centre. It’s obviously been a very rich place in the not too distant past. This enormous building is the town hall, though (criminally) I managed to miss the top of the clock tower out of the picture.

There are oases of green, even in the centre of the town. This little patch of parkland, with its carefully laid out flowerbeds and palm trees is where I take Triar in the early morning before I go out to work.

Triar seems to be universally loved wherever we go, which gives me huge pleasure. Lots of people stop to say hello to him. He has also adjusted incredibly fast to city life, though sometimes he’s so distracted by all the smells and stains that he almost forgets to pee and poo. The little patch of parkland in the photo is covered in pigeons in the early morning (Merlin tells me they’re Rock Doves) and Triar loves to send them flapping into the air with a lunge and bark combo. I think the locals have been trying to protect Queen Victoria from them (or maybe were just getting into the spirit of the World Cup) because she is wearing a traffic cone, though not one of the traditional orange and white design.

There’s another little passageway called Meeting House Lane that intrigues me. It’s quite steep, hemmed in by buildings on one side and a wall and trees on the other, and cobbled all the way down. It’s nice and shady, which is good right now as it’s been very hot.

Anyway, I’m going to be staying here, on and off, for the best part of a month and a half and it feels like the beginning of an adventure. There’s so much mor to explore. I want to go into the cathedral and look round. It’s Noe has some amazing looking feta pastries (as well as spinach, potato, leek and tomato and onion filled versions) so one day, I’ll have to try those.

White Cart Water (a major tributary of the Clyde) runs through the centre of town and there are some bridges and banks to explore, though this photo, on the surface, makes it look more upmarket than it really is nowadays. On closer inspection, the buildings on the left are boarded up and one of the beautiful old houses has trees growing from its windows and graffiti downstairs.


Yesterday evening, after a long day and 13,000 steps, I decided to go and enjoy a beer in one of the local hostelries. The Bull got a good write up for being dog friendly, so we stopped in there on our evening walk. Triar enjoyed greeting the locals and was given a bowl of water and two treats. He repaid the poor barman by spilling his water all over the floor. I think he quite enjoyed the whole experience though.

Anyway, back on Tuesday, mindful of home, I went to IKEA and bought a chest of drawers. Much as Paisley is drawing me in, today I’m going back to Dumfries to restart the clearing of my bedroom and hopefully put the new drawers together, so I suppose I’d better get organized. I’m not working again until Thursday, so I have a few days of much needed rest. I will leave you with a photo of one of the painted Scottie Dog statues that I walked past on the way to work. Like Queen Victoria, he was wearing a cone, though his was at a very jaunty angle.

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

Food and Flowerpots

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

It’s been a lovely week with John. One of the things I never considered, when I fell joyfully into motherhood, was how lonely it could be when they all went away. Mostly, I have adjusted to a more solitary life, but that unique love never goes away.

We spent the first half of the week in Settle, staying in a rental close to Mum and Dad. It was a gentle week with a lot of cafés and coffee. It’s not very exotic, but I had this delicious ham and chutney sandwich at Country Harvest, which is a few miles outside Settle.

The bread was perfect. White and soft with a tasty crust that still allowed the flavour of the thick slices of country ham and generously spread butter to come through. I followed it up with a vanilla and strawberry scone with jam and cream. I actually shared half and half with John, who ordered the most wonderful lemon meringue pie. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of that, but if you can imagine a tangy, lemon tart, piled unfeasibly high with clouds of meringue, you’ll pretty much be there. The scone was delicious as well. I’d be hard pressed to say which I preferred.

John’s friend Ben came to stay over Tuesday night, which was also his birthday. He lives in a yurt in the Lake District and plays in a band, who have just finished doing seven music festivals over the summer. It was great to have him stay and Triar thought he was lovely too!

We went to Rind, which is a pizza restaurant attached to The Courtyard Dairy. The Courtyard is a wonderful cheese shop, which is becoming internationally renowned for its amazing selection of cheese. It’s also a great experience as they encourage you to try slivers of cheese, many of them local, but others sourced from around the world. We went in a couple of times and I still have some of the cheese in my fridge as we didn’t get through it all.

As you would expect, the pizzas in Rind are amazing too, topped with some very special cheeses. I should perhaps have gone for one of the more unusual cheese combinations. Last time, I had blue cheese, honey and walnut, a combo I later introduced to Lara’s family on my weekend in Northern Ireland, but the chorizo and honey sounded so delicious that I ordered that, and shared half and half with John, who ordered a cheese rarebit pizza. They were, of course, wood fired and wonderful and I definitely want to go back!

The original plan was that John and I would come up to Dumfries and he would stay in my almost complete spare bedroom, but it wasn’t to be. John and his partner Yoana run a small business creating websites and a new client rang him during the week. Her website had been hacked and the person who created it was no longer available, so she wanted John to help. The old website couldn’t be saved and the hackers were getting quite unpleasant, demanding client information, so John spent a considerable amount of time creating a new, temporary site for her to use while they set a new one up.

It was complex as her old emails needed to be transferred to the new site, but as the whole thing was time sensitive (and inevitably stressful for the lady whose business was under threat) it couldn’t really wait. Alongside that, on the morning we were meant to drive North, we also wanted to fit in a trip to Leeds to get something John had left at a friend’s house. By the time the work and trip were done, it was four in the afternoon and we decided we would try to find somewhere more local to stay instead.

We really landed on our feet as we found an apartment above The Railway bar in Cononley, just beyond Skipton. It was a lovely flat, restfully decorated in Scandinavian style, with Yorkshire touches, which made me feel very much at home. The bar was lovely too and having it just downstairs was very tempting on those two long, hot days.

I took John to the airport yesterday morning and he got home safely, as did I. Donna and I had a cuppa in the afternoon and (generous as ever) she invited me back for the evening. Triar enjoyed the visit too and spent some time in her paddling pool.

Next week, I’m off on a new adventure. I am going to be locumming at the PDSA in Glasgow. I’m genuinely excited as it’s in one of my old stomping grounds. I worked there for Vets Now, back in the early 2000s, so I am familiar with the building, even though I assume the workforce will have changed entirely as that is now twenty years ago. It’s mostly doing surgery, which I love, but I will also hopefully do some consulting days, which will get me back into the swing of small animal work.

I shall leave you with some pictures of the annual Settle Flowerpot Festival, which is just gearing up. There seemed to be a lot of new exhibits this year and the people of Settle are getting more and more inventive. Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you have a lovely week, wherever you are.

In Between

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Last weekend started with a lunch in The Bank – a restaurant in Dumfries that sells small plates. One of mine was loaded fries with Parmesan, truffle oil and garlic mayonnaise, which is at the too of the page. As well as those, I had some delicious scallops with a slice of bacon and a cauliflower purée, which perhaps was very marginally overpowering for serving with the subtle flavour of the scallops, but which still tasted almost as good as it looked.

Staying with the seafood theme, I also went for calamari. Again, the sauce was a little too piquant for the calamari rings, so I ate them alone (delicious) and dipped the less loaded fries instead.

I also tried some delicious mushrooms and some Katsu cauliflower and despite the marginally mismatched sauces, I will definitely be going back.

After that, Donna, I and several friends went and joined a crowd of bouncing middle aged women for a singalong showing of Mama Mia. Bring your own bottle was encouraged, so I took along some Swedish beer. By the end, I think most of us were singing.

A couple of days at home saw me quickly strimming the lawn and assembling a bed (thanks to Donna and Will for helping thread the bed base up the narrow staircase) before heading down to Yorkshire, to meet up with John.

We’re staying in Settle, where the annual Flowerpot Festival is just gearing up. The house we’ve rented is interesting. I’m in the front room at the moment and feel as if I’m sitting in a Jane Austen period house. There’s a wonderful, threadbare rug on the floorboards and faded books on the mantelpiece, propped between an old flat iron and a brown earthenware jar. Milton’s poems mingle with Enid Blyton’s, A Story Party at Green Hedges. Guess that one didn’t have the same ring to it as The Magic Faraway Tree!

I’m low carbing again, which is easy at home, but more challenging when eating out. Usually, I end up comparing Caesar Salad at every restaurant I visit, but this time I’ve been exploring Ploughman’s lunches and taking the bread home for someone else to eat. This was yesterday’s offering at a cafe in Halifax.


On the job front, I’m waiting to hear back from two possible locum positions and also hoping that it won’t take too much longer to find out whether I might get my old job back. One of the locum positions involves bashing on with lots of surgery, which is right up my street. The other has a bit of horse and farm work, but mostly small animal. That would also be a great challenge. I haven’t been in small animal practice since 2016 and that was in Norway, so it would be interesting to climb back into a set of scrubs and see how I get on.

So, as we go into Monday morning, I will be hoping to find out how the next few weeks will be spent. Maybe next week, there will be a progress report, but for now, I’m going to leave you with a few Flowerpots. Thanks for reading and have a good week all!

The Last Fat Friday

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Just like that, the Inchcolm adventure is over. It started with promise, but turned out to be my shortest ever stint in a practice. Remarkably, we parted amicably. Though it was uncomfortable, I was able to explain my reasons and be heard. Despite having flowers and cake, as well as a Fat portion of loaded fries, yesterday was mostly sad. As I drove away, It Must Have Been Love played on the radio, offering an appropriate level of melancholy.

I’m now back in Dumfries, returning too late to really do very much, other than go to bed. The future is wide open and I haven’t had confirmation of any if the possible jobs that might be lined up, but I have a week in Yorkshire to look forward to and I have faith that all will be resolved soon.

The house is a mess and the garden overgrown. Looking at it, the idea of going away yet again, and spending six weeks or more in another practice is rather frustrating. Before I left, it was finally starting to take shape. Still, the mortgage has to be paid, so I will do what I need to do and sort out the rest later.

Anyway, I have some lovely memories, both of the last two and a half months, and of the last week. Highlights of the last months include the daily commute from Airth to Dunfermline. Crossing the Forth every morning, driving through green and rolling fields, with Scotland as a backdrop was magical. I’m going to miss all the central Scotland radio stations. As I rolled down the hill around Abington, Smooth Radio died. Dumfries is an absolute dead space when it comes to FM stations and my 15 year old car can’t do anything more up to date.

I met some lovely people and I hope we’ll stay in touch. I promised to pop in if I was passing, which isn’t that unlikely, especially if I return to APHA.

It’s also been incredible living with Valerie and Charles. They’ve been wonderful company and I haven’t once felt that I was in the way or that they wanted their spare room back. Through them, I was baptised as a Christadelphian. I’ll be inviting myself back for next year’s Eurovision party. Kyle and Candice’s ceilidh is in September. I need to get into shape for dancing, so that’s my next project, whatever else comes along.

Val and I enjoyed the warm weather this week, heading out on Monday night to the Pineapple and on Wednesday to Fallin Bing.

As usual, the gardens at the Pineapple were beautiful. Everything is in full bloom at the moment.

Wednesday evening’s walk on Fallin Bing was a surprise. For those who don’t know, a bing is a slag heap, leftover waste from mining. I was half aware that Fallin had been a mining village, where Airth was a fishing village in past times. The mine closed in 1987, along with so many others in Scotland, which closed around the same time. I grew up near Bilston Glen Colliery and remember the miner’s strikes. Now both are long gone.

But the bing is beautiful. Once it would have been a black desert. Now it’s an oasis of Oxeye Daisies and silver birch trees.

I had better finish off. Before I went away, Donna invited me to a Mumma Mia Party, with dancing and singing, and bring your own bottle fun. I won’t say I’m properly introverted, but I am feeling some trepidation at the prospect. It’s generally worth pushing outside your comfort zone though. You never know what you’ll find out there. So I need to walk Triar and buy a bottle of something or other, before heading round to Donna’s just before twelve.

Thanks for reading. I hope you have a lovely weekend.

The Book of Ruth and Clarkson’s Farm

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I handed in my notice at Inchcolm yesterday. It hasn’t been an easy decision. There are times when I can see that I could love this job, but before I began, the agreement was that I would be working from Dumfries, with a day in Dunfermline once a week. After two and a half months, I’m still living at Valerie’s, working full time away from home, and I don’t feel the communication and trust are there for me to work remotely. I could push for it, but I don’t think it would be easy. At two and a half months in, I feel this should be the honeymoon phase, when I have begun to find my feet, understand what I am aiming for and built up some rapport and understanding with everyone.

It’s wonderful how things work out sometimes. Just at the time when I decided I was going to leave, John called to say that he was buying tickets to come over. I’m still in probation, so I only have one week’s notice. John has ten days over here, so I will have the flexibility to spend time with him, whatever his plans are.

I don’t have a new job lined up, but there seem to be many possibilities opening up and I am looking forward, either to returning to something I’ve done before, or trying out something new. I’ve been in discussion with Dean at APHA. I’ve had a chat with Kelly, who runs a recruitment agency and is looking for locum positions for me, and next week, I will be speaking to someone from Hallmark, who fill temporary government positions at short notice. I feel that the future is wide open.

I’m not sure whether I have mentioned my new phase of Bible reading. Last year, I read the whole Bible for the first time. I was using an app that gives three different portions of the Bible each day, two Old Testament and one New Testament. While it was an interesting exercise, my mind found it difficult to keep track as I moved between the portions, so this year, I am reading the first of the three portions daily and reading around it, so that I can follow better and understand more. Until yesterday, I was reading Judges, which describes a turbulent period in Israel’s history.

At the lowest point, in Judges 19, a man is travelling with his concubine (a kind of secondary wife) and stays overnight in a stranger’s house. A bunch of marauding men demand that the man comes out to have sex with them, and rather than defending the household, he throws his concubine out to them. The marauders rape and kill her and leave her on the doorstep.

I opened the app this morning, expecting more horrible tales and found instead, that I have moved onto the book of Ruth, which is already one of my favourite stories in the Old Testament. When I came to it the first time round, last year, I found the source of the wonderful, “Intreat me not to leave thee,” passage that I had known from reading My Friend Flicka as a child. This time round, I can see the comfort Ruth found in following God. I’m almost afraid to write that I am also finding comfort in following and trusting in God, as professing faith is uncomfortable to me, and frankly, I’m afraid to lose friends, but here I am, doing it anyway.

Moving on to an easier topic, I have been watching the latest series of Clarkson’s Farm with Valerie. If you haven’t seen it and don’t want spoilers, you probably shouldn’t read this part.

I haven’t watched all the series religiously, but have seen enough to think that Clarkson’s Farm speaks wonderfully for farmers. He shows the hardships of farming, the ups and downs, and the sheer resilience farmers need in current times as they navigate a world of rules and red tape, of low prices , conglomerates and cheap foreign imports.

The end of the series was desperately sad though, as one of his cows was tested for tuberculosis and came back twice as an inconclusive reactor. This meant that she was taken for slaughter, despite being in calf with twins. When she was taken to the abattoir, they didn’t find anything, so sent back a report saying, “no visible lesions.”

I was slightly frustrated at that part. I’m not sure what support Jeremy and his crew received from their APHA vet, but they misunderstood that report to mean that the cow didn’t have TB, which isn’t actually the case. I’m not sure how it works in England as the rules are slightly different in the various parts of the UK, but in Scotland, there would still be further testing, to see whether they could grow the bacteria that cause TB, despite finding no lesions.

And that is because, “no visible lesions,” doesn’t mean the cow didn’t have TB. It means that she did not have TB that was advanced enough for them to find lesions, which can take a long time to form, even when the bacteria are there. The fact that they had a number of other cattle with borderline results suggests to me that, even if none of the animals are actively infected, it’s likely there has been some contact with TB infection, because the skin test they did is an indicator of an immune response.

Valerie asked the same question that Jeremy Clarkson asked, which was why couldn’t they wait until she’d calved. If she had no TB lesions in her udder (those form very late, and would mean the cow would be very infectious) she wouldn’t be that likely to pass TB on to her calves, if they were removed quite quickly. However the cow is meant to be kept in strict isolation (which is already hard on her as cattle are herd animals) and they had already shown a film of her escaping. If she was indeed infected, the longer she is there, the more likely it is that she will spread the bacteria into the environment and on to other animals, including wildlife.

The reality is that, despite finding no visible lesions, that the cow might have been infected. The skin test is not very reliable in that it can sometimes miss infected animals. However, where the test is positive, it’s very highly likely there is some level of infection, even if they didn’t find anything to confirm it. In that way, it’s actually a very accurate test, when done right. If anything, vets are likely to err on the side of not sending away cattle unless it’s a definite reactor, which might be one of the reasons TB is rife in England and Wales.

And that is the reason why, after a reactor is found and culled, all the other animals in the herd will need to be tested again after 60 days. That will give them a much better idea of where they stand. TB can be in a herd for years without showing up on tests, and that is another reason it is so difficult to eradicate.

Jeremy also asked the very reasonable question, why are they not able to vaccinate. That one is also easy to answer, in technical terms, if not ethical and personal. It’s about international trade. Various diseases are classed as Notifiable Diseases and that designation is not a UK thing, it is agreed internationally. Notifiable Diseases present a risk, either to human life, to animal welfare, or economically. TB can spread between animals and people. Bird flu can too, but it is so nasty that the birds really suffer. Foot and mouth is another Notifiable Disease and that one doesn’t spread to people, but it is incredibly infectious and causes huge suffering to the animals. It has an economic impact as suffering animals don’t eat, and thus don’t grow or produce much milk.

So back to the vaccination question. The fact is that the skin test, which is the international standard test that is used, cannot tell between a cow that is vaccinated and a cow that is infected. If the UK decided unilaterally to vaccinate, it would prevent a huge amount of international trade, that would cost farmers and the country billions. They are trying to develop tests, but it is taking years and the scientific proof would need to be good enough to convince the groups that make the international rules. If you are interested in this topic, there’s a lot of good information here: TB Hub

So much as I love Clarkson’s Farm and think it does a lot to highlight how tough farming is, Irish someone had explained the TB situation to him more thoroughly. I have had to deal with farmers with TB outbreaks and I know how devastating it is, but the implication that the process is entirely unreliable and unreasonable is unfair. It’s a complex and nuanced problem and I’m not sure that the UK’s approach is working, but it’s being done with the intention to improve the situation. It’s far from perfect, but it wasn’t (in my opinion) unreasonable to remove the cow, even though I’m sure that was painful.

Anyway, this turned out to be quite long and I haven’t even touched on last weekend, when Valerie’s son Kyle came up with his lovely fiancée Candice. It was amazing to see Kyle. The last time I saw him, he was a teenager. We spend Saturday exploring the area where he and Candice are having a ceilidh in September (I’ve been invited!!!) and looking at campsites where guests might stay. We ended up on the banks of Loch Lomond, which was beautiful. Val and Kyle decided to take a paddle.

Anyway, I am very honoured to be invited to the celebration and I wish Kyle and Candice all the best.

I took a few more photos of Loch Lomond while I was there, so I shall leave you with those. Thanks for reading and have a good week all!