I am finally inspired to work on my story based on the Norwegian song/poem Tir n’a Noir again. I have decided it shall be a short story – different from what I usually write. I have also signed up for a scriptwriting course and am waiting for that to begin. I think it will benefit me trying out different formats. A novel takes so much time and concentration and I am in short supply of both those things. My day job takes too much energy.
That said, I’ve had a good week at work. On Monday I was out with Lauren, one of our animal health officers, training her to blood sample sheep. With only minor instruction from me, she quickly got the hang of it and took blood from twenty sheep in no time. I enjoy teaching people how to do things I’ve spent half a lifetime learning.
On Tuesday, I was learning myself. I was up at Prestwick Airport again, checking two beautiful horses that had flown in from the US. It was a broodmare and her foal and they were blue blood in the racing world. Absolutely stunning. Another colleague recommended I took the Castle Douglas road on the way back and I did. The normal Ayr road is rather boring, so I was delighted to find myself driving through some gorgeous Galloway scenery. There are mostly rolling hills here, rather than mountains, but I passed through spiky fir forests and by lochans and burns.
As you can see, the sky became quite spectacular and shortly afterwards, it began to pour. I was reminded of a summer long ago, when we holidayed in New Galloway and went walking every morning, but made sure we were back in the cottage in the afternoon as the rain started each day at about 3pm.
On Wednesday, I recorded the training on the Disease Report Form that I had given in front of an audience the week before. To do this, I was told to set up a Teams meeting with my mentor, Josephine. “Mark it, ‘Do not attend’” she told me, so I gave it that title and then began. I muffed it a couple of times and I wasn’t sure how to delete, so I decided to quit that meeting and set up another. This time, I thought I would give her a giggle and gave it a rather tongue in cheek name.
That time, the recording went well and I laid down a perfectly respectable piece of training. What I hadn’t realized was that when anyone accesses the presentation, what they would come to was a video with the title of the meeting it was recorded on in broad letters at the bottom of the page. And so, you guessed it, I have created a piece of training on a serious topic, with the title that will be there in perpetuity – Do Not Attend Again – The Director’s Cut.
I don’t have any real plans for this weekend so far. Last weekend I went for a walk with Belle, who is one of the women who will be teaching me about scriptwriting. Her dog George is very laid back, and he and Triar seeem to get on fine. Triar did shame me slightly by disappearing into a massive field, filled with long grass and rabbits, and failing entirely to return when I called him. Belle and George were fortunately very laid back about the whole thing and Belle even suggested that, as Triar enjoyed it so much, we could come back another day, but bring a picnic instead of aiming to go to a pub for a drink. Sounds good to me!
At the start of this week, I was quite tense. I’ve explained before that I am trying to work towards a bonus payment, which requires a lot of hoop-jumping and I am attempting some of the hoops right at the last minute, given that the deadline for submitting my activities is Monday coming. On Tuesday last week, I was meant to be presenting training on Foot and Mouth Disease and an update on Bluetongue. On the morning of the presentation, I received a message to say it the meeting was cancelled. I confess, I was rather relieved, though hopefully it won’t undermine my case.
On Wednesday, I gave my Disease Risk Form training to some of the vets. It was given at our regional meeting and I fondly looked round the room at the three or four vets in attendance and thought there was nobody there that would worry me to present to.
When the time of the meeting arrived, Josephine, my veterinary mentor told me we were linking in by Teams, and slightly to my horror, I realized that there were vets at all levels, linking in from the whole of Scotland. Still, I didn’t have any time to worry, and apart from wishing I’d thought to bring a glass of water for my dry mouth, the whole thing went off pretty well.
I must say though, that Josephine herself had given some training on Bluetongue (the situation is unfolding fast – we’re trying to keep it out of Scotland) which she made much more fun than anything I have produced. As you can see below, the cow on the Lipton’s tea van is leaving England and crossing the yellow border into Scotland and we were learning about the special measures the farmer would have to undertake. Suffice to say, there won’t be a lot of English animals at Scottish shows this year and vice versa.
Not sure whose the Coke bottle is, but clearly it should really have been Irn Bru for the sake of consistency.
Wednesday night was the summer meal at my writing group in Lockerbie. The hotel we use does food and they are responsible for the sticky toffee pudding at the top of the page. As regular readers will know, I’m a bit of a foodie and the beef stroganoff, for my taste, had too much Dijon mustard, to the point where that was the principal flavour, but it was pleasant enough.
On Thursday morning I woke up feeling a bit more relaxed, with all my training done for now. I’ve mentioned before that I am reading the Bible and I have an app that gives me three readings each day, two from the Old Testament and one from the New. My first Old Testament reading was Samuel and I was bemused to read that, having stolen The Ark of the Covenant, the Philistines were blighted with “‘emerods in their secret parts”.
Of course, I had to look this up. There are sometimes words I don’t fully understand and sometimes I don’t check, but these emerods were coming up, over and over, and moreover, when the Philistines sensibly decided that the safest thing was to swiftly hand the Ark back to Israel, the priests and diviners told them they had to give it back with an offering that consisted of five golden mice and that they had to make images of their “emerods” from gold and hand over five of those as well.
So when I checked, it turns out that the word “emerods” is actually an old word for hemorrhoids. I must say, the Bible does throw up some truly bizarre things now and then! As it was my friend Valerie who encouraged me into the Bible reading, I tried to send her a message, “Golden hemorrhoids? I’ve heard it all now!” But having sent it, I realized a minute or two later that I had sent it instead to another friend. Fortunately, I managed to delete it before she saw it, but I had a laugh and shared that with Valerie too. Let’s face it, that would be quite a message to wake up to, without context or explanation!
I shall leave you with a few, wonderfully overgrown pictures from Blackbird Lane. Thank you, as ever, for reading. Hope you have a good week.
I managed the May Walkfit Challenge: 15,000 steps, three times in May.
Screenshot
I opened the app on 1st of June, wondering what I would find. April had been 10,000 four times. If it jumped to 20k in a day, I didn’t think I would manage it. Instead, for some reason it’s set the bizarre target of 6,000 steps ten times over. Given my daily steps target is 7,500, which I have been meeting regularly, that doesn’t really seem like anything to aim at. I’m enjoying the app and it is undoubtedly encouraging me to move more than I did, but there are a few things that undoubtedly could do with some improvement.
I didn’t have any callouts last weekend. It’s less stressful than it used to be in practice, though it’s so many years since I’ve done on-call that it’s very different in many ways. Back then, mobile phones weren’t reliable enough for the RCVS to allow them to be used for on-call vets, so you had to stay within hearing distance of your landline. No popping out to the shops if you’d forgotten to get something. Well you could, but you had to phone your boss’s mother (or whoever was covering when you were out working) and ask if it was okay.
Still, I went to church on Sunday and it wasn’t very relaxed. There’s a time limit of 30 minutes after a report case (notifiable disease) comes in. After that, you’re meant to be on the road. As church is a 15 minute drive from home, that 15 minutes would be long enough to add stress to that time constraint.
I had a fascinating day on Tuesday. One of the tasks senior veterinary inspectors cover is import checks of live animals coming into the UK. Obviously how many of those come your way depends on the region where you work. Prestwick Airport is within the area covered by Ayr Field Services and there is a terminal there for horses to come into the country. Until last year, it was very quiet, but because of some problems at Stansted, there are now quite a few horses coming in, so they are increasing the number of vets trained to do it.
So I headed up to Prestwick on Tuesday morning. I probably should have arranged a hotel for the night before or the night after the training, but because of Triar and the APHA restriction on having dogs in cars, I couldn’t do that. I have done a small amount of import and export work in Norway, so the general protocols don’t seem all that complicated and anyway, I was really interested, which always helps when learning something new.
Watching the horse boxes being unloaded from the plane was a new experience. The boxes are actually moved on rollers and pushed by hand, off the plane, onto a platform that lowers them to the ground, then onto a trailer that brings them into the horse terminal. The boxes are then pushed again onto more rollers on a platform, where they are secured. The horses are then given a few minutes to settle, before the doors are opened and they are walked down a ramp and into a stable where they can be checked.
There were two lots of horses, four horses on total and they were coming in from the US. Two of them were owned by a woman who was moving to the UK. One of her horses was 26 years old and she had used him as her FEI horse (eventing, I think). The other was younger – her new competition horse. The other two were from a stud in the US and were coming into the UK as race horses. They were all stunning, even the old boy, and I have made a note of the names of the racehorses, just in case they ever do anything remarkable. I know the odds are that they won’t, but man they were beautiful!
The only other interesting thing I’ve done this week is the homework before I begin a screenwriting course with a small, local, media company, run by a friend. I’ve been sent the first chapter of Great Expectations, along with a shooting script by David Nicholas and a link to the film on YouTube. It’s a 1946 film, so presumably the script is out of copyright. It was interesting to see the changes from the chapter Dickens wrote, to the pared down script, and then to see what the director made of it. Also, films have changed a lot since then, but the opening scene was very dramatic in black and white. I’m now really looking forward to learning more.
I’ve only a few photos of Blackbird Lane to share with you this week, so I will drop those here. Thanks for reading.
It’s been a pleasant enough week back at work. I’m piling up cases slightly faster than I’m able to do the paperwork, but unless something urgent comes in, I should hopefully catch up with the ones I have next week.
Tuesday was spent training a new locum vet how to conduct a welfare visit. Wednesday saw me conducting a meeting with members of the local council. I work with two of them – Scott and David – on a regular basis and we get on well, but as with everything these days, it all has to be fully justified and written down. Thursday I tested a sheep for bluetongue.
And as all that was going on, all the cattle in my current TB breakdown were undergoing their first wave of testing. Until there are two clear tests, the cattle can’t be moved off the farm to another farm, so the farmer is essentially in lockdown. In the meantime, I have to dig into where the disease might have originated and where it might have spread to. All those animals will need to be tested too.
For now, I am actually on call. There are two “ready to go” vets in Scotland at nights and weekends: one North one South. I’m covering the South, so if any suspicion of notifiable disease crops up, or a welfare case that’s so urgent it can’t wait, then I’m the vet that will deal with it. I don’t know whether to hope something comes up or not. I still have to get my first report case (notifiable disease) under my belt, but obviously I don’t want any animal to have anything bad to crop up. We’re still on high alert for foot and mouth because of the European outbreaks.
After a long spell of warm weather, the pattern has now become more mixed, but Triar and I have been regularly walking down Blackbird Lane together. Well be walking there a lot today because I can’t go far from home in case any call comes in, but I want to get in 15,000 steps today.
I’m still keeping up with my WalkFit challenges and one of those is to do 15,000 steps three times in May. I’ve done two days already and this is the last day in May, so I’m going to go for it. My daily step requirement has stopped rising and is stable at 7,500 steps a day, which suits me for now. I often do more, but on bad days, I can still usually achieve that without too much effort.
There are sometimes cows in the fields lining the lane. I’m working on getting Triar to walk past them quietly. He’s always been something of a barker, but does respond well to bribery.
We did have something of an incident yesterday, not with the cows, but with water. He does love a paddle and there is a fairly disgusting, stagnant looking pool at the far end of the lane. Until yesterday , he had always ignored it, but yesterday he decided to jump in. Despite bathing him for about an hour when we got home, he still retains a definite odour of muddy puddle.
I’m going to finish with a few more photos of Yorkshire from last weekend. The picture at the top of the page was taken from my parents’ conservatory. The rest were taken while out with Triar. I do love a dramatic sky over stone walls and sunny fields. Have a lovely week all and thanks for reading.
One of the highlights of my Shetland trip was visiting the Liberation Convoy which visited Lerwick while I was there. My friends, Melanie and John Arthur came over from Whalsay and together we explored the Norwegian ships which had served in the World Wars and were commemorating 80 years from the end of World War II.
Though it was a fascinating experience there was, as always when thinking about wars, a heavy sense of grief and loss. On the first ship we explored, Hestmanden, we read many stories about the young men, British and Norwegian, who served on board this and other ships. There was devastation brought to so many lives, both those of the young men lost and even of those who came back alive but broken.
One of the most haunting things I read was that many of the sailors who served in WWII were not even welcomed back in Norway at the end of the war. Norway was occupied for most of the war, so many of them could not go home during wartime. By the time liberation occurred, they had been outside of Norway for longer than was allowed, and having not been back, they did not have the right to return. Many did not get back in until 1947 as they waited for papers to be sorted out.
I guess the leaders were dealing with their own devastation, but if there was ever a time for rules to be pushed aside, surely that should have been it? Sometimes Norwegian life was uncomfortable for me as I didn’t really know or understand all the rules or expectations and occasionally, would come up against them and know I didn’t really fit in. It’s hard to explain, but I can’t imagine this particular circumstance having occurred in the U.K.
John Arthur, who is co-owner of a fishing boat and a sailor himself, was particularly interested in the engines. It was incredible to see the machinery from 1911, still in working order and very much still a living memorial. There were oily rags and modern tools to keep everything going.
In a converse to the non-understanding of the rules I mentioned above, there was a sense of freedom in many parts of Norwegian life that doesn’t exist in the U.K. This was reflected in our exploration of these vessels.We were allowed in almost every area of Hestmanden, climbing steep ladders, allowed to poke in corners that I know in the U.K. would have been chained off as too dangerous to enter. I feel I’m talking too much about me and my reflections on living as a foreigner in Norway and not enough about the ships, but it is opening up these thoughts as I am writing this, so you’re just going to have to share them!
Hestmanden was a cargo ship and many of her stories were of sailing in convoys, where many accompanying ships were destroyed and the devastation of how it felt to be a survivor when you had witnessed so much death and lost so many friends and acquaintances. The Andholmen, which we visited next had seen more direct action.
Built as a fishing boat in 1938, she was requisitioned in 1940 by the Norwegian navy up in Narvik in Northern Norway. Germany controlled the only deep water landing place, so small vessels like the Andholmen were used to put allied soldiers ashore.
Later she worked between Shetland and Norway and then was based in Peterhead. It’s not so obvious from that photo, but she was armed and still ready to go.
Climbing down into the cabin, there were tidy bunks tucked away in corners and many more weapons, presumably a collection and not necessarily used on Andholmen herself. The cold metal of the guns makes quite a contrast against the warmth of the wood of which the ship is built. Unlike Hestmanden, which was set up as a museum, this was much smaller, but equally fascinating as a historic part of the war effort.
We didn’t get the chance to go aboard the Arnefjord, but she was one of the ships that worked as part of the “Shetland Bus” service that brought resistance fighters from Norway to the relative safety of Scotland.
The Erna and the Heland were also fishing boats, requisitioned for the Shetland Bus. It was a wonderful experience to see them eighty years later, moored again in Lerwick harbour.
The rest of my week in Shetland was filled with sunshine and coastal views, from cliffs to rocky shores and wonderful golden beaches. Thanks again to Lindsay and Melanie for a fantastic holiday.
Leaving at the end was sad, but I hope to be able to go back. Triar also had a good time, I think.
Triar and I had a wonderful trip to Shetland. Traveling with him is always a joy. He makes me proud and other people smile. We headed up from Settle on the train, changing at Carlisle, walking from Central to Queen Street in Glasgow, then on up to Aberdeen. The Palm Court Hotel made us very welcome and the breakfast was delicious. I think we may head up there sometime for a weekend break, but that’s a decision for another day.
The Hrossey was not due to sail until five, so we stayed in the hotel until eleven, then strolled into town. A brief shower sent me into a cafe, where for the first time ever, as I ordered my coffee, I was asked if I wanted some chicken and water for my dog. Of course I said yes. He deserved it, after all.
Once aboard the Hrossey, he quickly made himself at home.
It was something of a rough crossing, so we didn’t sleep much, but we arrived safely and on time in Lerwick on Sunday morning. Lindsay’s house, where we would be staying, is on the edge of Lerwick, so we set off to walk there, passing the Norwegian named Sandveien and Kantersted on the way.
Lindsay had told me she was going to be eating low-carb and I arrived to the wonderful aroma of a roasting joint of Shetland lamb. We cooked and ate a late breakfast and then headed back out. Melanie (you may remember I spent Wool Week with her last year) was playing in the Mandolin Band as a part of Shetland Folk Festival and I didn’t want to miss it!
After that, the Mae Trio played a twenty minute set, while three little girls danced and spun.
It was a lovely atmosphere, but with only five hours of not-very-good sleep, and with Triar alone in a strange house, I decided we should head back and eat some of that delicious lamb before an early night.
Triar and I were up bright and early the next morning. Unsurprising, I guess, having gone to bed at seven. With Walkfit in mind, we headed out for a morning walk along the road that followed the coastline south. It was beautiful, with the grey rocks, the quiet centre of Lerwick across the bay and the still water under a gentle sky.
In the other direction, lay rocky promontories and islets.
It felt wonderful, walking along that quiet road, going who knows where. Then to cap it all, Triar spotted movement in the water.
To my delight, it was a common seal. Within moments, it hauled itself out of the water and onto a rock, gazing at us as we gazed back.
A thousand steps or so more, we turned to head back. It was breakfast time, after all and still just the start of our Shetland adventure.
And now, back home as I am, I am going to pause there and continue tomorrow. The joiner arrived at 08:23 this morning and is upstairs attaching doors and it’s time for breakfast here too. Tomorrow there will be wartime boats and sunny white beaches, but for now, I’ll leave you with the view from Lindsay’s window and wish you an enjoyable start to the weekend. Thanks for reading.
So here I am, almost two weeks into my Walkfit project. Am I feeling and looking better? Well I’m not sure about the latter. It’s hard for me to assess, not least because I don’t have any decent sized mirrors to check myself out in. However, I am beginning to notice my energy creeping up a little.
As well as encouraging walking, there’s a kind of mini-aerobics session each day, that lasts between seven and ten minutes. I suspect the times will build gradually, but maybe not. They’re low impact and I’m starting to enjoy them, which is why I conclude my energy is building. I usually do them at the end of the day, by which time my steps are usually done anyway so that feels positive.
The current step count aim is 5,200 which I am easily surpassing most days, but if I overdo it one day, then I can drop it right down to that figure and still have achieved the goal, which feels positive. So far, I haven’t lost any weight at all, so their prediction that I would be at my goal weight by June or July was the nonsense I knew it would be, but I do hope that it will start to drop a bit at some point if I carry on, and if it doesn’t, being fitter is never a bad thing.
I have, of course, been doing most of my walking in Blackbird Lane, which has been gorgeous. My Merlin bird app has often picked up a song thrush, but it’s usually been in the distance. Last night I heard its song so loudly that I looked into the bush beside me and there it was. So beautiful. I reached for my phone, to add it to my bird life-list (birds you’ve seen to confirm the app got the identification right) but alas, I had the wrong phone with me. Another day, perhaps!
At the start of the lane, there’s a kind of brownish pond. While the hedge was bare, it was more visible, but it’s really barely more than a big deep puddle. As I walked past on Wednesday, a flash of green caught my eye. There, on this miniature pond, silent and still, was a beautiful mallard. I was amazed to see him there, on this tiny stretch of water.
The lane is a proper road with tarmac for a short distance, then it turns into more of a pathway. Here there are hedges and fields on either side and my eye (and ears) were caught by a group of graylag geese. This time I had my Merlin phone with me. I clicked on the life-list button, which showed me a picture of a graylag goose and asked “Is this your bird?” I answered “Yes” and the graylag goose was added. Though they were clear enough to my eye, they were a bit distant for phone photography, but I did my best.
Only a little further on, I saw movement near the edge of the field. This time I saw the pricked ears and graceful forms of two deer. Again, I could see them fairly clearly, but on my phone, they are distant shapes, though still beautiful.
It was a damp morning, as you might guess from the sky. As well as the animal and bird life, I am entranced by the new leaves on the hedges as well as the flowers that shelter underneath. Everything was sparkling with new life and raindrops. It was a truly lovely morning.
And as I made my way back along the final lengths of the lane, I peeked through the hedge to see whether the little mallard was still there… and caught sight of Mrs Mallard. I don’t know whether that tiny pond, secluded as it is, would be a good place to raise a family, but you never know!
And after Easter and its long weekend are past, I only have two days left at work, before I head to Stavanger for a weekend, then up to Shetland. If my blog next weekend is late, it’s hopefully because I’m enjoying a weekend with John and Yoana.
I was truly spoiled last weekend. It was a time of eating and… well eating more! There was some wine, but really… it was a food fest. Saturday dawned sunny, but there was such a cold wind that wild swimming didn’t seem like such a good idea any more. Instead, we sat in the garden, with the chiminea guzzling wood, as we did the same to a tube of Pringles. By Sunday morning, finding clothes to fit was more of a challenge than I had anticipated, but happily a new top came to the rescue for going to church, where my spirits were lifted. After a delicious lunch of leftover pizza, I headed down the road feeling replete, in more ways than one.
What I was though, was ripe for plucking! As a scrolled through Facebook, I came across a walking app called WalkFit. If I took up walking, it said, I would get to my goal weight in three months (ambitious, to say the least) but sooner than that, it promised that in a week, I’d feel better… and in two, I’d look better. I was hooked.
It has certainly had the effect of making me walk a lot more, but with two days left before the week is up, what I feel is not so much better, as knackered! My feet and legs are tired, I feel heavy and bloated and I haven’t been sleeping well. This is not really what I expected, though it might point to ME as a diagnosis for my neuro ills.
That said, the last time I started to walk, having had a vitamin B injection, the effect was that I quickly got fitter and did feel better. I’m not taking vitamin B in any form at the moment, so that’s something to try. Anyway, a nice side-effect is that I have been walking further along Blackbird Lane, enjoying all the birdsong and the flowers and the wonderful sense of peace.
The photo at the top of the page is from one of my morning walks. The dew is still wet on the grass and in the shady corners, there are frosted leaves and flowers.
Everything is growing with the gentle vigour of Scottish springtime.
The eponymous blackbirds are out in force, darting about, calling their sweet songs, curiously brave as I pass, but flitting away when I pull out my phone to take their picture. As so often before, I wish I had a camera with a lens that would allow me to capture them from further off, but still I do my best, and here it is.
The daffodils are passing now, but a few remain.
This week, bluebells have started to appear.
The hawthorn is decked in exquisite white and gold flowerettes.
And in the last two days, these hardy but cheerful perennials have reared their heads.
Meanwhile, back in my neglected garden, spring is also working its magic.
Nature perseveres and so shall I! Have a good week all and thanks for reading.
Triar and I went over to New Abbey last Saturday. It’s a sweet village, not too far from Dumfries, and it hosts two Historic Scotland premises. Sweetheart Abbey has been swathed in scaffolding and fences for a while, but I have been intending to visit the corn mill for a while. I parked the car and walked in through the gate. The door was locked. Having checked the board outside with the opening times (10 till 4) and my watch (just after 10) I tried the door again, in case it was just stiff. No joy!
I was slightly bemused that they hadn’t blue tacked a notice on the window or on the notice board that said the opening times, but she explained they were having refurbishment done. It was on the website, she assured me. Seemingly taking pity on me (I had been polite, as usual, but persistent enough to knock when it was clear I was being studiously ignored) she opened the gate to let me into the garden to see the water wheel.
She then advised me it was a lovely wander up to the mill pond. Unfortunately there was no water in it, she told me. They’d had some invasive weed which the council’d had to drain the pond for, swathing it in black plastic to finally finish off the evil plant. Well I had to take Triar out somewhere and she’d assured me it was pretty. I’m sure it would be lovely with water, on a lovely summers day. Triar posed for a picture with the plastic swathed backdrop pond. At least one of them was pretty!
She’d also told me it was possible to walk in part of the garden at Sweetheart Abbey, so we went there next and did that, then tempted by an attractive looking cafe opposite it, I decided to go in for a coffee. I had been mostly fasting during the days (coffee aside) and eating only in the afternoon, so my intention was to continue that pattern, ut when I went into the cafe, the server there told me it wasn’t really opening time yet. They opened at 11, but I could go in and wait, if I liked.
As I sat there in lone splendour among the tea and coffee awards hanging on the walls, listening to the ponderous ticking of the grandfather clock, I decided it would only be polite to order breakfast. When she finally came back, I ordered scrambled egg and smoked salmon toast with my latte and have no regrets.
There were also some interesting vegan items on the menu, including bean and hazelnut pate, with various bread and toast combinations, so I shall probably go back and try something else another day.
It’s been a beautiful week. This was the view from my kitchen window on Tuesday morning when I went through to make coffee.
On Wednesday I was through in Stranraer to visit some chickens and on Thursday, I went to Glenluce to look at some cows in a field! Both visits were successful and straightforward, so the paperwork only took me a morning’s work, which was nice. I also stopped for Fish and Chips at Port William (at least, I think that’s where we were!) which were pretty good, though the chips weren’t as lovely as the fish.
It was, altogether, a lovely day.
Our reason for being in Port William was that there had been a report of a dead sheep on the slipway, but either someone had taken it away, or the tide had done so. We had a good look around, but saw nothing.
Anyway, I’m now at Valerie’s for the weekend and I believe we might go wild swimming somewhere, so I’d better get up and get some warming breakfast. The bright sun seems to have deserted this morning, so it may be a little chillier than the hot tub. Wish me luck!
I’ll leave you with a photo from a ruined chapel Triar and I explored yesterday, up at the now, tragically deserted and vandalized, Airth Castle, which was a hotel when I lived here, many years ago. Have a lovely week all!
I am working very slowly on my writing projects. Various sources advise would-be authors to set themselves a routine. Write every day, they urge, or at least consistently. But there are days and weeks when work is taking almost everything I have and when I get home, I cook, eat, watch TV or read, and then I fall into bed. I think, if I had a project with a deadline, I would manage, but without that, I am writing very slowly, when I feel ready and whole.
This week at work has been more measured than the preceding weeks and for the past couple of days, I have been contemplating my Tir n’a Noir story. It starts with Black November: a man watching the raging sea as he declines into the pains of age and the ravages of a long life. That part is written in the past tense as he tries to catch the echoes of the long-ago summer, when Mary came to him.
He catches the echo and falls into a memory. While the current world is grey, the memory is rich with the green of Arctic summer, with its day that lasts for months, when the primitive plants are rushing towards the light. This part, I have written in the present tense. Though it is only in his mind, somehow, this is more real to him than what is happening now. Among the nature, he hears the sound of laughter and is so filled with energy and fascination, he runs towards it.
And that is as far as I have got. I have been waiting and wondering what Mary looks like, playing with ideas in my head. She’s Irish, but I don’t want the cliche of red hair and green eyes, beautiful as those things are. It came to me that I wanted her to remind him of a bird and I started to look up Arctic birds, but nothing really fit.
But for the past couple of days, I have been batting ideas around with my friend Shirley. I met Shirley in the boat terminal in Finnsnes as we queued for the fast boat to Tromsø. She and her friend Linda were speaking English and it was such a rare event, that I spoke to them. Some decisions just turn out to be right, and that was one of them! Anyway, I digress. Shirley took me to Dyrøya in May last year, and that visit inspired me to set my story there.
ToThe snow covered mountains of Senja, from Dyrøya
So having inserted the boat that brought Mary into this scene (a traditional pine-built fishing boat, obviously) I told Shirley our main character had seen the boat, but not yet Mary. I was assuming Mary was already on shore, but I hadn’t said so to Shirley, who assumed she was still on board. We were also discussing cormorants – not the most elegant of birds, but I want Mary to have dark hair and bright blue eyes, which fits better than the Arctic warbler I had been considering. Shirley suggested Mary was standing with outstretched arms, and from that, I saw her with her dark hair and bathing costume, diving neatly into the calm, clear water.
So now I know how Mary will enter the story. I just have to write it and try to find words as striking as the image. I can tell this story is going to unfold very slowly, but if I am in the mood for writing, I can return to my other book, which is about two thirds finished – at least the first draft is two thirds finished. Maybe, one day, I will complete both of them.
So that is project number one. Number two, for the first time in my life, I am working through reading the Bible. Valerie (another no-regrets friendship, wonderfully rekindled) is Christadelphian, a Christian group that puts a great deal of importance on studying the Bible. She sent me an app, which gives three readings each day, two from the Old Testament and one from the New.
Like many people who (have) attend(ed) a traditional church, I am much more familiar with the New Testament than the Old. I know I tried years ago to read it, but stuck on the long lists of names and genealogy. This time, I have pushed on through and am currently reading Numbers. I watched a Netflix show, Testament, which is about Moses. It shows and discusses the plagues that God brought on the Egyptians as well as showing Moses leading the people of Israel into the wilderness.
I confess, I am struggling with the Old Testament God, who seems fickle, angry, and vengeful in comparison with the God that Christ preached about. But it was the same God that Christ was preaching about and that seems very clear.
I guess these are not new struggles. I am never going to be a Bible scholar, though in some way, I regret not having learned more years ago. I find Christian forgiveness and the bonds with community that faith brings to give me a stability that is difficult to find, in this modern world.
But I am trying to find a pathway that combines those easy things with the new knowledge about how God is presented to us in the Old Testament. I don’t want to rationalise it away – pick and choose the bits to believe and pretend the rest is irrelevant or false. I will add here, that Testament showed Moses leading his people through the Red Sea, but Numbers details that there were 600,000 men (and there would be women and children too) and so the idea that there were a million people, living in the desert, picking up their holy tabernacle and moving the whole encampment round…
Well you can understand why I am having difficulty with that concept. The arguments about realism tend to focus on Genesis and creation, but this part seems more impossible to me. I can only persevere and hope that I can find some place of equilibrium.
I did start searching online for one of the cleverest Biblical Scholars I have come across in my life and I found a wonderful video of him talking about the lead up to Christ’s crucifixion in the gospel according to John. I shall share it here, for any Bible Nerds who may be interested. He’s a Monsignor now, but he was Father Patrick when I attended his church, years ago.
My other projects are more prosaic. The house and garden. I have even less energy for those, but will probably end up doing my work to pay for others to do the jobs that need to be done. I just need to find the energy to keep the garden under enough control that it won’t cost thousands more to fix it, when I’ve got the house into better shape. Sometimes it seems there is just too much to do and maybe I should have bought a well maintained apartment!
Work continues apace. I have a new welfare case and another TB suspicion. There’s a bonus available if I can prove that I have certain skills… and there’s another project. The whole of life seems to be a massive juggling act. But for now, I have the weekend and a little oasis of time to spend. I will share a few more images from my garden, which is starting to burst into flower, though I suspect some of the bushes would have benefitted from some pruning at the appropriate times, which is definitively not now. Its wild state is attracting the birds and I’m not going to do anything that will drive them away.
Have a good week all, and if you’ve persevered through my ramblings, thanks for reading!
A Vet’s Life 