During the winter months, it was always going to be hard to keep up with my walking intentions. I’ve mentioned before that, with WalkFit’s help, I was doing a regular 7,500 steps a day, with additional monthly challenges on top. I don’t know whether I might have kept it up if WalkFit hadn’t failed me, but with a combination of complete darkness outside of working hours and the onset of icy weather, which makes falling much more likely, I have not been keeping up with my intentions in the past week.
I did start well over the New Year break. Last week, I described my waterfall adventures and I had two lovely walks at the weekend. The first was up a path near Torthorwald which I found when looking for a different path, but went with it anyway. Triar and I ended up tramping 10,000 steps on some lovely tracks and backroads.
Sunday’s walk was a bit more limited, crammed in between church and a birthday celebration Donna held for me in the afternoon. It was another lovely day though, more backroad walking and some possible exploration for the future.
Work continues to be very up and down and that does have a bearing on my walking as well. As I mentioned above, the shortness of the days, combined with a workday where we are supposed to work from eight thirty until five leaves little time for walking in the sun. And some of my tasks, such as duty vet, which I did yesterday, leave me so exhausted and demoralised that there is little energy for anything other than slumping in front of the TV.
There are good days though. I like working on farms and with farmers. There are few places I would rather be than in a cow shed. There’s something about being among cattle that brings me a feeling of serenity. I realise I don’t instil the same feeling in them, but I do try! Sometimes, because of the nature of my cases, I have to spend time away from home and that probably happens most with TB cases. I’m dealing with two outbreaks at present and both are a couple of hours drive from Dumfries. I’ve named this week’s blog after the lunch I have most often when I’m working away from home.
On days when I work away from the office for more than five hours and less than ten, I’m allowed to claim £7 expenses for food and drink. Most cafes in Scotland offer some kind of soup and sandwich combination and as it is warming and cheap, that is the lunch I go for most often. The lunch in the picture was potato soup and a Brie and cranberry toastie and it was as rustic and delicious as it looks. The week after next, I will be spending two days at the same farm I visited this week to train a new animal health officer in blood sampling. I’ll be staying up there with some lovely colleagues, working on farm during the day, staying in a Premier Inn overnight. Those trips are undoubtedly the highlight of my job. I’m just hoping this time that it’s not too cold.
It seems that half of the UK is currently enveloped in snow, but here in Dumfries, nothing. I find it a bit disappointing after my years in the Arctic. Over there, it was perhaps too much of a good thing, but I miss the brightness it brings and I also have some fabulous spiky boots that aren’t really useful on ice as they need some depth to dig into!
Reading back, I’ve just realized I hadn’t explained how WalkFit let me down. It was always a bit of a poor programme. When I started, it offered a slow, medium or fast option, without any explanation of what those were. As I was fairly unfit at the time, I chose medium on the assumption that it would build up over time at a medium rate, probably to 10,000 steps a day. Instead, it started on 4,300 and built up , but then stopped at 7,500 steps, again without saying that was what it was doing. I waited quite a while before I realised that was it.
But 7,500 steps suited me well. It was relatively easy to stick to. With two “days off” allowed each week, I had been meeting my target steps for six months. And then my three monthly renewal fee came in. At £66 for what was a fairly limited program, it was not cheap, but it was working for me, so I went with it. And then they reset my program. Instead of continuing at 7,500 steps (as it had the first time I renewed) it started me back at 4,300.
I contacted them, of course I did, but the response was insulting. Instead of acknowledging that an error had been made, Nicole told me that the app “sets up daily goals for you based on your personal parameters”. She told me I could change my daily goals, but left it to me to find out that 7,500 was not an option. I could have whole thousands only and the only way to get back to 7,500 (with which I had been very happy) was to work up through the medium program again. Not only that, but it was obvious to me that the whole thing might happen again in three months.
I wrote again, explaining that it was obvious something had gone wrong and the reset should not have occurred. Nicole replied once more, saying “the app occasionally adjusts goals based on recent activity or completion of the personal plan”. As this was a bare faced lie, I decided (quite regretfully) to cancel my account. They did add insult to injury afterwards, by offering me a year’s use at £30 (so much for rewarding loyal customers) but tempting as it was to have the app back again, I wasn’t going to send them any more of my money, whatever the terms.
.
My search for a replacement app has, so far, been unsuccessful. All it was, basically, was a step counter with flashy awards when you managed to reach your totals and some fairly useless fitness programmes that very quickly rose beyond 20 minutes, which exceeded my boredom threshold and couldn’t be readjusted down to a level I was happy with. So if anyone wants to set something up, I’d happily pay for it. I guess the WalkFit false advertising (promised weight loss) wouldn’t be an option for a decent person, but it might just take off anyway, at the right price.
I shall leave you with a picture of Triar in his favourite place. I brought my (financially worthless) squashy leather sofas all the way from Norway because we both like them and this one is in front of a radiator, so double comfort for him lying up on the top. Have a good week all, and thanks for reading.
So I’m in Yorkshire and Christmas day is past. I wasn’t sure I was going to get down here at all. Last week at work was crazy. Shortly after returning from church, a phone call came in from a devastated farmer. He’d gone into his shed and found the birds silent: all either sick or dead. Technically, the case was in the South, so I should have been the one setting out, but by a twist of fate, the farm was closer to the vet covering the North, who offered to go. I am still incredibly grateful. Tuesday saw another case come in. Each involves a tonne of paperwork, even for the phone vet. Tuesday night, a member of the public called at 11 pm. Another twisted neck goose, also handled by a human. If you’re reading this, if you see a sick bird, don’t pick it up. If it’s dead, you can put on thick rubber gloves and double bag it (two dustbin bags, seal well) and put it in the outside bin. If you’re in the UK, you can report it. Details here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/report-dead-wild-birds
My line manager decided I shouldn’t work at Christmas. I’d worked both days last weekend so by civil service rules, I had to have two days off in a fortnight anyway. I suspect I will be working New Year. Lots of our vets are in other countries for the Christmas break. The three cases so far are in a cluster, so more is a strong possibility. It may already be reality, but my work phone is firmly switched off.
I made some lovely, vegan gravy on Christmas day. Also stuffing and various other things. It seems Helen is now more vegetarian than vegan though, which is a lot easier. Good to know that vegan beer and onion/vegetable gravy can be delicious though. Never know when that might come in handy! Helen is going home today, so it will be just me in the old house. Mum and Dad have moved out and the place is half gutted. When I was thinking yesterday about my last night here, I was reminded of my last night in my lovely house in Norway, which never happened. The removal men arrived a day early and took my bed and that was that. At least this last night won’t be so stressful, even if it is rather sad, after all these years. I have loved this house and am already assuming I will be hosting Christmas in Dumfries next year, all being well.
Anyway, I’m going to go now. My much loved Auntie Margaret is coming over today. She’s Dad’s sister and I have wonderful memories from the 1990s when I was working in Yorkshire and would randomly turn up at their house, to be immediately assimilated into their family, whatever was happening. Helen will be off shortly too. I want to make the most of the time we have.
Have a good week all and thanks for reading. Happy New Year when it comes.
Good morning from me, on this, the fourth and last Sunday in Advent this year. It seems astonishing that I’ve only been back at work for one week. I’m on call this weekend and my holiday feels long gone. I’ve been handed another TB case since my return and I’ve also carried out the on-farm epidemiological investigation for one of my collegues, who unfortunately is not well enough to do field work.
Last night, someone called from a veterinary practice. They’d had a wild goose brought in with torticollis (a twisted neck). What to do now was the question, given we are in another wave of bird flu? I was able to answer quite easily. There’s a ScotGov web page about reporting wild birds of certain types (geese being on the list). It’s really for found dead birds, but would apply here. As neurological signs (torticollis included) can be a sign of bird flu, I also urged caution and PPE including goggles, double gloves and an FFP3 mask. I don’t know if vet practices have those available, but that’s the minimum I would wear. I sent a link to the list of government approved disinfectants and advised that if anyone developed signs of flu, including conjunctivitis, they should phone their GP or 111 and tell them they’ve been in contact with a bird that may have been showing signs of avian influenza. This was all such familiar ground to me that it felt good to impart it. The vet seemed very grateful, but keeping people safe is one of the best parts of my job and I was happy to help.
Christmas is only a few days away, but I have today and two more days on duty before we get there and it’s hard to see beyond that. All being well, I will head to Yorkshire on the evening of the 24th. I plan on leaving late. Traffic will be awful in the afternoon, so I shall go to the evening service at my church before heading down. One of my regrets in going away for Christmas is missing it in my church. I have found a minister who seems to love Christmas as much as I always have. One day, I shall stay here and will share every joyful moment with the friendly parishioners. Today is the Nativity service. Church was a normal part of Christmas when I was growing up and it’s lovely to see children being put first in a church, even though most of those attending are older than me.
I was out in Wednesday night with Donna and her friend Debs for a pre-Christmas meal. La Dolce Vita in Dumfries was suitably cosy with low lights and plenty of chat alongside some quite delicious food. I started with a huge chunk of deep fried brie! Yum!
Then I had chicken breast in a Parmesan sauce. This did have an Italian name, but I was a glass of wine in by this point, so I failed to note it down! I left most of the carrot for Rudolph, but the rest was delicious.
I finished with a coffee with Chocolate Orange flavour Bailey’s. I wasn’t expecting it to come in a bucket with an inch of cream on top, but had no problem in drinking it when it did!
This lovely evening event was actually hard on the heels of our Christmas meeting at work. I made another ginger cake, this time writing down the recipe. I’ll try to get it written up this afternoon and then I shall post it on here.
The picture at the top of the page and the one I’ll share below were taken yesterday in Blackbird Lane. Usually I take close ups or photos looking out over the fields. These were looking back towards the houses on the edge of town and I’m surprised how peaceful and pleasant it all looks in the last of the winter daylight. Triar is telling me it’s time to go out now, so as we’re limited by having to be available to leave within 30 minutes if a notifiable disease case comes in, it’ll be Blackbird Lane again. No complaints from me!
Helen (my sister) and I contemplated our perfect Christmas day yesterday and concluded a climb to the top of Malham Cove, followed by beans on toast and a mince pie would be blissful. Unfortunately we’ll probably have to go with something a bit more traditional, though Helen is vegan, so it won’t be a meat feast as it usually is. She and my niece are joining us in Yorkshire. It’s a long time since I’ve seen them, so it will be good to meet again.
Anyway, I’d better take Triar for his walk. Hope you all have a lovely peaceful Christmas when it comes. God jul to my Norwegian friends. Thanks for reading.
When I booked this year’s Norwegian holiday in December, it didn’t cross my mind that I would see snow in Scotland before I went. Living in Dumfries for the last two winters, I’ve not seen more than a heavyish frost, so I joyfully booked a pre-Christmas week in the Arctic to boost my chances. Not that there is invariably snow there in December, but the odds of it (and Aurora) are much greater. Perhaps I should have been prepared for it. After all, last time I went there (May last year) Donna sent pictures of spectacular northern lights over my house. Life is sometimes topsy-turvy after all.
I guess in North Norwegian terms, this barely counts as snow, but it was beautiful anyway. A white world under a cloudless blue sky. My favourite kind of day.
This was my second day in the area, working with a team that was trying to ensure the last of the maurauding pigs were gone. Most had been removed the week before by my colleague from the local authority in a trailer. These were the stragglers: those which were no longer domesticated enough to come back to their field for food. Knowing this might happen, I had asked for, and received, permission to invite a wildlife firearms team to come up.
I guess some might criticize that decision, but these were pigs living in close proximity to a nasty bend in an A road. We’d already dealt with one that had been hit by a lorry. Someone asked if I would be traumatized, but my thinking is that these are healthy animals being shot from a distance in an environment where they are comfortable. There are much worse ways to go. I was there as welfare vet though in truth, the two members of the team who came were so professional that my presence was barely needed. There were very few pigs, though there was a young pair, probably brother and sister, who would have bred if left.
As well as taking me up the hill where we had great views of the snow, my local authority colleague took me to see the weaned piglets from the members of the herd he’d taken away the week before. Instead of being outside in the cold, they were inside in a comfortable pen, with plenty of food. This hasn’t been a perfect operation, but it’s a good end to a welfare case that held the prospect of getting completely out of hand.
I’ve been out to a couple of cafes this week. The first was a trip to my local garden centre, where I have a card that lets me have two coffees each month. Mostly my intention is only to have coffee, but on my previous visit, I had seen a gingerbread cake that I decided was worth going back for when I was hungry. This then, was last week’s belated breakfast after waiting for the plasterer. It was worth the wait: the cake had a warm and spicy flavour that was nicely offset by the coolness of the icing. If I was being pernickety about it, I was slightly disappointed that the litttle gingerbread man and the biscuit crumbs on the cake wer soft and not crunchy but, complemented by the smooth bitterness of the coffee, it was a delicious start to the day.
The second was a revelation. On a dreich day at work, I went with a colleague to a cafe in Sanquhar called A’ the Airts. As Scots readers can possibly predict, this venue had lots of paintings on the walls. There was a gorgeous acrylic of a cat on a black background and a glorious golden painting of a stag with antlers. I may go back to buy a painting when the work in my house is finished, but I will definitely be going back before that for more food.
In addition to the normal menu of toasted sandwiches and soup, there were two Christmas offerings. Having been out in the rain all morning (I saw myself in a mirror and bedraggled would have been a good description) I was keen to order, so decided quickly on the second choice, which involved pigs in blankets, gravy and Yorkshire puddings. It was only after the order was in that I read the description properly: “Two Yorkshire Puddings stuffed with Cranberry, Pigs in Blankets & Honey Topped Baked Brie served with gravy & festive slaw”
I guess there is nothing wrong with a cheese and Yorkshire Pudding combination, but I confess I was surprised. Still, bedraggled and hungry as I was, I was delighted when it appeared.
It wasn’t easy to photograph. I’m not sure how enticing it looks, but reader it was delicious! Cranberry and Brie is a common combination. I’m usually wary of adding in bacon. For me that is gilding the lily because the sharpness cranberry offsets the creaminess of the Brie so well. But this time, with the honey accentuating the salty and crunchy bacon, alongside that heavenly Brie and cranberry combination… well it was divine. I’m not sure I detected any gravy (I love gravy) but for a hot meal on a wet November day, it was perfect. And if you want to know what was festive about the slaw? That had cranberries in it too. Not sure they added much, other than it being an odd colour, but it’s a forgivable experiment! All in all, this was a wonderful meal.
And now I am down in Yorkshire. Not the snowy part, but the past two days were beautiful with frost. It’s been a lovely start to a long weekend.
It’s starting to feel quite wintery outside, though really it’s still late autumn. I’m in Yorkshire again and there are still a few leaves clinging to the trees, though there are more on the ground.
While that leaf reminded me of flames (next project must be to get some kind of cosy fire in my house) most are shades of brown. Triar has started a new game where instead of pooing on grass, he’s choosing piles of leaves. As anyone who’s ever tried to spot doggy doo among a pile of leaves will testify, it’s quite a challenging game!
While I am trying to keep up my 7,500 steps a day (thank you WalkFit) the darkening evenings and wet weather are making it tougher. There’s mud now down Blackbird Lane and anyway, it’s too dark down there at night for it to be enjoyable, so though we still go there in the mornings, evening finds us walking the damp streets, admiring the foggy drizzle as we walk through pools of light from the street lights. Soon, of course, there will be Christmas lights to offer more colour in the darkness, but despite the best efforts of the shops, the Christmas spirit hasn’t quite descended yet.
That said, I did watch Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone last weekend. It’s one of my annual Christmas pilgrimages and it takes time to watch all seven films. I’m also in a mood to get the last seven chapters of my novel finished. It’s set in the lead up to Christmas and definitely easier to write when the evenings are long and the mood is upon me. I’ve been writing it for years and have considered abandoning it, but I’m so far through that it seems daft not to complete it. Then maybe I can put it behind me and start something else.
It feels odd to me that Bonfire Night has been and gone, leaving barely a mark. I did hear fireworks now and then. There was a spent rocket in Blackbird Lane the other morning, but it was always such a big part of my childhood that it seems very muted now. I guess I was lucky growing up. My dad loved bonfires and fireworks weren’t frowned upon as they seem to be now. But with the build up to Christmas getting earlier, it does feel like the autumn celebrations of Halloween and Guy Fawkes now feel like they are merging into some kind of early winter celebration. Instead of seeing notices for a local fireworks display around 5th November, then Christmas lights being switched on in early December, I’m seeing mid-November dates for the lights.
Maybe I’m just getting old. The neighbour’s children certainly went out Trick or Treating. I took them some sweets round and was rewarded by the neighbour clipping the top of my too-tall to reach hedge from the roof of his shed. I have no idea if those things were related, but it felt like it to me.
Project garden is moving slowly. The top part now looks neatish, with the exception of a flowerbed that is still choked with ground elder. I’ve planted most of the bulbs I bought with Valerie and have filled my brown bin each fortnight with hedge clippings. The bin service stops through the winter so there’s only one more to go this year. Next weekend, I’ll try to get more hedges cut. At least the growth is slowing down, so anything I do will be easy to keep under control until spring.
For now though, I’d better get up and take Triar out. Those 7,500 steps are not going to walk themselves. I will leave you with some photos taken last Sunday, driving back to Dumfries from Lochmaben. Amazing how the light changes, depending on the weather and the direction of the sunlight.
Disclaimer: the pig picture above belongs to a friend and is not part of my case.
Looking back at this post from last year it’s kind of odd to see how little has changed in terms of my workplace, workload and colleagues. The reason I was reading it was because this week, on top of my TB case, the aftermath of Thursday’s report case, big welfare in transport investigation and a couple of routine inspections done or due, the marauding pigs have made a return. It’s been posted on Facebook and the local news, so I guess I can say that these pigs are now causing a significant hazard on the A76. Last year, it appeared the situation was back under control but (as with many other welfare situations) it has spiraled again.
It’s not that surprising. During my three years in Norway, it became obvious that most farmers are doing a great job and that almost all the problems we have to deal with stem from a few people, a few of whom are genuinely bad or ignorant, but most of whom are struggling with life, one way or another. Lots of people have a dream where they run a successful business, keeping animals. The reality is that doing so involves a huge amount of hard graft and a steely mind that can cope when catastrophe hits. Farming is a tough business. To quote James Herriot, ‘I was beginning to learn about the farmers and what I found I liked. They had a toughness and a philosophical attitude which was new to me. Misfortunes which would make the city dweller want to bang his head against a wall were shrugged off with “Aye, well, these things happen.”‘
Anyway, Tuesday was a bit sad as one of the poor pigs was hit by a lorry. The end of the week was filled with meetings and multi-agency planning to find a solution that will last. Otherwise, we’re going to be dealing with ongoing problems for years to come.
A lot of what we do involves fighting against the system. These welfare issues are typical – we have to make sure we give people the chance to rectify problems themselves, when the reality is they are only in that place because they aren’t coping. There’s little we can offer in terms of support and neither advice nor penalties really help. After almost two years though, I have a reasonable grasp on many of the tasks I’m handling and what I can actually do. I have a network of contacts, both local and national, who can be relied on to get things done, which makes all the difference.
In other good news, after waiting since May for a non-appearing plumber, I contacted a different plumber from my street, who came the same evening and started work the next day. I now have a functioning shower and toilet upstairs and the rusty and unusable shower over the bath downstairs has now been replaced. So now, after more than a year without a shower, I have two. Still plastering and decorating to go, but it feels like the end is now in sight for my room-in-roof insulation project.
On Thursday, we had the first frost of the year. Less spectacular than the Arctic frosts that could go on for weeks, building huge ice-crystals, frost here still adds a new layer of beauty to the small things. I do love proper winter weather.
I’m tired after a busy couple of weeks at work, but there’s not much I need to do this weekend. I have a shoebox from the church that I need to fill with Christmas gifts for (I think) refugees somewhere, so I shall take a wander to the shops this morning to get that filled. I may stop for a coffee and a slice of gingerbread cake at the garden centre. Other than that, it looks a bit stormy outside, so I intend to spend some time in front of the TV. It’s almost time to start my Harry Potter Christmas marathon, so that might be on the agenda. In the meantime, I will leave you with some photographs I took last weekend, over towards Wigtown. It’s a beautiful part of the country. Thanks for reading and hope you have a great week.
This week has felt very long. Monday was spent catching up on work from last week. Tuesday, I was out on a welfare visit. I haven’t done so many of those lately as our regional vet team are so overstretched that my line-manager is withholding all but the most urgent work. I enjoyed it. It was a well-run dairy farm (the picture at the top of the page is unrelated) which I always find reassuring. We get a few awful welfare visits, but most of the time I find dedicated farmers who concentrate on welfare as part of their routine work. The reality is that animals that are treated well are more productive, which I’m sure has a bearing, but generally they care about the animals they look after.
Wednesday there was a monthly team meeting, and the first in a series of mandatory meetings for the vet team. As I said above, our regional team is struggling. This is straightforwardly as a result of understaffing. We should have a team of ten vets and right now, we have the equivalent of five fully functional vets. Wages for a Senior Veterinary Inspector are not high in comparison with other vet jobs and South West Scotland is the busiest region. Sometimes people come into our team, train for a while, feel the weight and then leave. They go to other jobs, or to different areas, where there is less work. Anyway, at the meeting, a colleague led by saying she wasn’t even able now to work through her emails as they come in. This rang a bell with me. I look through mine and pin the ones I have to deal with at the top of the page. There used to be around five there at any time. Now they’re off the page.
They don’t really have any solutions and I don’t blame my line manager. He is doing all he can to protect us, but only dealing with the most urgent work means that the work we are doing is often heavy or very much time-constrained. If there are horses arriving in the airport, we can’t say, “I’ll handle that tomorrow.” We have to handle the TB cases because if we don’t, there will be more.
The only reason I had the nice welfare visit was because my line manager was away. Those standing in for him seem unable to bear the weight he does, so while he’s away, the welfare visits get distributed and we get pushed to take on other work. We did an Emotional Intelligence training day a while back, where they set us tasks and pushed us to complete them faster. Some of them involved throwing things to each other. The people running it seemed quite impressed that none of the team criticized anyone who slowed us down, by fumbling a catch or throwing badly. I commented, in a wry voice, that we were so used to missing our targets that nobody was going to be uptight about not getting the fastest time in a throwing game. Everyone laughed, but the reality is that working constantly under pressure means that we do understand what is important and we do have quite a forgiving core team.
On Thursday, I thought that I might finally finish and send off my witness statement from the Farm of Doom case, which I last visited back in April. I haven’t been responsible for all the delays on that one. My Local Authority colleague took an age to come back to me with the photographs for numbering, so I couldn’t finish my statement without them. I thought I was more or less done, then sent my work to one of the ex-police Enforcement Officers, who told me I had to be explicit in stating that I took each photo and what it shows. As there are a lot of photos, I was only about halfway through this task and Thursday lunch time was approaching when my line manager rang.
I answered, feeling quite sanguine as I generally do when I finally get the time to complete overdue paperwork. He said, “Sarah, can you start to prepare for a report case please?” The bottom fell out of my day. Thursday afternoon and Friday, when I had planned to get through All the Things, including the almost finished paperwork from Tuesday’s welfare, updating my TB case and writing a long-postponed talk I’m supposed to be giving on deer were immediately thrown out of the window. A report case would take up the whole of the next two days. “What kind of report case?” I asked. “AI,” he replied. Avian Influenza. Mentally, I cast aside my planned quiet days and started to prepare for the onslaught.
When I go on holiday, and especially when flying, there’s a bit of a tense period before setting off. Making sure I have everything I’ll need creates a bit of tension. Obviously, I can buy new underwear, but if I forget my passport or my phone, with its electronic ticket information, and maybe the phone charger, then life would become more complicated. I usually relax once I’m through airport security. Beyond that gate, anything that goes wrong will be dealt with.
It’s a bit similar for me with a report case. Before I set off, I need to make sure I have everything in my car that I might require for my disease investigation. All the right paperwork, all the right kit. Throw on top of there the knowledge that I might not make it home that night, so I have to make sure Triar’s needs are covered too, and you get the picture. Having been “officially informed” that I am the attending vet, I have half an hour before I’m meant to be on my way. The reality is that we usually get this pre-warning and the official time is so vague that I have trouble filling in the form the next day. There’s no chance of getting out of the door in half an hour.
Anyway, that prep time, as with the airport planning, is always the worst bit for me. Once I’m in the car and on my way, my mind settles and I am committed. There’s no point in worrying about my other cases or whether I’ve forgotten anything. The next few hours, I have one task only, which is to assess whether there is notifiable disease on the farm or not. This time, I was driving out west. I hadn’t had lunch, so I stopped in a roadside shop for a filled roll. While I was stopped, I saw a message from Donna, saying she would take Triar out (and possibly in overnight). Another weight off my mind.
I’m writing all this as if I’m an old hand, but in reality, this was only my third real report case. It was the second bird flu report case in our region this week. The other farm would still be under restrictions because, after testing, the final all-clear for bird flu takes about a week to come through, but initial results suggested that one was negative. My farm, the one I was heading for, was a laying unit, producing eggs. There were, in total, 180,000 birds on three sites. 80 birds had died overnight in one of the sheds. My job was to go in, take a detailed history, examine both live and dead birds, and then decide whether we need to test for bird flu.
If you’re wondering about now, “well why don’t they just go and test them and see?” the answer is because notifiable diseases are only notifiable because they present a risk. The risk might be economic, for example it might mean animals can’t be sold to other countries because of trade agreements. Scotland is fighting to keep its Bluetongue status as “Free of Disease” because that means more international markets are open to them. Most though, have an animal welfare or human risk aspect. If foot and mouth spreads out of control, as it did in 2001, there is a massive animal welfare issue, as well as a huge economic cost to farming and to the UK. Bird flu presents a risk to human health, as well as a significant welfare impact on the infected birds. Both spread like norovirus through a scout camp, so as soon as there is suspicion of disease, the farm is locked down. The first thing I do, on arrival at the farm, is to serve official papers, confirming the verbal restrictions they were told when they called us.
And when I say locked down, I mean just that. Bird flu spreads easily, so it’s not only birds and animals that can’t move off. People aren’t allowed on or off. Vehicles too. Any movement, from that moment, until the restrictions are lifted, has to be made under a licence. If I can’t rule out disease and we go for testing, this farm is going to be locked down for a week. If I decide this isn’t bird flu, they can open up again this evening. This is an egg producing farm, with 180,000 birds, each laying an egg daily. Eggs can carry bird flu. A week’s worth of eggs… well you get the picture.
I need to be calm when I arrive on the farm. If this day is stressful for me, then think about what the farmer is going through. His or her animals and a chunk of his or her livelihood are on the line. They need me to guide them through this so I want them to have confidence. I bless my years in general practice out of hours and in the emergency clinic. I’ve been dealing with other people’s disasters since I was 23. (As an aside, I love the company of old vets for exactly that reason. Many new vets never do out of hours. It’s not good for the profession.)
My Animal Health Officer (AHO) who will take the samples today, if we sample, is F. She’s even newer than me. My first bird-flu case was hers too, but that time we had an experienced AHO with us. This time, it’s just us. She’s holding up well and was out of her car before me. Deep breath. Grab all the paperwork. I open the car door, climb out, and greet the farmer as if I’ve done this a thousand times before and it’s all routine. Explain who I am: what we’re going to do. There will be a lot of paperwork. Hundreds of questions. Better they know what we’re in for, because they are about to be grilled on all their daily routines, their biosecurity arrangements, who has been on and off the farm in the last 21 days, what has gone to plan, what has happened that was different.
We go into the house. The first thing I do is plug in my phone. I used it to guide me here and later, I have to document everything with photographs. The first time I did this, a few months back, I plugged in my phone, but forgot the switch on the socket. Nobody’s perfect! This time I throw the switch. Then we get down to it, at the kitchen table. I ask them questions. They answer, in detail and at high speed. I’m writing it all down. There is no chance all the information will go into my head and stay there. Several times, I have to ask them to repeat, because they are three facts ahead and I’m still noting down fact 1.
I have to guide the conversation, but it’s difficult. It’s already three in the afternoon and I am mindful of the remaining daylight. We don’t want to be sampling in darkness. I need to drill into the core history. What did they notice first? When? How might disease have been introduced? Where are the weak points in their defences? Are there other possible causes? I’m also vaguely aware that tomorrow, I will be filling in a form which is going to ask me for details which may not be relevant here. I try to balance the depth, get enough information, disregard the unimportant.
Finally, I feel I have enough information. I stand up and go to my phone. Calling my veterinary advisor is the next step. I have to refer the history I’ve gathered to check it’s enough. Because the interview had hopped about a bit, it was difficult to find the information. I have three of four A4 pages, densely written. She asks a few more questions and I have her on speaker, so the farmer answers. It’s time to go and look at the birds.
There are eleven sheds in total, but the dead birds were mostly from shed X. A second shed (Y) has had reduced egg production for a couple of weeks. These two sheds are linked. With plenty of time, I might visit several sheds. If bird flu is confirmed, we will need GPS coordinates for all eleven. I suggest visiting one of the healthy sheds first, then egg-drop Y, then dead birds X. Time is so short though, that after a couple of minutes of discussion, we cut it down to sheds Y, then X which are at Site C. Taking the possibly infected shed last is good practice. I don’t want to infect any sheds that are still clean, though if it is bird flu, every single bird will be dead within the week.
I have a ton of gear to take to the shed and we’re driving down. Two layers of disposable overalls, two layers of gloves. Foot coverings for going into the shed. Breathing hood and filters. Post mortem kit. Sharp safe. Phone, inside a plastic bag. I forget my thermometer. Nobody’s perfect!
I take a photo of the door of Site C and a GPS reading, which I screenshot. If the case goes live, this reading will define the 3km Protection Zone and the 10km Surveillance Zone.
Their biosecurity is reassuring. They ask me to change footwear as I go in, but I decline. All these layers of kit are there to protect me from infection and if I take my wellies off and put their footwear on, I’m compromising that. I disinfect my clean wellies and put on the boot protectors, hoping for the best. Worst case scenario, they don’t have bird flu and I take it in. Oh well.
To get to shed Y, we pass the end of shed X. They have shared air space. There’s a pile of dead birds outside shed X and I cast a glance at them as we walk by, but nothing leaps out. I look in at shed Y through the wire mesh. There are no dead birds visible in the shed. It’s a high rise layer unit with birds on perches right up to the roof. Seeing me in all my get-up all the birds on the floor skedaddle for the high-rise perches or away to the other end of the pen. They look healthy enough.
I don’t go in. It’s time to walk through shed X.
I go in on my own. The birds get alarmed if two people go in together, the farm manager tells me. I think this weird creature with the noisy hood on her head will alarm them anyway, but I don’t say anything. The birds in this shed are as flighty as those in shed Y. It doesn’t matter a fig that I forgot my thermometer. There is not a chance we will be catching any of these birds. I can only see them as they run and climb, and then at a distance, but the view is reassuring. None are lame. No lethargic clumps of sick looking birds. Their tails are up, their feathers smooth. Eyes bright. They stare at me in distant disapproval, but none of them are sneezing.
My mind is fizzing as I walk. Surely, with bird flu, there would be sick birds? Probably dead birds too. These are some of the healthiest birds I’ve ever seen. They can certainly run!
I walk the length of the shed. It’s a well-managed unit. Nice dry litter. Plenty of space. The birds can usually go outside, but today they too are locked down. I walk back, through the pens, taking a few pictures with my plastic-wrapped phone. It’s time to post-mortem some birds. I haven’t seen anything in the shed to suggest there is bird flu, but I still can’t definitively rule it out. We’ve had 80 dead birds overnight and I need to be sure.
I take a look again at the pile of dead birds. With bird flu, I might see swollen heads, deep blue wattles, maybe haemorrhages in the legs or diarrhoea round the cloaca. I don’t see any of those things. I select two birds and photo them. It’s not very bright here, so I ask the farm manager if he has a light. He fetches his head torch. I don’t want to move the birds from where they are. It will have to do.
Kneeling on the floor, I start the post-mortem. It’s a month and a half since I did my last bird PM and that was in a brightly lit lab, on a comfortable bench. Now I’m kneeling on the concrete floor, my head encased in a hood that limits my view, in semi-darkness. This PM is make or break time. I check the head, then open up the throat to look at the trachea. There’s no mucus there, no haemorrage. It’s perfectly normal and when I reach the crop at the base of the neck, it is filled with food. Whatever happened to this bird, it was eating until the moment it died. I open up the body cavity, looking for inflammation, haemorrhage or necrosis, but the only thing that looks abnormal is the liver. Normally, the liver is reddish brown throughout, but this one has brown patches. Some of patches have clear cut edges. They’re not abscesses. I worked in a chicken slaughterhouse for three years, but I’ve never seen a liver like this.
The next bird is the same. I open it up. A second mottled liver. Maybe a little fluid build up where the air-sacs would be. Maybe metabolic, I think. Very strange, but just as in the sheds, there is nothing screaming bird-flu at me. I take a few photos of my findings. It’s good to have evidence. Packing up, I edge back to my feet. It’s not so easy these days, but I make it and we leave the shed again.
Once outside, clutching my now-contaminated kit, I decide to go back up to the main holding before phoning VENDU. The Veterinary Exotic Notifiable Disease Unit give us directions what samples to take, but it’s my decision whether we need to take any at all. If I decide not to, they will challenge me to try to assess my decision, but the final choice is mine. I’ve stripped off most of my kit. If they challenge me for information I don’t have, I’ll have to go again. I decide to call my veterinary advisor before VENDU. I don’t think this is bird flu. It had not really crossed my mind, as I drove here, that I wouldn’t be testing, but with all the information I’ve gathered, I’m conflicted. For me, testing is the safe option, but it’s hammering in my head. I DON’T THINK THIS IS BIRD FLU!
I call my advisor and tell her. She asks about the livers and I describe them. She will discuss with her advisor, she says, while I call VENDU. I drop two liver photos into the chat and leave them to it. I briefly chat with the farmer. He drops it into the conversation that he has no insurance that would cover a week of lockdown. I can’t let that influence my decision either. I have to be sure.
The VENDU vet is busy, but when she calls back, it’s someone I know. This makes it easier to have that discussion, but even then, as I tell her I don’t think it’s bird flu, she wants me to be certain. I am as certain as I can be. The only thing that’s holding me back is that it’s a huge decision. If I say no testing, this farm will open up overnight. Halted eggs on lorries will be on the move again. If there are hundreds more deaths overnight, and it then goes positive, the whole thing will restart tomorrow and I will have messed up massively.
I’m almost sure. I REALLY DON’T THINK THIS IS BIRD FLU! If I lock down the farm, their own vet can’t come on and take samples for a week, even if early tests are negative. Whatever caused the egg drop and the deaths, they’ll have to live with it undiagnosed.
I can’t let that affect my decision either. I tell the VENDU vet that I am almost decided, but I want to call my advisor again. My advisor and her advisor have seen the photos. “Good pictures,” is written in the chat. I call her back and tell her I want to negate. I explain my reasoning again. “We’ve chatted,” she says, “and if you want to negate, we will back your decision fully. Even if it kicks off again, we are happy to defend your decision.”
I take a deep breath. “I don’t think this is bird flu,” I say, “I don’t want to sample.”
The farmers’ relief was palpable. They made a couple of phone calls and thanked me profusely and all the while, I hope I’ve made the right decision. I drive home and pick up Triar and in all honesty, I was high as a kite. Adrenaline has been my drug of choice for a long time and, perhaps bizarrely, I love this stuff. Still, the worry was there that it could all kick off. I didn’t get a whole lot of sleep. My phone rang when I was out walking Triar in the morning. “11 birds have died in sheds X and Y overnight,” they said. 11 out of the thousands of birds. A lot less than yesterday’s 80. I didn’t quite punch the air, but it was a good start to my Friday morning.
I’m writing this on Saturday morning. Despite negating the case, I still had to process all the paperwork and, with a few distractions, it took me all day yesterday. My advisor told me to drop the not-quite completed form into the case folder, “just in case it kicks off over the weekend,” she said. I don’t think it will, and anyway my workphone is switched on. I’m pretty sure if anything kicks off, it’s me the farmer will call first.
Monday will all be paperwork. This case created a new pile to add to that I already had. Even then, if something else comes in, I might have to drop the paperwork and run again.
And after all that, I found out that I left my phone charger on the farm and will have to go and collect it. Nobody’s perfect!
I was in Brighton last weekend to attend “the largest annual grassroots feminist conference in Europe”, according to FiLiA who ran it. If you’re in the UK, you might have seen in the news that the Brighton Centre venue was vandalised the night before it started. The whole of the front of the building was sprayed with pink paint and several windows were broken. In addition, inside there was also disagreement, with a woman announcing in the opening ceremony that she “wouldn’t be lectured on Hamas” before attempting to rouse the room with chants of, “free, free Palestine”. A few women stood up and joined in, some Jewish women stood up and walked out, some jeered and the rest of us sat there in stunned silence. For an uplifting weekend, where FiLiA say you can “Build your Feminist Network. Leave inspired,” it wasn’t a great start.
Regular readers will know I love strong women and there were plenty of them there, but I don’t think I will be going to the next one. Brighton was also curiously depressing, though perhaps it isn’t curious really. Like many UK cities, the drugged homeless lined the pavements and the whole place seemed dirty and down at heel. Like many seaside towns, you could see it had once been gorgeous and rather grand, a haven for holiday makers. Now they go for beaches abroad, with reliable sunshine at lower prices. I did get a photograph on the first evening that I love though. The sea is still beautiful, under the evening sky.
There were cafés along the beachfront, where the lovely Welsh woman I made friends with on the first day bought me an ice cream! It was probably the high point of the weeekend!
On Monday, I headed back to Scotland. Somewhat rashly, I had agreed to work in Stranraer on Tuesday and had booked to stay there Monday night. The logistics of collecting Triar from my parents in Yorkshire and dropping him off with a friend in Dumfries were complicated. Several delays on the railways meant I ended up getting a taxi for the last leg of my Yorkshire journey. A jackknifed lorry on the A75, with blue flashing lights lighting up the night (nobody was hurt) was the final hold-up, but at least the hotel was comfortable when I finally got there at 10:30 in the evening.
My lovely friend also seems to have enjoyed having Triar and sent reassuring photos of him looking happy. I’d been a bit worried about picking him up, driving him two hours, then dropping him off again, but he seems to have been so well looked after, that it was all good!
As usual, after a few days back at work, it feels as if I never left. Two days out on farm, blood testing cattle with three (female) animal health officers was uplifting. We have some wonderful women in our APHA team. I was duty vet on Thursday, where the high point of the day was dealing with a query about fish-sludge being fed to maggots (no, me neither). And all the while, as I was out on farm and juggling bizarre questions, there were emails landing in my inbox about cows which had been transported to slaughterhouses with shackles on.
For my non-farm readership, occasionally (and particularly around calving time when the ligaments are softened) cows do the splits on their hind legs and then can’t easily get up. With shackles buckled onto their hind legs, that stop their legs sliding outwards, they can often manage okay, until they heal. A new decision has been made that travelling in shackles isn’t allowed, on the grounds that an animal with them on, isn’t fit to travel. This isn’t a law, it’s a directive that has come from someone high up in APHA. Like all such decisions, it’s somewhat controversial. If a farmer wants to send such a cow to the slaughterhouse and can’t send her in shackles, he may decide to take them off and risk sending her anyway, which is more risky than sending her with them on.
As my investigative case is all about unfit animals being transported, all the emails about this new rule being broken (in Scotland) are now being directed to me. What it really highlights is not that animals in shackles shouldn’t be travelling, so much as that there is a huge gap in care, now that having lame animals culled on farm and being sent to the abattoir afterwards is so incredibly limited. If a cow has an accident, farmers only have 24 hours to decide if it’s so serious that she should be culled, so there’s no time to wait and see how she fares. This is all a hangover from the EU, so since we’ve left, perhaps we could start to look at systems that might work better for our animal welfare here. If I can find the time, and put together some coherent arguments, maybe a visit to my MP is in order. There are times when trying to sort things out locally, just isn’t enough.
I shall leave you with some stormy pictures of Yorkshire. Thanks for reading and have a lovely week!
As I opened my iPad to write this, I noticed an email had come in from one of the short story competitions I entered. I was excited to enter as I was very pleased with what I had written. The competition was called Aurora and my story was set under Arctic skies. Having read the previous year’s winner and looked over a couple more, I felt less confident mine would go anywhere as they were so unlike my style, but I gave it a go anyway. Sadly, my feeling was correct and I didn’t even make the shortlist of 25.
I suspect as well, as with all writing, if I really want to win anything, I would have to do a lot more research to find a competition that suits my style (if such a thing exists). My time is limited, as is my patience for doing that. To me, good writing is good writing, but I know from past attempts to read Booker Prize winners, there are times when pretentious writing is rewarded over good. Maybe I’m just not cut out for this writing thing, but I shall plod on, because I like what I write. I really want to share my story here, but until the three competitions I’ve entered are over, I can’t.
The early part of the week was sunny, with misty mornings. I took some photos from Blackbird Lane as I love the effect, with white haze hanging over the dewy grass and shining drops glistening in the low-slung sun.
Triar and I were out early that morning as I spent the day over in Stranraer, carrying out a disease risk assessment in a new TB breakdown. In a couple of weeks time, I will be over there again, when all the animals are tested so we can find out how many other animals may be affected. It can be devastating for farmers and at this stage, we don’t know what’s coming, but I am hoping we can get it sorted out without too many losses.
The middle of the week was a bit stressful. My big investigative case and the attempts to finally complete my witness statement for the awful welfare case had to take a back seat to the two TB cases and also to training in imports of live animals. There are more horses coming into Prestwick on Tuesday and the VA in border controls was supposed to be overseeing me as I processed them. I asked her a question and she directed me to the Ops Manual, so I wasted a good two or three hours trawling through that, without finding an answer.
I discussed this phenomenon with another colleague and we both agreed, the Ops Manual on almost any given topic is so complex and sprawling, that finding anything in it, when you’re not sure which section to check, is nigh on impossible. After a year doing TB cases, I can now usually find the part I need, but with imports, I’m just setting out. In my opinion, while the Ops Manual can be great to check when you are doing a task where you know your way round, but haven’t done for six months, it’s worse than useless as a training tool.
I did eventually beg the VA to link the actual documents I should read. I really don’t have time for trawling. The most useful document she sent was actually not in the Ops Manual at all, but in a much clearer document, specifically about procedures at Prestwick, written by the previous Border Controls VA. Having read that, I felt much more confident.
But on Thursday evening, Mum rang. Dad wasn’t particularly well and had seen a consultant about his heart. She was worried he might need to go to hospital to get some fluid drained, presumably from his chest. Whether that would be needed depended on a new prescription he’d been given and whether that worked. This all sounded worrying, so on Friday morning, I spoke to my line manager who said I should come down to help. Working for the civil service isn’t particularly well paid at the moment and there are a lot of problems, but they are still great about giving time to carers when it’s needed.
So I won’t be going to Prestwick after all as I will work down here in Yorkshire until I go on holiday, next Wednesday. Dad’s prescription seems to be helping, which is a relief, but there’s a lot of get sorted out, so I am very relieved to be here. I can work from here and have permission to do that, but can do other things in between. While I am building a great life in Dumfries, I do sometimes wish I had got the job in Skipton I originally applied for.
Autumn is fast setting in with storms and rain, but Blackbird Lane was lovely this week, so I will end with a couple of pictures from yesterday morning, when I was trying to work out what to do and took to send to my parents while I did. Next weekend, all being well, I shall be in Brighton,so I’m not sure how the Wi-Fi will be. This website doesn’t function well for writing and uploading photos when it’s limited, but I will update when I can. Thank you for reading and have a lovely weekend.
I’ve spent this week in leafy Surrey, which surely lived up to its name.
It’s been a good week, all told. I’ve learned how little I know about chicken diseases. I know more now than I did, but as with so many courses and conferences I’ve attended that were not squarely aimed at people doing the same, specific job I am, there was a good deal that was so removed from my technical expertise that my brain switched off. I’m never going to need information on how to split DNA to make a vaccine or test for the presence of a virus. It was interesting to get an idea how it’s done, but it’s only really the end product or the positive or negative result I will ever encounter.
That said, there were parts that will come in useful, not least in learning how to recognize some non-notifiable diseases when I’m out on a report case. Background understanding of what you are looking at when you walk around a shed filled with sick birds or when you carry out a post-mortem is obviously really useful. There were also lots of lovely people and I enjoyed talking to, and working with, vets from several different parts of the world. Some of them worked for APHA, so it’s not impossible I’ll run into them again.
We were based part of the time in the very new vet school at the University of Surrey. How different it is from Summerhall in Edinburgh, where I studied more than thirty years ago. There are some pictures here on a website dedicated to Outlander locations! About halfway down, there are some pictures of the anatomy lecture theatre, with its steep horseshoe of drop-down wooden seats. I always had a real sense of history sitting there.
The new Surrey building is all soaring glass roofs and pristine labs. There’s also a wonderful sports hall nearby and modern student accommodation, though I didn’t see inside that. There was a choice to stay there, or in the Holiday Inn next door, which seemed like a no-brainer to me! I’ve been photographing my food through the week. I must say, I started out healthy, with “superfood salad” with added salmon and then chicken. I should have stuck to that as I probably enjoyed it the most, but I got drawn in to trying other things and last night, eating with a friend I’d made on the course, I succumbed to dessert as well. Ah well, tomorrow it’ll be back to no sugar and then after that, back to reduced carbs. Anyway, I present to you, a week of food, by Holiday Inn Guildford.
Ironically, having succumbed to the chicken schnitzel sandwich on the last night, I really didn’t enjoy it: an error I shall try not to repeat. The cheesecake was nice though, as was the chocolate torte the night before. Not bad for a hotel chain restaurant (she said, not quite damning them with faint praise!)
This morning, I shall take a train back up to Yorkshire and tomorrow, I’ll drive back to Scotland. The real world and the return to the grindstone awaits. I shall pass my newfound knowledge to my colleagues. That’s the deal with any course I attend. I will also follow up on some networking opportunities. Anyone who knows the civil service will be aware that who you know makes all the difference to how well you can perform your job. The more I learn about who to contact, the more I can help the farmers I work with to get the answers they sometimes need.
A Vet’s Life 