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!
It’s been a relatively peaceful week at work. I’ve been catching up with all the work that was pushed aside in the past few weeks and even getting ahead for work that’s coming up. By happy coincidence, it’s been beautiful weather. The skies have been clear and blue, and on the walls and under the hedges in Blackbird Lane, everything is growing.
I came across the ghost of one of last year’s flowers as well and couldn’t resist taking a picture. Nature weaving the finest lace!
With the clear skies at night, there was frost under the hedge too. I think these are celandines, edged with hoar frost, which quickly melted away as the sun came up.
Next week, things are still a bit up in the air. Part of the deal with working for APHA is that for one week every three months, I am expected to make myself available for what is called detached duty. This means I could be deployed anywhere to help with disease outbreak work.
On Thursday, I was contacted and asked if I had any experience of licencing. The central licencing team need someone apparently. I asked what kind of licencing and she didn’t know. She told me late yesterday afternoon that she was still trying to find out, so I may still be contacted on Monday about working for that team. In the meantime, I have other work pencilled in, that might all need to be rubbed back out again. Still, it means life is never boring!
And now I’ve deserted Scotland to inspect the Yorkshire flowers, though sadly, the weather seems to have broken and it’s quite chilly again. Thanks for reading and I hope you have a lovely week, wherever you are.
To all those who disapprove of dogs on the bed, please avert your eyes! Triar was not only on mine this morning, but IN it, as you can see. It’s not as cold now as it was in midwinter, but he’s still much better than a hot water bottle in the depths of the night.
I am finally moving on from the horrors of the Farm of Doom. It has taken me all week to do the paperwork, but I sent the last lot in late yesterday afternoon and felt lighter for it. I will likely get it back for amendments (my new Veterinary Advisor is lovely, but the opposite of slapdash) but the hardest work is over. I have sorted out all the photos into different folders for different dates.
I think it will go to court, so I will have to prepare a statement, but I can face those images now, even if some still pain me to the point of tears. There’s always a great big Why? in my head as I contemplate these things. How did it come to that point? But I guess that’s also something I hope never to know, because I hope I would never reach the point where I could neglect a living animal without reaching out for help or ensuring someone else steps in, but surely everyone normal thinks the same?
On Wednesday, I was tired. Good sleep is still intermittent, but I went to a church meeting in the evening with the possibility of writing group afterwards. At the end of the church meeting, I decided I would drive home while it was still light. I was rewarded with a beautiful sunset as I drove back down the hill near Torthorwald and I stopped to take photos.
There was, I noticed (bottom right in the top photo) an old road sign, telling the distances to Dumfries and “Lockerby” so I took a picture of that too. It happens quite often when I stop to admire something beautiful, that I notice something else to enjoy, that I would otherwise have missed.
I was unexpectedly rewarded, last thing on Friday, with an early, negative test result (work related) which means that a large body of work I thought I was going to have to tackle next week is no longer necessary. There is still routine work booked in (another welfare follow up, but I know it won’t be harrowing) and evidence shuffling from the Farm of Doom. However, I will now (hopefully) have time to tackle a task I will enjoy much more – building towards a training module for an aspect of TB case handling.
Not sure if I’m odd, but I love writing Standard Operating Procedures or instructions that are clear to follow. It seems intuitive to me to explain things, step by step, in easy to understand language.
I had the experience in Norway of taking many courses and doing a lot of training. There are few things more frustrating than having to go back and listen to three minutes of semi-comprehensible speil attached to a PowerPoint slide, over and over to catch the last few phrases that were quickly slurred and not written on the screen. It means that training that should take twenty minutes, takes an hour. Working in a language that is not your mother tongue has many unconsidered complications.
As we have many new starting vets who have (as I did) done slaughterhouse work until their language skills improved enough to do something a bit more challenging, I think understanding that will be very useful.
Anyway, I suppose I should get up and do some painting. The new bedrooms are not going to paint themselves and work has stopped until I do them. Hopefully this weekend should see that particular job completed. I’ll leave you with a couple of shots from Blackbird Lane. Have a lovely week all.
I’m hopelessly short of photos at the moment. Sometimes it’s been because of the weather, but for now it’s because my life has shrunk, I think. For a while, I was forever away on courses, or sent out west. I will expend what extra energy I have to spare this weekend on painting rather than exploring. I feel, in some ways, that everything in life it at a standstill. There are some hurdles I need to get over, and once I do things will start to move again.
One of the hurdles is the building work upstairs. I asked to paint before there were skirting boards and wooden windowsills and lights and plug holes, because it would be easier, and it is. But what that means is, that until I have painted, all those things can’t be done. Once they are, and I’ve got real rooms back again, and all the workmen have left, I can start to clear my bedroom. I’ve been living in a room that’s clogged with inaccessible boxes for almost a year now. I don’t want it to become a way of life.
And then there’s work. I have started to call my nightmare farm, the Farm of Doom. My fellow blogger Penny, who writes the Walking Woman blog (https://icelandpenny.com) has commented now and then on the presence (or usually its return after an absence) of my sense of humour. When I’m rested and well, it comes to the fore. It never really leaves, but it seeps more into my writing. Black humour is how I deal with the negative stuff that comes with a career as a vet.
Anyway, I’m hoping to put the Farm of Doom behind me shortly. My line manager offered to take me off the case on Thursday afternoon, but frankly, I want to take it to some kind of conclusion so I can get closure. That will be another river crossed. The offer came in the wake of me telling him I had been suffering from nightmares, to the point where I had phoned a counsellor on Tuesday.
My workplace has twenty four hour counselling available and I felt a bit apprehensive as I picked up the phone, but it was actually a huge relief. I haven’t really talked to anyone, beyond the absolutely necessary people working on the case, what I saw that day. That’s partly down to confidentiality, but even where I could talk to colleagues, I mostly haven’t. They don’t need to share my horrors. Having checked the counsellor had her own counseling available, I poured most of it out, though something still held me back from mentioning the worst detail. I don’t know why, but perhaps nobody else needs that image stuck in their head.
Yesterday, I talked to someone from Safety as I have reported my experience with the Farm of Doom as a “near miss” or whatever the terminology is. She discussed my most recent absence from work with me and told me I should record it as work related, even though I have a pre-existing condition, the fatigue was caused by my experience at work. She will advise that the three days I had off should not count towards my absence record. She doesn’t control HR, unfortunately. She has been arguing for years with them, about the awful wording in the formal absence warning letter, but she can certainly give advice, and as my line manager generally follows such advice, hopefully they can make things better for now.
I guess the other big hurdle is the NHS waiting list. I spoke again to the GP who tried to bring things forward for me, but he had no success, so the expected date for an appointment is still July. In the meantime, I will continue monitoring myself, looking for patterns and trying to work out triggers. I was sent a course about BSE in cows recently and was reminded of how similar my symptoms are to theirs, but I know I don’t have Creutzfeldt–Jakob because, if I had, I’d be long dead.
On that cheery note, I shall take my leave! Even if I’m barely going out, there’s a lovely view from my garden and Blackbird Lane will be waiting for me. The daffodil at the top of the page was taken there. The birds were singing when I stepped put into the garden this morning, and a beautiful day was dawning. I’ll leave you with a couple of photographs of that! Have a lovely week all.
To continue what I started yesterday, Tuesday and Wednesday were broadly taken up with meetings about Monday and follow-up actions. When faced with something complex that requires careful handling of many different aspects of care, there are always things missed that need to be rectified, and follow up questions and investigation.
Not entirely coincidentally, I had an appointment early on Tuesday morning with the doctor from Occupational Health (OH). We had a good chat and discussed some things that I found helpful. For example, she suggested using flexitime to take days off when I am tired in the immediate aftermath of something that takes a lot of energy.
There were other suggestions my mind rebelled against. For example, she suggested I could try anti-depressants, partly on the grounds that they wouldn’t interfere with any neurological examination because “half the population are on them”. That doesn’t strike me as a good thing. I know some people find them very useful, but I’m not depressed.
I said as much and she suggested some of my symptoms mimic anxiety symptoms. She also said the tingling in my hands and feet (which I was experiencing during the meeting) were not due to anxiety as I was speaking (and therefore breathing) normally. That’s quite a useful observation actually, because it’s been suggested before that some of my symptoms might be anxiety, but I have never been breathless in that way, even when my symptoms were at their worst.
Anyway, having driven through Tuesday and Wednesday on adrenaline, I woke up on Thursday and my mind and body rebelled. I had noticed, on my flexitime sheet that the extra hours I’d worked on Monday and Tuesday had taken me over eight hours, so I called my line manager, explained what the OH doctor had suggested and, to my relief, he agreed. My shoulders immediately dropped several inches, so I knew, at once, it was the right thing to have done.
I didn’t do much that day. I wrote a bit of my new story and immediately came upon a conundrum. Setting it in Dyrøya is all very well, but if the man who fell in love with Mary McKear is old now, he must have met her some time ago. So I need to know about Dyrøya’s past. It’s now an island, connected to the mainland by a bridge. So knowing when Mary arrived… and how… is important. More than that, what is a young Irish woman doing on a remote island in Arctic Norway anyway? It’s going to be the first thing he asks, surely?
Leaving all that aside, it was time to take Triar out. I set off to go down Blackbird Lane, and halfway there, decided to look if there was somewhere else I could take him in the car, that wasn’t too far away. Google led me to Castledykes Park, which was only a few minutes drive. We wandered slowly round the park. I know vets are meant to despise extending leads, but this was the perfect time to use one, because then Triar can zoom about, while I meander.
It was warm and sunny in the park. We looked at the trees and flowers and Triar did what dogs do on trees and flowers, and quite shortly, I found a nice bench. It was warm enough to sit down and close my eyes and hope that Triar wasn’t eating a dropped bar of chocolate or rolling in fox poo as I listened to the birds singing.
There was, yet another meeting on Friday morning, but much of the day was spent on a refresher course about handling animal welfare cases. It all sounds very peaceful when you’re talking about the legal framework and the form filling.
And so, yesterday I went to another mini-writing retreat and I used the time to delve into Mary’s background. She now has a history – a Norwegian grandmother, who escaped from Norway in World War 2. Maybe she came over in one of the boats that are coming to Shetland when I’m there in May!
Anyway, that’s me up to date now, after my busy week. If you’ve read this far, thank you. Take care!
Last Sunday, having not written anything on my novel for a good few weeks despite good intentions, a new idea thrust its way into my head. There’s a well-known song by folk rock band Vamp, called Tir n’a Noir. It has a beautiful melody, and when I came to understand the words (they’re in Norwegian and also dialect) they are, if anything, even more beautiful.
On a stormy November day, an old man is reaching for memories of a beautiful summer from his youth, when he met and fell in love with Mary McKear. His remembrance is dim, there are hints he has been melancholy and seeking solace for a long time, sometimes at the bottom of a glass. I like to think, a glass of Irish Whisky, as that’s where Mary is from.
Tir n’a Noir is named in the song as the place he met Mary, but it is, I believe, a reference to Tír na nÓg, which is a mystical land in Irish mythology, a paradise of everlasting youth and beauty.
Towards the end is a hauntingly written verse, which I will try to translate for my English readers, though I won’t be able to do it justice and I’m not going to cast aside meaning for rhyme or rhythm.
Så når kvelden komme og eg stilt går ombord, Og min livbåt blir låra i seks fot med jord, Seil’ eg vest i havet te Mary McKear i Det grønna Tir n’a Noir.
Then when evening comes and I silently board, And my lifeboat is laid six feet under the earth, I sail west on the sea to Mary McKear in The green Tir n’a Noir.
I’ve just seen on Norwegian Wikipedia, about this song, it describes her as his wife, but (unless I missed something in my translation) it’s unclear whether Mary was his wife, or how long she was with him. We only catch a glimpse, where his grey life now is contrasted with the wonderful green summer when he felt fully alive as they laughed together. It’s suggested it was long ago, as he remembers her, as if through a mist, over horizons that slide and crumble, or wither.
Anyway, the urge came to me that I wanted to write their story, showing those contrasts, between the dim present and the wonderfully remembered green land, when he was young and filled with love and hope. I want to explore and reveal his story, or at least my own interpretation at how he might have arrived at the point where he sees his coffin as a lifeboat.
In researching and translating the song, I found reference to the fact that the words were actually a poem, by a Norwegian poet: Kolbein Falkeid. The lyrics are written in his local Haugesund dialect. So I hope my Norwegian friends can forgive me the imperfection, because I want to set my story in the North of Norway, where the winters are long and dark and the summers are so intensely green that I can imagine them as the green paradise where he met her.
I don’t know where the story will take me, though ideas are already arriving of how he ended up taking to the bottle. It’s melancholy in it’s beauty but the song steers very clear of being a dirge, and I want my story to have a similarly haunting beauty. Of course, I look at what I want to achieve and know it’s beyond my current writing skills, but I can only start and hope that I can come close to the vision that has arisen in my head.
I’ve a lot to say this morning. It’s been a long week and I may run out of time as I’m going on a mini-writing retreat, which meets at 10:30, so I will write what I can, and if I run out of time, I can finish later or tomorrow.
These flowers were given to me by a colleague (Lauren) along with some scones on Tuesday. Another colleague (Lisa) ran me home on Monday evening and brought me back the morning after. By some miracle, Donna must have felt my pain as she invited me for dinner at 17:35 on Monday evening.
As regular readers noticed, there was a two week gap in this blog. I couldn’t face writing and it was due to uneasiness in my mind. I was dealing with a welfare case. Sometimes, with experience, there are factors which ring alarm bells in your head, and this one has been sounding in mine, loud and clear. I feel a bit like Miss Marple, remembering people and drawing parallels. My parallel this time, was to an awful case in Norway that I wasn’t involved in. Rather, it fell to a close colleague. I only read about it: a report I couldn’t read in one go as the horrors were too much. It made the national news and the farmer went to prison for two years.
The day before I missed my first blog post, I had seen the farmer take an action which meant that, in theory, the animals should be easier to look after, but also had the effect that they were now entirely reliant on that person. They had been outside, where to an extent they could forage for themselves, though there wasn’t a huge amount of grass. Now they were shut in. The animals in Norway had been shut in too. So uneasy was I that they would not be properly looked after, that I went back out the day after, a Saturday morning when I shouldn’t have been working, but I hadn’t slept and knew I wouldn’t unless I put my mind at rest.
That trip out, did put my mind at rest, to an extent. I saw the animals had been fed and they had water. It’s difficult with cases where the extent of the problems can’t be easily predicted. You have to put a plan in place, then trust that the farmer will follow it, but follow up yourself within a timeframe that’s not too long, in case he or she fails to follow through. I guess, if I did one thing wrong, it was that three weeks was too long, but visiting too often can be seen as micromanagement or even harassment.
It is some consolation to me, that a private vet had been out in between and said he hadn’t seen any real cause for alarm. And though it was bad, I am aware that it could have been a lot worse. Because of the actions we took on that day, most of the animals have now been moved to somewhere where they are safe. We have done what we can to ensure those that remain are not at risk… they are now back outside, but still with access to shelter.
And I discovered how thoughtful my colleagues and friends are. I’ve said before that I find great support when surrounded by a circle of strong women, and somehow, my circle is getting stronger as time goes by.
I’m going to go now as there are a couple of things I have to do before going out, not least to take Triar down Blackbird Lane, but I will return, probably tomorrow, to write about the rest of the week.
I went back, both to work and to the doctors’ on Monday. The GP I saw was helpful. He was young and I think may have been in his foundation years as a GP, but he took the time to do a fairly thorough neurological examination. I was laughing to myself afterwards as I’ve had so many of them that I could have told him a couple of bits he’d missed, but he found a few things, at least one of them new.
He told me he will contact the neurological department at the hospital, both to ask them to reassess my triage as urgent and also, to ask if there’s anything that can be done for me while I’m waiting. It will be interesting to see if I am now seen earlier than July. I don’t know when he’ll get an answer to the other question.
So I’m not as fatigued as I was. I am managing to do some things again that had more or less come to a halt, like cooking and tidying the kitchen afterwards. I even took myself upstairs yesterday and did a bit of painting in the bedroom, but the energy I had quickly drained, as it did when I tried to do a veterinary risk assessment yesterday morning.
The veterinary risk assessment (VRA) I have to do is an assessment of the possible consequences of moving cattle from a farm where there is no TB present, to one where it has been confirmed.
This particular VRA is a bit of a wildcard because TB hasn’t been confirmed yet. We are waiting for the results at the moment (they are trying to grow bacteria in a Petrie dish from lesions found in the lungs of a cow that was slaughtered) and they won’t be back until mid-March. The cattle that need to be moved onto the farm are young stock (heifers) which are being wintered on a different farm. They are due to calve in mid-April. If the culture is negative, restrictions will be lifted and heifers can move to the dairy unit with no problems. If it’s positive, the restrictions will remain and we will need to move quickly.
In order to complete the assessment, I will look into all kinds of factors, including how high the risk of spread is. For example, are there cattle on neighbouring farms and how likely is it those cattle have had nose to nose contact with cattle from the infected farm? What are the potential costs to the government? For example, moving a lot of cattle onto the farm might mean the government has to pay compensation later, if those animal become infected.
And there is an absolute requirement to carry out a short interval skin test (SIT) before any cattle can be moved onto the farm. TB is a slow moving disease sometimes. A cow can be infected for years before it is spotted. When we confirm there are TB bacteria on the farm, we have to check, via the SIT whether we have one infected animal, or many. Until we’ve done that, it’s impossible to weigh the risk.
So if we get a positive culture, I will need to be ready with the SIT and the VRA so we can move quickly. There’s nowhere to calve those heifers and nowhere to milk them, where they are, so they need to go somewhere, on welfare grounds. I find this part of my work very interesting, but with so much cross-referencing of data, I need to be on the ball. Hopefully I can get more of it done in the early part of next week. Big welfare case is also due a revisit though, so we will see!
I don’t have so many photos at the moment. I’ve not been out walking or exploring much, though I took a couple of pictures of colourful lichen in Blackbird Lane, which I will share with you.
Taking time to look closely at the nature around me keeps me sane! A few minutes ago, Triar was whining, so I took him outside and stood in the semi darkness, listening to the most wonderful dawn chorus. There were robins and blackbirds and a song thrush, all greeting the new day. Triar stood and listened too, as he sniffed the morning air. I wonder what he could smell.
I saw on Facebook that Norwegian ships from WW2 are coming to Shetland the week I am there. I was oddly emotional when I saw that, hoping I can speak to the sailors who bring them over. I found a rock beside the Nith (which runs through the middle of Dumfries) commemorating the connections between Dumfries and Norway in the war. Funny how things come together sometimes.
Anyway, I will leave you with photos of the stone and the Nith itself. There were flood warnings in place last night, but midweek, when Triar and I took a walk there, it looked benign enough. Triar photobombed the rock shot, but I’ll not crop it! Have a good week all!
Hello again! I’m going to start this week’s post with an apology and with thanks. It’s been three weeks since my last post and I know that was unusual enough that Mary, who reads it regularly (and once sent me the wonderful Norge i Fest book) was worried enough to check on me. There have also been others looking out for me, both at and outside of work, and to them, thank you.
I’m not sure if it was Valerie who introduced me to the concept of neurological fatigue, but she works with patients within a physiotherapy and occupational therapy department in the NHS and she has spent some time working through a course to help me deal with it better. Those who read regularly will know I’ve been affected by some odd, undiagnosed neuro problems for eight or nine years.
Most of the time, it’s not visible to those around me, but it never completely goes away and sometimes, it returns with a vengeance and becomes highly visible as I twitch and stamp my way around. Because it means I struggle sometimes at work, occupational health want me to try and get a diagnosis, so I am now seven months into the year-long NHS waiting list.
I can see that, in my last blog, I mentioned the welfare case that has, most likely, been the biggest trigger in this episode. With the best will in the world, dealing with sad and difficult cases is always mentally exhausting. I finally got out there two weeks ago on Friday and on Saturday, the whole thing was preying on my mind so much that writing anything here was beyond me.
It’s weird, because my body went on functioning. I went out for afternoon tea for a friend’s birthday on Saturday afternoon, then down to Mum and Dad’s as Mum’s 82nd birthday was coming up. I did comment to Mum that, when I took Triar for his daily walks, I did worry that I would collapse at some point. Not sure what she made of that, not sure how much is wishful thinking (it would push me up that waiting list, at the very least), but I have, twice in the last year, had one of my legs simply give way when I tried to take a step, so I ended up sprawling on the pavement.
I should probably have taken time off work the week after that visit. Had I done so, I probably would be fine by now, but with the prospect of formal attendance meetings, and in the knowledge that I probably could function at work, at least, I pushed on through. I’d actually taken Monday off as a flexi day and normally would have enjoyed the shorter week, but I actually didn’t notice it was shorter. By then, I was on autopilot.
I feel I’m not describing this well. I think, up until a couple of days ago, I was managing to function at work, to the point where most people wouldn’t know anything was up. The noticeable changes were at home. I’ve been working on building good habits: eating more healthily, writing a bit each day, walking for half an hour. One by one, those stopped.
Other things stopped too. Wiping the kitchen surfaces and clearing away is something I normally do as I go along, but my kitchen was starting to resemble a student flat. I didn’t like seeing it, but couldn’t find the energy to do anything about it. It’s really difficult to describe, but work was simply taking everything I had and in between, I was barely existing.
At what point, in that scenario, do you take time off? Logically, and indeed in Norway, the right time to stop and rest was as soon as I became dysfunctional at home, but in the UK, the pressure to work until you literally can’t is quite high. That day came on Wednesday this week as I woke up and could barely drag myself out of bed.
Even on Thursday morning, having spent Wednesday mostly lying down, I was swithering as to whether I should try to work from home. Again with the comparison with Norway – there, if you are on sick leave and feel like doing a bit of work, it’s allowed. So on Thursday, I wrote up some details of what I was working on on Tuesday afternoon, in case someone else had to take over that case, and I replied to a couple of easy e-mails, because that was no hassle and would mean that coming back to work would be easier.
In the early hours of Friday morning, I was plagued with a blinking session. I have looked this up and found out what I was experiencing was called blepharospasm. I’ve had it a few times before, but it’s never been a significant symptom, but it’s disorienting and tiring and it kept me awake, so there was no chance of me working yesterday. That said, by yesterday afternoon, I found the energy to tidy the kitchen, which is honestly a load off my mind, every time I walk in there.
Slightly worrying is that blepharospasm has to be reported to the DVLA, so I guess I’m going to have to go to the doctor next week and ask about that. Just another complication to add to the list. It’s not an immediate suspension from driving, but the doctor will have to decide that one, I think.
My line manager, has been very supportive, thank goodness, though I imagine we are going to have to go through another formal attendance meeting. I’ve already asked him for another occupational health referral as I need to know how I can handle this situation. I want to work, but when I need to rest, I would like to do so without worrying I’m going to lose my job. Preemptive rest twice a year is better than crashing. I know some people abuse the system, but the system needs to work for me as well as them.
So where does the ice cream come in? I went to Valerie’s last weekend and rested there. Getting there was difficult. Even though I knew where I was heading, my mind was plagued with intrusive thoughts (another distressing symptom which I’m not going to describe – my Norwegian doctor told me a long time ago to ignore them as they are not dangerous) as I drove up the road.
It was worth it though, as Valerie and Charles offer me a wonderful haven where I feel surrounded by peace, not least when sitting in the hot tub with a mug of hot chocolate and Bailey’s! Saturday afternoon, the ice cream van drove round, playing his tinkling music, and Valerie suggested an ice cream. We were sitting in the garden at the time. Charles had lit the chiminea and we were listening to the birds and when Valerie heard the ice-cream van, she suggested buying one and I agreed. This is what she came back with! A lovely, whippy ice cream with a 99flake. I haven’t had one for years and it was delicious.
So, I hope that was all coherent and not too weird, but that’s where I am. Hopefully by Monday I will be back at work, though I will need to address some things, such as a doctor’s appointment. I can recommend afternoon tea at the Hetland Hall Hotel, though the bitter soup in a coffee cup was a step too far, that would probably have been better forgotten!
A Vet’s Life 