Category Archives: Travel

A Trip to Armagh

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Easter

Blog, Food, Holiday, Scotland, Travel, , , , , , , , , , ,

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Moving On

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

Last week on my two day holiday, I spent my time in Dunfermline, as I mentioned last week. What I didn’t say was that I was visiting a vet practice to see if I wanted to work there. The practice works with poultry, which is an area that has interested me for a while. I prefer production animal medicine over treating pets and, much as I love cows, I don’t think I’m up to calving them at three in the morning any more.

I must say, I immediately felt at home there, with the people and the set up. It felt friendly, busy enough to be interesting, but not manic, and they had a Nespresso-type coffee machine and two kinds of milk. The last point may sound a bit of an odd thing to focus on, but from past experience, the best practice I ever worked in had a coffee percolator which was permanently in action. The boss there cared enough about sitting down with a good cup of coffee that he went a step further than most places to make sure everyone benefited.

Handing my notice in was sad though. I’ve been very happy working for APHA in recent months. Ironic as it has been so busy that it has been almost impossible to keep up, but I’ve been working almost exclusively on TB and bird flu, which I enjoy a lot more than imports and by-products, or even welfare. Not really surprising as working with sick animals was what I trained for, all those years ago. I will also miss the team I’ve been working with and my line manager and vet advisor, who have both gone the extra mile to look after me. I’ve also already booked lunch with Scott, one of the Local Authority inspectors I worked with often. Having carefully built up all these relationships, now I am about to let them all go. I guess the ones worth having will continue and erstwhile colleagues may become long-term friends.

Things are moving on in the house too. After over a year of living in a building site, the end looks to be near. My first approach to a carpet shop resulted in a quotation for carpets (two bedrooms and stairs) of £6,500. I said I would go back and look at other carpets, but instead, I am trying another shop. Someone will come round to measure up on Monday and I’m hoping for a price that doesn’t involve going deeply into debt. The young man giving me the high quotation didn’t seem to have any idea that the price was ridiculous. Nor did he make any alternative suggestions or offer any help. Perhaps he thought I was ridiculous because I wanted to order in a carpet I’d found online, rather than in their store, but he certainly isn’t a natural salesman and he lost me as a customer.

The picture at the top of the page is of newborn lambs I saw when out on a visit this week. I’d been out examining some cattle for signs of bluetongue, while an AHO learned to blood sample. Those blood sampling training visits are probably the thing I will miss most. Getting to drive around beautiful areas of farming country has always been one of the major benefits of veterinary work. My new patch as a poultry vet is likely to be mostly in Cumbria, so hopefully there will be new photo opportunities! The area round Dumfries is beautiful, but gently rolling, which requires more photographic skills than I possess.

Anyway, that’s all for this week. I hope you will continue to join me in my new adventure, which will begin after Easter. Thank you for reading and I hope you have a good week.

A Near Miss

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

On Friday and yesterday morning, I finally got round to examining something that happened a few weeks back. It occurred when I was driving out to the big bird-flu report case, which is why it was put to the back of my mind for so long. I’ve driven past the site of the near miss a couple of times, and thought maybe I should stop and take a closer look and on Friday afternoon, on the way to Valerie’s (spending the weekend in Airth) I finally got round to it.

I must admit, having looked on Google Satellite and Street View, I almost wish I hadn’t. At the time, my senses were so heightened by the report case that I simply carried on with my day. With hindsight, yesterday morning, I felt a bit shaky. I almost don’t want to post about it, for fear of worrying my mum (sorry Mum!) but this is the first time in a long time where I think I came close to death and I kind of want to record that.

So then, back to the 14th January, early afternoon. The day is overcast, the roads are wet and dirty and I’m driving up the A701, a few miles north of Dumfries. The road is winding. Bends and dips. I’m in the kind of zen state which only a report case induces. I’m filled with adrenaline and channeling it into a kind of intense focus. I guess the closest comparable state, if you’ve ever experienced it, is when you are actually in an accident and everything slows down and suddenly there’s this amazing clarity as your brain sees every single detail, as if in slow motion. It’s not quite as intense as that, but that is the nearest analogy.

There’s a taxi in front of me, a little white boxy car. We go over the brow of a hill and he suddenly signals, brakes hard and comes to a halt to turn right. There are cars coming. The road surface is greasy and slowing harder than I expect, but I safely come to a standstill behind him. My mind processes the fact that it was hard to stop and I glance in the side mirror and it dawns on me that we just came over the brow of a hill. I check the rear view mirror and the back windscreen is filthy and I reach out a hand to the wiper button.
As the wiper flicks, my eye catches movement to my left. A red car, still at speed, on the grass verge beside me. I watch as he comes to a halt. Fortunately, the verge is flat, the car doesn’t flip and he manages to stop, just before he comes to a farm track, beyond which is a telegraph poll.

The car in front of me finally turns right and I can move. I draw forward a few feet and look into the car. There’s a young man in the driving seat and others in the car. Teenagers out for a run. They look okay, but I signal at the young man to check if he is okay. He signals back that he’s fine and (feeling relieved I don’t have to stop and help) I drive on.

So that’s it. No big deal and everything is fine. I carried on, did my job. I spent four hours in my PPE, made the diagnosis, the case is still going and life went on. But if that young man’s reflexes hadn’t been so fast, I don’t think I’d still be here.

I stopped last night and took a couple of photographs. As I topped the brow and saw the place, I wanted to stop, but there was a car behind me and there was no time to stop, so I passed the place, stopped in a layby and returned.

What I hadn’t realised is how offset this “crossroads” is. If you look closely at the picture above, you can see tyre tracks in the grass. They stop at the daffodils. The right turn is on the left of the photo and this is looking back at the brow of the hill we all came over.

I looked it up on street view this morning, then transferred over to satellite and this is what I saw. The two green stripes are where I believe the taxi and I were waiting. The red stripe is where the red car stopped. Life is fragile, is it not?

And yet here I am. The young man in the car had amazing reflexes. If you look at the tyre tracks and where he came off the road, he must have been super fast and had amazing control of his vehicle. I wonder whether, like all three of my children, he grew up playing racing games that accurately mimic that experience.

There isn’t any deeply meaningful addendum to this post. After all, nothing did happen and I’m still here. I spent yesterday eating good food and the afternoon watching TV. Today I will go to Valerie’s religious service and praise God and then I will go home with Triar. Tomorrow I will go back to work and deal with my cases and help the people I can help and try to be the best I can. There seems to be increasing unrest in the world, but my small corner of it is the only place where I can have any real influence.

I hope that, whatever is happening in your own life, that you can find peace. You never know what is around the next corner and we can’t control everything. Thank you for reading and take care.

Another Weekend

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

Another weekend is here, and looking back through my photos, most of them are of food! It would be fair to say that, when I’m out walking round a chilly farmyard all day, it is lovely to get back to a hotel, where someone else will cook for me. The picture at the top of the page was a starter – chicken skewers. I followed it up with sweet and sour prawns.

We were staying in the Premier Inn in Ayr, which was very pleasant. I know there are other staff who prefer to go out and find different restaurants to eat in, but for me the benefits of simply walking downstairs and being fed are too tempting to resist. Although the food is obviously mass prepared (it’s fairly consistent from hotel to hotel) I can usually find something I want to eat. I discovered the sweet and sour in Brighton and I would order it again.

I had to laugh at Lesley’s (the animal health officer who had arranged the trip) main course. She had ordered the chicken skewers as a main. I saw it came with flatbread, but hadn’t twigged that there were chips too. What turned up was a plate of chicken skewers (pretty succulent and with that tangy yogurt dip) with a mega flatbread chip butty! Guess it was probably not much more carb overload than mine, with its white rice and sweet sauce, but it looked way less appetizing!

Lesley had booked the rooms and, for the first time ever, I had a Premier room in the Premier Inn. I was impressed to find both a fridge and a coffee machine in the room, though in the end, having tried to coffee machine with the small sachets of cold milk, I reverted to instant decaffeinated with lattes from the restaurant at breakfast. The little bars of chocolate were nice though.

The farm visits went well. We were blood testing the cattle for a TB Gamma test. The traditional test for TB has always been a skin test, where tuberculin (non infectious liquid, derived from the bacteria that cause tuberculosis) is injected into the neck, to see if it causes an immune response . While a positive skin reaction means it’s very likely the cow has tuberculosis, a non-reaction isn’t a good guarantee that she doesn’t have it. With the gamma test, some cows without TB might have a positive result, but it can pick up earlier infections and is more likely to identify animals with TB that the skin test would miss. We use these tests in combination where there is an outbreak, to try to ensure we get as many of the infected animals as possible.

Fortunately for me, we had a great team and I didn’t have to do too much of the testing. It’s a very physical job, either lifting the cow’s tail and taking blood from a vein that runs down the centre, or getting down on your knees and taking it from the neck. I did a lot of blood testing in the early years of my career because brucellosis testing was still routinely done in cattle, every three years. It seems it’s like riding a bike, because I can still do it, which is just as well because I was asked to step in a couple of times on animals where it was difficult to get blood. The relief when I managed was significant. As my main role was in supervising a new animal health officer who was learning, it wouldn’t look good if I couldn’t do it myself.

The bird flu outbreak is going on and on, though really February is possibly the worst month for it, so it’s not unexpected. I was duty vet yesterday and another two investigations came in. One of them sounded like a certainty, so it looks like our little team will continue to be busy in the coming weeks. I have learned a lot from my involvement last week, not least because I made some errors in case handling and didn’t collect anything like enough evidence for the tracings team. I had to go back and get additional information about exactly where manure had been spread from the farm, when feed had been delivered to each shed, where they got their bedding materials and when and to where had any carcasses been taken away, before the outbreak set in. On a big farm, there are a lot of comings and goings over twenty one days. I did gather the information, but I should have returned the day after I walked round the shed to look at the birds to ask a whole load more questions and to get copies of the paperwork showing all those interactions. Next time, I will have much better oversight. This is how I learn best. As well as being a huge farm, it was only my fourth ever investigation and my first to go positive, and so the steep learning curve goes on.

I had a lovely weekend with Valerie. As well as the hot tub, she introduced me to the addictive TV experience that is Traitors. We binge watched it and it was fascinating to see the damage done in a society when some are enabled and willing to lie and deceive and others (acting innocently) cause havoc and failure through their over-confidence in their skills and beliefs. Others yet, with unseen wisdom and less self-confidence, are ignored. I realise what we see is heavily edited to give a certain slant to things, but seeing the interplay when we know more of the truth than the contestants is very interesting indeed.

Anyway, I shall leave you with my one, single, scenic photo from Ayrshire. Scotland is very beautiful, even in the middle of a sullen, damp winter. Thank you for reading. I hope you have a good week.


Positive

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

This week, I’ve been involved at the ongoing bird flu outbreak at Scotland’s biggest egg producer. Case AIV2026-06 Millennium Farm was confirmed positive for infection on 15th January.
As it’s already in the press, I can say that this was not the first in the group of farms in that area, but the investigation and clinical assessment still took me many hours and the last two days have been filled with paperwork. Once disease has been confirmed, more work is triggered, both on farm, where teams prepare for the culling of thousands of birds, while in offices, other teams begin the long process of tracing which commercial vehicles came on and off the farm, delivering feed, collecting eggs and manure. Where did they go. Where might the virus have spread.
As you can imagine, our limited staff of vets and animal health officers have been working flat out. The management team must be exhausted too. I was incredibly pleased though, that when I was sent out on Wednesday, one of our most experienced animal health officers was sent out to carry out the sampling process. As I had been in full PPE for four hours by this time, carrying out my clinical investigation on the birds, I was incredibly grateful as he swung into action. All I had to do was number the swabs and hand them to him. By this point, writing clearly and getting the numbers in the right order took all my concentration.

I stayed in a nearby hotel overnight, where they very kindly kept the kitchen open for me for an extra few minutes and produced the meal in the picture at the top of the page, which was slow roast belly pork. I had already downed a pint of cola and a glass of water by the time it arrived. Having eaten it, I did begin to feel almost human again!

I can’t say I slept much. Not in any way the fault of the hotel bed, which was very comfortable, but my mind and body were in that state where I was almost too tired to sleep. Still, I got up for breakfast at 07:30 to join my colleagues, one of whom, I think, was involved in the breakdown from the weekend before, and the other was my lovely, experienced animal health officer from the day before. While I went back up to my hotel room to start completing the forty pages of information I had to provide, he was heading back to the farm to start measuring buildings and assessing how the cull would go ahead. These experienced staff are invaluable and my one sour note in all this is that the civil service have removed progressive pay, so that these hugely experienced staff get paid very little more than someone who is just starting on the job.

Eggs royale for breakfast. Delicious!

I returned to Dumfries on Thursday afternoon and picked up poor Triar, who’d had to watch me rush in, pack a case, and leave the day before. I’m incredibly grateful to Donna (when am I not?) who calmly agreed to take him in and told me just to go and everything would be taken care of. I do have the most wonderful friends.

I had barely expected to get the weekend off. I was on what’s called the detached duty rota this week, which means I can be sent to an outbreak anywhere. My phone is on, my kit is in the car and, if anything else goes down, it’s not impossible I’ll be called on. But for now, I’m at Valerie’s near Stirling. Yesterday evening, I drank mulled wine in her hot tub and today (God willing 😆) we’re going to a Chinese buffet for lunch.
Next week’s plan involves blood testing cattle for two days, or at least teaching one of the new animal health officers to do so. Obviously, there’s still a chance I might be redirected, but wherever I’m sent, Triar will be here for a few days, while I’ll be away. One thing about this job, life never stands still.

Thank you for reading. Hope you have a good week.

Distractions

Blog, In Darkness and In Light, Life in Norway, Travel, , , , ,

I only realised on Monday, or maybe Tuesday, that Saturday had passed and I had forgotten to write to you at all last weekend. It felt surreal, though perhaps not surprising. My whirlwind trip to the Arctic was over in a flash. Even now that I’m home, it feels no time at all since I was landing in Bardufoss and walking across the recently cleared runway to find Shirley waiting for me, just inside the glass door of the airport building.

It was, in many ways, a beautiful trip. Temperatures were perfect at around minus one all week. Cold enough for crisp snow, not so chilly as to give you frostbite. Each morning, I went for a twilight walk with the dogs. This was my first day.


I sent the picture to my work colleagues, one of whom said it was like a postcard. I was quite surprised because to me, it’s just a road. Attractive enough with all the snow, but not especially scenic. Three years living there has skewed my perspective.

When we got back, Shirley offered to make me the same breakfast she makes herself each morning. Just some oats and nuts, I think she said. She came through a few minutes later with a delicious concoction of blueberries, porridge, nuts, seeds and honey. It was a fabulous start to the day.

I came upstairs on the 5th to find Shirley had put the Christmas tree up. This was in addition to a thousand other festive touches. With darkness outside some 21 hours of the day, it felt cosy and utterly Norwegian.

Despite being vegetarian, Shirley and Kai wanted to treat me to Norwegian Christmas dinner, so on Friday, they took me out to Senjastua for lunch. It was a delight of different Norwegian traditions, from pinnekjøtt (dried and reconstituted lamb) to pork ribbe, via a tasty lamb sausage. It was served with mashed swede and red cabbage, along with what was called ribbe sauce – effectively gravy! Delicious!

It was just as well our walk had taken us a bit further up the hill that morning, or I would never have managed the whole plateful.

The forecast was for cloudy skies all week and I had resigned myself to not seeing the Northern Lights. I did glance out of the window as I was on my way to bed that night and chanced to see stars. Stars meant the clouds must have cleared a bit, so opening the door, I went outside and, to my delight, the sky was indeed lit up with that gently dancing river of light. Standing outside in the snow, it felt timeless and wonderful as ever.

On Saturday, we made shortbread and stuffed mushrooms on a leek and cauliflower purée. No photos of those, but on Sunday, I made a gingerbread cake with cream cheese icing, which I will definitely be making again.

Somehow, it didn’t strike me until Monday that I was leaving on Tuesday. Throughout the weekend, I was thinking I was only halfway through my visit. Monday was spent shopping and Shirley and I had lunch in En Kaffe Te, where I sometimes used to go with John and Andrew, when we all lived there.

I bought quite a few Christmas things. I won’t be using them this year as my house is still in a state of flux with ongoing building work, but perhaps next year, I can make it into more of a haven. Lovely as my trip was, I confess there were bittersweet overtones. I loved my house in the north and when I bought it, I was expecting to settle there, with John nearby and probably Andrew somewhere not too far away. For a number of reasons, it didn’t work out that way and since then, life hasn’t felt settled or comfortable, but I guess that’s how life is. I can only hope to build something different. There’s no going back.

Flying out of Tromsø is always beautiful, especially in winter.

Unfortunately, my flight from Trondheim to Copenhagen was delayed, which meant an exhausting rush the length of Copenhagen airport, followed by the not-unexpected discovery that, although I had made it back to Manchester on time, my luggage hadn’t. Cue two days of hanging about at home, expecting it to be delivered. A message arrived yesterday evening at quarter past seven to say it will be arriving on Monday. I’m not very impressed.

Still Triar seems to have had a lovely time with my friend Ruth. Good to know that I have someone who loves him to look after him when I’m away. It was when she told me she was moving beds to make sure he had enough space that I knew I’d found the perfect home from home for him!

Anyway, have a good week all. Thanks for reading.

To Brighton and Back

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

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!

Stories and Mist

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

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.

Hot Drinks and Spiders’ Webs

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

I had a wonderful weekend in Central Scotland. The forecast rain warning had moved south by Saturday morning, so rather than huddling indoors, Valerie and I went shopping. I have been looking at my hedges for some time, knowing I have to trim them, but in recent weeks (since bird nesting was definitely past) they have been so wet that the idea of tackling them with a plugged-in electrical hedge trimmer seemed risky. Having finally got myself a garden waste bin, I wanted to fill it, before the service stops for winter, so with that in mind, I bought a battery powered trimmer. I had been hoping for a long-handled version (tall hedges, shortish human being) but didn’t find any, so I opted for a normal one and thought I’d figure out the height issue later.

Valerie was looking for a garden box to store cushions, so we were in a number of garden centres. The end result was that, as well as the hedge trimmer, I came home with multiple packs of bulbs and a trowel as well. A dog bowl for Triar was next on my non-existent shopping list. A lovely friend from church has offered to take Triar and my current method (sprinkling food across the floor) probably isn’t very civilized. So now he has a new bowl.

Next on the list of things I didn’t really need was a scented candle advent calendar. Given that I have booked a holiday in the Arctic Wastes of Sørreisa for the first week of December. I may end up with a scented candle glut on my return, but it was only £5.99, which seemed a small price to pay. Finally, we went to a café, where I had a latte and Val had a spectacular hot chocolate, I found a Christmas present for a friend, so I bought that too. For someone who didn’t intend to buy anything, it was a great morning!

The café (and gift shop) were on a farm set against the backdrop of the Ochil Hills. The picture at the top of the page was the view from the car park. This is the view from the covered terrace where we sat.

The food sounded great too, but we’d had a massive breakfast, so we didn’t indulge. There are far too many cafés I’d really like to try in Scotland, and not enough time! Perhaps I should have pursued a life as a restaurant critic, but at 16, James Herriot’s lifestyle called me more. The fact that those days were already past, even as I set out to train, wasn’t something I had the life experience to understand.

Since I’ve come back, I have started to tidy up the garden. Different people have inspired me to try, the most obvious being Sue, whose garden I visited a few weeks back, and whose love of gardening shines through so clearly. Another, unexpectedly, is Scott with whom I do a lot of welfare work. As well as fun discussions about food, he has told me now a couple of times that he loves cutting the lawn as he enjoys the smell of freshly cut grass so much. I had always viewed it as rather boring labour, but now my lawn is (mostly) cut, I’ve realised that the answer is probably to do it often, because then it really will only take a few minutes. It’s hard labour this year because I procrastinated over doing it. Next year, I hope to make different choices. That said, I’m about to plant a load of crocuses and daffodils there, so there will be hard decisions to make about those patches!

My job is going well and that’s something I didn’t think I would ever be able to say. My line manager has acknowledged our team is in crisis, due to understaffing and has started to withhold work that he feels would be too much. I’ve no idea whether he will successfully campaign for enough staff. In the end, I think it’s pay that is the real stumbling block, alongside our district having the most animals and most of the (non-existent in Scotland) TB breakdowns. People tend to join to our team, then head off to somewhere there’s less work as soon as the opportunity arises. I’m so glad someone is fighting for us. Sickness over the summer was like watching dominoes fall.

The big case I’m handling is fascinating. I’m looking at animals that should not have been transported for reasons of health and welfare and I am liaising with useful people all over that I didn’t know existed. I have dug through ancient files and scrolled through reports and investigations and became so engrossed in it this week that when my manager tossed me a TB case on Thursday afternoon, it simply caused my mind to go blank. For a moment, TB case management was shoved so far back inside my head that I struggled to retrieve it. But retrieving it was essential, because my job is to keep the farmer informed about what he or she has to do, and manage the system so that the awful disruption of being locked down is bearable. By Friday morning, I was ready to go. Changing direction when something new crops up is part of my job and something I have to manage.

Autumn has really set in now. Unsurprising as we are at the end of September. I don’t know where the year has gone. This week has seen a return to blue skies and I have been enjoying Blackbird Lane with its changing colours and ever-shifting hedgerows. Yesterday morning was particularly wonderful. The sun, low in the sky, lit up the dew drops bedecking thousands of spider webs. Normally invisible, they stood out against the leafy backdrop. There are berries everywhere too and the sun shone on those too, so bright and cheerful. Hope you enjoy the pictures I took, even though they don’t do it justice. You’ll have to imagine the gentle warmth of the sun, the chill air on my cheeks and the earthy scent of autumn, that hung in the air with the birdsong.