Category Archives: Travel

Finding My Feet

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After my second week of consulting, I’m starting to feel a lot more confident in what I can tackle. As I talk to the other vets about cases, the information they give me slots back into place, like the memory it is. It feels good, like pulling on an old familiar cardigan. Indeed, as I watched one of the other vets working with an animal that had been hit by a car and was struggling to breathe, some very specific memories began to surface.

From 2001 to 2004 (and occasionally after that) I worked as an emergency vet. We saw a whole lot of traumatized animals and dealt with a lot in respiratory distress and I got very good at it. At one time, on my computer, I wrote a flow chart about how to diagnose those cases. It requires minimal handling and movement, because they can be very fragile and you can tell a lot, simply by comparing different areas of the chest to see where there is silence instead of breathing sounds. For example, liquid in the chest (think blood) is likely only on one side and it flows to the bottom, whereas escaped gas may be higher up. I’ll need to see if I can find it.

There’s also a recent graduate and I feel very honoured because she sees me as competent enough to ask questions. That may sound daft, but only a few weeks ago, in Glasgow, I felt I could barely tackle anything. Now I take anything from the waiting list and cope, as I once did. Vets get very used to dealing with things, even when they’re not sure what’s going to crop up next. Anyway, in return, I ask the newish graduate things, because she has lovely, up-to-date knowledge. Working with new graduates is enjoyable and rewarding.

I have been swithering over what to do next, jobs wise. A long time ago, I thought I would enjoy locumming, but then I had a family and we moved to Norway. It never came to pass. Now I discover that I do, indeed, love it, yet at 57 and with a mortgage (and memories of health issues that would have required considerable time off) it feels risky. Returning to APHA with its pension and sick pay is obviously the safer option, and yet…

For now, I can put that decision off. Middlesbrough PDSA want to extend my four weeks until the end of the year and I’m inclined to accept. I’m also going to Norway, two weeks today, for two weeks with my lovely friend Shirley. There will be time away from it all and someone to talk to about the whole thing. And goodness knows, I’m lucky, at 57, to actually have options. I know many are not so fortunate.

I’m back at Mum and Dad’s now for the weekend and went to Skipton yesterday in a hunt for some new winter boots. I didn’t find any (not much call for proper winter boots in the UK) but we did get coffee and a cake in Café Capo. Mine was the mini Victoria sponge at the top of the page. It was delicious and I spent every bite trying to work out whether the cream was butter icing (I don’t think so, it was too smooth and light) or whipped cream with something added. Again, I think not, because it was too dense. It may have been some kind of meringue buttercream, but I didn’t ask, so will never know! I would highly recommend it though, as I would their latte. Very creamy indeed!

A hot cup of cappuccino in an orange mug on a saucer with a teaspoon, alongside a plate of sponge cake filled with cream and jam.

We walked back to the car via Craven Court shopping centre. I love it there. It feels a bit like walking through a Harry Potter set and I saw a couple of things in windows that I might go back and buy as Christmas presents, if I get the chance.

A narrow cobblestone alleyway lined with quaint shops, including a bookshop, illuminated by warm lights and a glass ceiling.

On Monday, I will return to Middlesbrough, but for now, I’m going to relax and maybe do some cooking. Being at Mum and Dad’s is always a good opportunity for a Sunday roast. Last Sunday, I took Triar for a walk after we discovered the gorgeous, Albert Park in Middlesbrough. There was a large pond and beautiful autumn trees, so I’ll leve you with some photos as usual. Thank you for reading and have a good week!

A park scene featuring trees with autumn foliage, including vibrant red and orange leaves, against a blue sky with white clouds.
Close-up of colorful maple leaves in various shades of green, yellow, and purple, showcasing autumn foliage.
A close-up view of autumn leaves, showing a mix of green and vibrant yellow-orange foliage against a cloudy sky.
A park scene featuring a pathway flanked by trees with autumn leaves, a small brown and white dog sniffing the ground near a bench, and people walking in the distance.
Close-up of colorful autumn leaves with shades of green, yellow, and pink.
Three Canadian geese standing near the edge of a pond, with a duck swimming on the water and reflections of clouds visible.
A mallard duck swimming in calm, reflective water with gentle ripples, alongside a stone shoreline.

Vet in a Caravan

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My first week at Middlesbrough PDSA is done. It’s interesting (for me) to compare this with my stint in Wolverhampton. While at work, I was busier. Consultations are intense, though I guess I’ve only worked four days and the first, spent operating, was relatively light. But the days are shorter: eight to four thirty or nine to five thirty, compared to nine am to seven in the evening. When the weekend arrived, as in Paisley, my first thought was, “where shall I go?” and not, as in Wolverhampton, “I need to rest.”

The result of that thought was that I should take Triar to the seaside. He loves a good beach. So on Saturday morning, after a delicious roll with sausages in the Norton Café, we set off towards Saltburn by the Sea.

Saltburn is a fairly typical, if very well maintained, Victorian seaside town, which grew from a tiny smuggler’s hamlet on the shoreline, to an attractive holiday resort. The hamlet, consisting of the Ship Inn and a row of fisherman’s cottages, is still there. Had I read about it before going, I would have made the effort to walk along there, however I was distracted by a fascinating piece of Victoriana in the form of a steep, funicular railway or cliff lift, that was created to take visitors from the cliff top town, down to the beach and the pier.

It didn’t open until ten thirty, so Triar and I walked down the stairs to get to the beach. It was only when we got there, that Triar reminded me that Beaches are Ball Places. Back in the North of Norway, whenever we could get to a beach, he would play long-distance fetch, using one of those arm extenders to throw the ball. It was covid time and the beach was isolated, so normally we had the whole beach to ourselves.

Now, in Saltburn, he kept zooming off, looking round, then rushing back and looking at me with hopefully cocked ears. The saddest thing was that I had his ball in the car. I’d just forgotten to take it out. And there were a lot of steps to get back there. Eventually, he made do with zooming around and around, enjoying the sand under his paws. There was certainly plenty of it!

The Ship Inn is visible on the right of this photo of Saltburn Beach with the Huntcliff headland beyond

In the opposite direction, past the pier, we found a gorgeous row of traditional beach huts. These can still be hired out for the day, complete with seats and tea and coffee making facilities, though by now, we were out-of-season and so it was empty.

As you can see from Triar’s fur, the wind was bracing
Traditional beach huts

We walked past the huts and a little way along the beach, then turned back to catch the Saltburn Tramway (as the funicular is called) back up to get to the car. I’d noted earlier that dogs cost 20p to take the lift, so for the princely sum of £2.20 we travelled back up the cliff face in style.

Triar in the lovely wooden tram car
Stained glass tram car window

Back at the top, I noticed some very attractive, wavy benches, so I stopped for photos in both directions.

Looking west towards Redcar
Looking east at the lift station, with Huntcliff beyond

It was too early to return home, so I decided a bit more exploration was in order. I saw Saltburn Valley Garden Tearooms on the map, so I decided that was where we would go next. We drove along the front to the west, then stopped beside a gate into the woodland pathways that led down into the valley. Autumn is beginning and it was lovely, tramping through the fallen leaves. The tearoom itself is another bit of delicious Victoriana situated, as it is, beside an Italian Garden and near to Forest Halt – the end of the line for a miniature railway that runs from the beach in summer. I ate the very traditional Victoria Sponge in the photo at the top of the page and Triar was quite satisfied with the two dog biscuits he was provided, along with my coffee.

Having explored a bit of the railway line, and having watched Triar paddling happily in the stream, we headed back up, through the woods and to the car.

Triar, checking for squirrels

We got back to the caravan where we are staying fairly early and it’s fair to say, both Triar and I were exhausted. My only regret, as with Rothesay, is that we were at the seaside again, and still didn’t get fish and chips. There were cafés available, but there was so much cream with the sponge cake, that fitting in lunch would have been too much.

Caravan life is reasonably comfortable. We are here another week, before heading to Mum and Dad’s for a long weekend, after which we will be staying in a slightly more sophisticated apartment, based inside an actual building! I’ve enjoyed the tiny, cosy box bedroom and being lulled to sleep by the rain on the roof, but the chemical toilet at two am (I can use one inside the house during the day) and the relative lack of cooking facilities decided me against trying to book two weeks more here.

Anyway, I am looking forward to another operating day tomorrow. Not sure what the rest of the week will bring, but it’s been a fantastic weekend. Thank you for reading and I hope you have a good week!

A bridge over the River Tees

Triar the Practice Dog

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For the last two weeks, Triar and I have been at Cavan Vets in Wolverhampton. I haven’t told them about this blog, but I have nothing but praise for the practice, so I hope they will forgive me for mentioning them without asking permission first.

For me, it was a huge thing that Triar could come to work with me. The civil service don’t allow it and PDSA (understandably) didn’t have space for him, so it was a real treat to bring him with me and for him to be made so welcome. I was working from nine in the morning until seven at night, so he would have been alone for a very long time otherwise, even with a walk at lunchtime. Instead, he was spoiled rotten by all the nurses and receptionists and the lovely cleaner even took him out for walks, though she said he and Paddy (practice Labrador) often went in opposite directions.

As for me, I’ve learned a whole lot from two weeks of consulting. There are so many new drugs and preparations since I stopped working in small animal practice. Non-eating cats can get appetite stimulants, epileptic dogs on phenobarbitone can have liver supplements. One of the vets at Cavan is an eye specialist, so there were a lot of eye preparations I hadn’t come across before, as well as some I had forgotten. Dogs with dry eye are sometimes given Optimmune, which contains a cyclosporin, which helps in autoimmune conditions. That was available years ago, but I had forgotten about it. It’s of particular interest to me, as I have an early case of dry eye myself. It’s good to know that, if it worsens, there are more options than just tear replacement drops. I’d read that, in severe cases, saliva can be redirected through the tear ducts, but that sounds like it could come with some profound risks and problems, so it’s nice to be reminded that there are other steps before that one. Google isn’t always your friend when it comes to accurate understanding of your own medical conditions.

I did find myself feeling a bit like an imposter, particularly the first week. It was exacerbated by the fact that my client care soft skills and muscle memory remain intact. When you know how to wield a syringe to cause the least pain possible, it’s always seen as a valuable skill. I was however, shamed one day by a kitten. I’ve long prided myself on being able to tablet cats efficiently and have even added a little flourish, where I wash the tablet down with water from a syringe (few things feel worse than feeling a dry tablet stuck in your throat) but it all went to pieces when a cute, but feisty kitten managed, not only to get its claws on me, but even managed to bite me for good measure. Fortunately, there’s no sign of infection, but my pride received a bit of a battering as well as my fingers!

It was curiously restful working such long hours. I’ve a bad habit of rumination and there are things in life I regret, so only having time to walk Triar, eat, watch an episode of Ludvig and then drop into bed was actually good for me, if exhausting. Days split into 15 minute appointments (and the great company of the staff in any breaks) passed surprisingly quickly. Several staff said they wished I (and Triar) were staying and the feeling was mutual. I don’t think there will be any vet jobs going there though, even if I did want to move. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the veterinary staff have all been there a very long time.

I didn’t have a whole load of energy for exploring last weekend, but I did discover that there was a disused railway line path in Tettenhall, near where I stayed, which ran close to the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, through a nature reserve. Triar and I went for a walk there last weekend. I envied those in the narrowboats we saw. There are few things more relaxing than drifting through the countryside at 4mph.

So I will leave you with some photos from that walk. As usual, thanks very much for reading and I hope you have a good week.

Turn Right onto Albert Road

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So here I am in Wolverhampton, or rather, in a leafy suburb of the city. I’ve completed my first week at Cavan Vets in Bushbury and, on the whole, am feeling very content. I’m also sorely in need of a rest, having driven down last Sunday, then worked from nine in the morning until seven at night for the last five days.

I rejected another locum offer last week because of similarly long hours, though that one was also complicated by the fact that I was going to have to find (and fund) my own accommodation and the dates they offered were all over the place. I could only work part weeks in Glasgow because Lara very kindly let me stay in her flat. The practice where I’m currently locumming offered to pay for an apartment and, in the event, kindly found somewhere for me, which made the whole thing very straightforward.

It’s not like the PDSA. This is a private practice, where clients are paying for my time. I confess I felt a bit nervous at that the first couple of days. Imposter syndrome, if you like. But it’s amazing how things have slid back into place, some of them from more than twenty five years ago, which was the last time I worked in private general practice in the UK. And I love the animals, even the ones that are grumpy with me. Who can blame them? Vet clinics can be scary places, with needles and being poked and prodded, of falling asleep and waking up with a wound and a cone, of areas where your owner can’t come with you.

But the nurses and receptionists are lovely. Their love of animals shines through. The practice is full of waifs and strays, from Paddy the Labrador, who was taken on by the boss, to the black cat without a tail, who has a whole room to stretch out in while he waits to find a new owner. And for the two weeks we are here, Triar gets to be a practice dog as well. Monday morning, I left him in the apartment, but when I got to work, I was told he could come too. If he got on with Paddy, all well and good. If not, they’d find him a kennel. By Wednesday, he was dragging me in the door when he arrived. He and Paddy get on fine and he is spoiled rotten by almost everyone. For me, it’s just lovely to see him so well loved and looked after.

As for me, I’ve also been well looked after. The apartment is lovely and everyone has been very patient with all my questions and a few, odd areas of ignorance. When I qualified as a vet, the only flea treatment on offer that worked was Nuvan Top. You could spray a flea ridden animal and watch the fleas drop off. A few years later, the spot-ons arrived: the ones you put on the back of the neck, which killed fleas in the environment too. Now the treatments are all-singing-all-dancing, kill worms and fleas, ticks and mites. Some are still spot on, some are tablets, but there are a lot of choices and usually they are combined with worming treatments that you can’t use at the same time, due to crossover of the active ingredients. I’m still trying to get my head around all that. Still, I seems to have been keeping up so far with the appointments and am handling more complicated cases than I was at the PDSA.

It’s rather strange that I’m already half way through. The nurses will just get me trained up and then I’ll be off again. The practice is so lovely though, that I wonder what would have happened if I’d landed here years ago. Despite the long hours, I’m enjoying it immensely. For the first time, it crossed my mind that perhaps being a locum might be better than going back to APHA. That said, I’ve worked in quite a few practices over the years and the two I’ve been working in in recent weeks have been warm and welcoming places. I know not all are so harmonious.

I feel a bit sad that I’m not likely to have time to explore Wolverhampton as I did Paisley, but my body is telling me I need to rest. I’ll see how I feel tomorrow, but I suspect a quiet day in will be in order, though I shall probably go to church and maybe try to find somewhere nice to walk Triar. I don’t have many photos. The one at the top of the page is Halfway House, at the intersection between Albert Street and Tettenhall Road, near where I am staying. It’s now a dental practice and pharmacy, though it used to be a pub and, before that, a staging post, which is what, to me, it looks like. It’s after the time of Jane Austen, but still easy to imagine travellers stopping there, back when the horse was the main means of transport and it took days, rather than hours, to get anywhere.

I’ll leave you with the few pictures I’ve taken while wandering round, as well as one of Triar in his new Practice Dog role. And now, I’m going to grab a coffee, then kick back and watch Ludwig on the TV. Triar is asleep on the sofa beside me. What better way to spend a day? Thank you for reading and I hope you have a good week.

So Much for Likely Lasts

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I really should not make predictions, or indeed assume anything about what the future holds. My previous post started with a partial lament, that I might have done my last surgery, but the failure in my thinking was with the idea that the civil service might be in any kind of hurry to get me reinstated. I spoke to Dean (ex and hopefully future line manager at APHA) on Wednesday. The papers that were completed and sent off the week before, rather than being something final, were indeed only the preface to a possible eight week check of my suitability – a DBS check, if you like. Dean’s own line manager had indicated they hoped to have me back on board by the beginning of September, but it seems Dean’s “management of my expectations” (he suggested mid-October) is looking more likely.

I have suggested to them that I could locum for APHA in Dumfries in the meantime. After all, bluetongue and BSE are keeping them all busy, but I haven’t heard anything back about that, so rather reluctantly, I engaged with trying to find something else to do. After all, the mortgage isn’t going to pay itself. I was really hoping for another PDSA stint, and it was looking likely midweek. There was talk of possible positions in both Leeds and Bradford, either of which would have suited, due to the proximity to mum and dad and various relatives. I also talked to the senior vet in Margate. I quite fancied a trip to the seaside, though it would have introduced a major complication to my plan to attend Kyle and Candice’s ceilidh in Scotland in the last weekend in September. Margate to Scotland for a weekend would be quite a stretch.

Anyway, yesterday morning, while out on a Wildlife Farm Walk, I was called by one of the agents I’m in touch with. She offered me a two week stint in a private practice in Wolverhampton. She’d spoken to them about me and she, and they, seemed to think I would be a good fit. So in an unexpected turnaround, tomorrow I am off to the Midlands. One thing about my life at the moment – it’s never boring!

I have made the most of my week at home. It’s been a week of sunshine with torrential rain showers. Blackbird lane has been invaded by swallows, which swoop and twirl overhead, catching the autumn insects, while butterflies flit around the flowers and blackberries ripen in the hedgerows.

I found yesterday’s wildlife walk on Facebook. It was actually an educational walk on Torr Organic Dairy Farm. It was arranged by Scottish Agricultural College and was about organic farming and diversification, so I signed up, not knowing what to expect, but hoping for a pleasant walk. In the event, it was even better than I’d hoped for. There were a number of organic farmers there and I learned a lot from discussion about treatment of animals and preserving welfare in the absence of antibiotic use. APHA and DEFRA also have interests in sustainability and one health, as it pertains to the environment, so it turned into a truly useful day. On top of that, there were cute calves. There are few animals that I find more appealing than dairy calves, bedded on lots of clean straw, with their gentleness and inquisitive faces. Who could possibly resist?

Anyway, I think that’s enough for today. Next week, I should be writing this from an AirBnB in Wolverhampton. Another new place to explore.

I’ll leave you with a couple of photographs from yesterday’s farm walk. In the meantime, thanks for reading and I hope you have a good week.

Exploration

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Whole Lot of Walking

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Further Adventures in Paisley

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Triar and the Bull

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

Food and Flowerpots

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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