Category Archives: Travel

A Return to Blackbird Lane

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I’m back in Dumfries for the weekend. I came down to get a prescription and to get my glasses fixed. I’ve returned home a couple of times now and it’s been a quiet reminder of how peaceful it is here. Sometimes I miss being married and I absolutely miss the Arctic days when all my adult offspring returned home (thanks Covid) but there is a lot of peace to be found in the solitary life I’ve carved out here and Blackbird Lane is an integral part of that.

Triar and I walked down there yesterday afternoon. The warmth of the day had been cooled by a rain shower, which had left behind it the scent of damp earth. Early summer has filled it with vibrant green leaves and dancing insects. There were flowers too. Lots of them, hiding among the hawthorne and standing tall in gardens.

Triar came with me into the optician’s. I had lost a nose pad from my glasses a couple of weeks back. Working in Dunfermline, in an office in an industrial estate, with a half-hour commute at each end of a nine to five day, doesn’t make it easy to get the little things done that I would have done at lunch time in Dumfries. Anyway, Triar loves going into Frances Dunne’s. The entire staff come out a coo over how cute he is, with at least two of them petting him at any given time. He takes it as his due with a wildly wagging tail and the kind of writhing ecstasy that only a truly happy dog can bring.

It’s been a decent enough week at work. I was out with Ben at the start of the week and with Naomi at the end. She and I had a trip down to Carlisle to see some laying hens. She weighed some of them using some very natty scales and her extensive experience was obvious. She showed me where red mite hide and pointed out some maintenance issues that I might not have picked up on.

Red mites are evil little critters. They hide under the edges of the nest boxes and when the poor hens go in to lay at night, they sneak out and bite them. With a really bad infestation, not only do you get problems with itching and feather plucking, but the birds can actually become anaemic. The little horrors breed quickly in warm weather as well, so the last few days will have sent them into overdrive.

It’s one thing spraying your hen house if you have a few chickens in the garden. You can put the birds outside the house, wash down their shed and apply treatment. It’s quite another trying to eradicate them from a large shed, where the birds are mid-season in lay. There’s no way you can move them all out to clean down their shed. There are treatments that go in the drinking water, but they need to be used responsibly. As we’ve seen with antibiotics, the overuse of any drugs can render them less effective over time.

This does also raise some questions about free range. A lot of my job now is about biosecurity. The high value flocks I used to visit with APHA used almost no medicines in their birds. As part of my check, I would look at their medicines book. Many of them had no entries for years and that was broadly because the outside world was strictly kept out. Staff showered as they entered and left, and when inside, you wore only clothing and footwear supplied to you by the company. The clothing didn’t leave the building either, but was washed on site.

But if you open the doors and let the hens outside, you can’t protect them from anything. Wild birds fly in, bringing everything from red mite to avian influenza. While I have loved visiting some of our farms and seeing hens scratching around on grass, under trees, there is a balance to be struck. Sickness also causes welfare issues.

So life in the poultry world is the same as all other areas of life. A balance must be struck between aspects of freedom and safety. It crossed my mind as I wrote this, that one of the things I have already learned about my new industry is how many vaccinations are used in laying hens. Most are given early in life, so that the hens remain healthy throughout their laying time. In fact, I did think about calling this post, “Anti-vaxxers shouldn’t eat eggs,” but perhaps that isn’t the audience I want to attract!

I will leave you with more flowers. These are in my garden. Thanks for reading and I hope you have a lovely week.

Foxes and Hens

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I went to my first ever Eurovision party last weekend. Coincidentally, it was Lissie’s birthday. Lissie had children at the same time as Valerie and me and she’s also Christadelphian. I remember her children as toddlers, so it was lovely to meet them now they’re young adults. Val and I (well mostly Val) made a birthday cake. I definitely need to get some icing/piping equipment so I can do this again!

Eurovision was as mad as it usually is. We had Prosecco and strawberries along with pizza and other munchies, but the highlight was Valerie doing the Bangaranga dance around the living room with Lissie’s son, Jonathan.

I came to Yorkshire on Tuesday night. Mum and I had dentist appointments on Wednesday, so I now have lovely, clean teeth and no fillings, which is always a relief. Ben was on holiday, so he had passed an APHA pre movement blood test and flock inspection on to me for Friday. That was in Penrith, so rather than going back to Dunfermline on Thursday (a crazy amount of driving) I asked whether I could have some visits in Cumbria for Thursday. He gave me two more visits to do, so I had a pleasant couple of days, meeting new clients and looking at their chickens and hens.

My knowledge is still patchy, but what I do have is a new set of eyes and an interest in problem solving, so I hope that I will be able to bring something new to the farmers in my region. I also just like talking to people, and farmers are some of the best. Ben had told me one of the farm managers talked to her hens. My immediate reaction was that she and I would get on well and meeting her didn’t change that opinion. I have promised to take her some chicken pens next time I go, so I’d better put some aside before they all disappear.

Yesterday was a beautiful warm day. It really felt like summer for the first time this year. Driving through the Dales was just an added benefit.

Today, I walked Triar around Settle. As always, at this time of year, it is filled with flowers. Mum, Dad, Triar and I then walked to The Folly for coffee and cake. I had an almond croissant. Very nice, though the coffee was so hot, I didn’t even try to drink it until I’d finished the croissant. I know some people prefer their coffee piping hot, but I prefer mine to be drinkable as soon as I get it.

Anyway, I shall leave you with some photos from my morning dog walk. Hope you have a good week and thanks for reading.

From Baptism to Chicken Pens

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Last weekend already feels like half a lifetime ago, but last weekend, for the second time in my life, I was baptised. The first time, back when I was living in Ilkley in 1993, I felt washed clean and whole. I’d had a hard time and some bad relationships at university and it felt like a whole new start. This time, it felt more like a renewal.
For years in Norway, our church attendance as a family lapsed. That is something I regret now, but it is a recurring realisation in my life that we can never go back and fix things and can only move on from where we are now. I have a chequered history, but now I have joined the Christadelphian faith and I am trying to be a better person. I know that Christianity is reviled by many in modern society, but for me it is something to hold onto in a world that is moving too quickly.

Monday was spent in Dunfermline, but on Tuesday, almost the entire Inchcolm staff decanted to Birmingham, where we had a stand at the Pig and Poultry Fair at the NEC.

If you look closely at the centre right of the photo, behind the table, you will see that we arrived with some traditional Scottish fare, as well as with a lot of leaflets and some pens that would prove to be very popular.

I knew it would be difficult representing Inchcolm, having only been with them for a few weeks, but as the two days passed, I became more comfortable in explaining the role I hoped to take and the other staff were there to answer questions about how everything worked and the full extent of the services we offer.
Most of the exhibitors were offering some kind of merchandise and it became obvious that some were being sought after more than others. One of the drug companies had coveted pig and chicken balloons, another company was offering handy carrying boxes, some had fabulous food (I’m going to put in a quick shout out to Griffith’s eggs, who had a chef, who made me a delicious omelette) but it became quickly apparent that our chicken pens were one of the most popular items. Fortunately, we had a lot of them, and could keep up with all the visitors who came just for that.
After the long days, we went out together for food. The first two nights we went to a pub near the house we were staying in. The food was unremarkable, though I did have a lovely waffle with ice cream and Biscoff.

On the last night though, we went to The Boat at Catherine de Barnes which was in an entirely different class. The menu was so good that it was difficult to choose, but bream has long been my favourite fish and I have no regrets in having chosen Black Bream with Crushed Lemon Potatoes and Samphire in Sriracha Mussel Butter. Delicious!

There had been some discussion about the fact that battered fish was served, in that part of the world, with skin on the fish (a travesty – surely soggifying the batter) but the bream skin was perfectly salted and fried to a delectable crispness. The potatoes were soft and succulent with no hint of dryness. They contrasted well with the mild crunch of the samphire.
I followed up with a British cheese board so full that almost everyone at the table shared it. I somehow failed to take a photo, but as well as one blue cheese, two red and two white, there was quince jelly, fig relish and some very crispy cranberry and raisin crackers. I know some will think me a philistine, drinking red wine with fish, but the large glass of Rioja I had chosen went well with both courses and I finished up with Bailey’s coffee which rounded off an almost perfect night.

The house we stayed in should have been fabulous, but in truth, it was more funny than fun. I’d been told when I first joined Inchcolm about the rented house with its massage beds and projectors in every room. Add in electronic toilets with automatically lifting lids and heated seats. Add in space age showers with a multitude of knobs and functions.

Someone obviously had a whale of a time, importing electronic gear and dreaming of a futuristic abode with all mod cons. Unfortunately, they forgot the basics. I sat on my space-age toilet (mine didn’t actually work anyway – no regrets) and (am)mused on the fact that they’d forgotten to provide a toilet roll holder, so it stood in one of the shelves in the cabinet.

There were no curtains or blinds and on the third night, we couldn’t turn out the lights on the outside of the house, so I had to jam a towel over the edge of the window to keep the room dark enough to sleep. The cabinet with the toilet roll overhung the small sink so that I had to bend awkwardly to spit out my toothpaste. Still, it was clean and tidy and the beds were comfortable. Those things matter more!

Anyway I had better go. I’m going to a Eurovision night tonight and Valerie and I will be making a fox birthday cake for one of Val’s friends as it’s her birthday. Next week, I’m going to be out on the road more, so there’s plenty to look forward to.

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

Light switch. Once the lights were out, I didn’t touch it again… just in case!

A Trip to Armagh

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.