So Christmas day has come and gone. The butcher in Settle created a decent enough ribbe (pork roast joint, traditional in Norway) even if he cut the crackling into cross-hatched diamonds instead of squares. There were roast potatoes and pigs in blankets and Triar barked so much at the first cracker that we gave up with only one cracked. Odd that he can withstand fireworks outside without blinking an eye, but inside the house, it’s a definite no.
His harness is also significantly tighter than it was when we came down five days ago. I know he had his usual pig in blanket Christmas dinner, but in addition, I suspect he’s been a useful receptacle for leftovers in a house where throwing away food is anathema and that was before he pinched an entire packet of Scottish tablet that he found in one of the bedrooms. That was only yesterday. By some miracle, we have made it through the night, undisturbed. I was expecting explosions at one end or the other, but it seems his digestive system is robust enough to withstand 600 calories of sugar and butter. We’re going to have to do a whole lots of walking when we get home to get it all back off again. As for him, no worries about explosions, he’s still hoping for more.
Christmas highlights included Triar opening his present. This year’s annual Kong teddy is a festive red effort. I also had a lovely laugh during a Zoom Christmas Eve church service I attended. I have started going to church in Scotland and wanted to go on Christmas day, but it was complicated by the fact that I was chief cook.
I know when I was a child, we used all to go to Church on Christmas morning. Grandma must have left the turkey cooking and we likely ate late, but I didn’t think that would work, and so I began to consider remote attendance. Geoff, one of my friends from the writing group I attend – also Donna’s father-in-law – is responsible for the video link in his church up in Lockerbie and so I asked him, and very conveniently, their Christmas service was on Christmas Eve.
It was a nice enough service and the filming was excellent, but the pièce de résistance came during the final carol – Oh Come All Ye Faithful. A small child had been called up to light the Christmas candle and he remained near the microphone in the aftermath. O Come, All Ye Faithful had quite a lot of verses and I spent the first couple smiling at the man who was unable to resist singing the first Oh come, let us adore him, despite the instruction that only the women should sing, but as the verses went on, the small child began at first, humming the chorus, as if to alleviate the boredom, and as the hymn went on, he was getting more and more into it. By the last chorus, he was belting the O comes out, wonderfully tunelessly. For Geoff, it highlighted a technical problem with the microphone, but I loved the raucous singing as that little boy found some entertainment. It’s also a reminder to me of the lack of children in the church I have joined. If the church is to survive, we need to embrace its children and smile at whatever they bring.
On Boxing Day, John, Yoana and I braved the fog on the tops and drove over to Malham for a walk to Janet’s Foss at Malham. Everyone else seems to have had the same idea, but we found a parking space and had a lovely walk.
Towards the end, the sun almost broke through and for a moment, there was blue sky.
But the mist met us again as we drove back up the hill and it’s been grey and damp in Settle every day since. I worked yesterday. I had received permission to work in Yorkshire for a day, though had something urgent come in, I would have had to rush back. My emergency kit is in the car. But now I am on holiday until the 7th of January, so I can now hopefully relax and maybe get a bit of writing in.
Anyway, wherever you are, I hope you have found some joy in this Christmas time. Thank you for reading and I will see you all in the new year.
This week I’ve been out for two Christmas dinners! Last weekend, despite Storm Darragh doing its best to keep me home, I made a run for Yorkshire on the Friday. Mum had booked us a meal at the lovely Middle Studfold Farm on Sunday and I didn’t want to miss it. Middle Studfold is a farm where they do bed and breakfast as well as meals at weekends. Set in Ribblesdale in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales, it’s a gorgeous, stone farmhouse. The attached tearoom was tastefully decorated and wonderfully cosy.
We were soon pulling Christmas crackers and enjoying the Christmas music. I had chosen field mushroom with goats cheese as my starter and it didn’t disappoint.
Then came the traditional turkey with trimmings. The parsnip was particularly delicious, mashed and flavoured with horseradish and the stuffing has inspired me to experiment with adding chestnuts to my usual recipe.
I had to head up the road soon afterwards, but it would have been wonderful to have lingered over dinner and perhaps stayed overnight. I would highly recommend it for a lovely warm Yorkshire Dales welcome.
It was a good week at work and I revisited one of my welfare cases and found no further problems, so I was able to close the case for now, which was a good feeling in the run up to Christmas. Because of the way the algorithms are set up, there will be another inspection, likely within the next year, which is also good as we will be able to monitor whether the changes are continuing. I hope they are as it felt like a positive visit with real progress being made.
There was a second festive feast for me this week with A Novel Approach, the writing group I am involved with in Lockerbie. We’ve had a couple of mini writing retreats recently, which I have enjoyed enormously and now it was time to celebrate. I decided against the turkey this time, though everyone else’s did look very good. I had a beef collop on clapshot with a haggis fritter. If that all needs translating, a collop seems to be a slice of meat and the word is thought to be derived from escalope. It was circular and I had wondered whether it was from the cheek, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Clapshot is mixed potato and swede. The haggis fritter probably speaks for itself and it was all served with a whisky infused gravy, so there was a lovely Scottish flavour to the whole thing.
Regular readers might remember that I am using the Second Nature app, kindly provided by the NHS and despite all this food, I am still following it. The principle of having half your plate filled with vegetables, quarter with protein and quarter with complex carbs is actually quite easy to fit in with meals out. Even though I don’t follow it perfectly, it’s far easier than having to weigh everything at every meal and I have lost one and a half stone so far, but that is why there are rarely cake pictures on here these days. That’s not to say it never happens, but it’s now a rare treat and most of the time I vote for the healthier option.
Somerton House Hotel where we had our Christmas meal was also decorated. I love the whole build up to Christmas. It lends such cosiness to the darkest days of the winter.
And now I am at Valerie’s for the weekend. I fear there may be cake in the near future as she has proposed a visit to Fintry and a garden centre today. Last night I was greeted by various gardens and houses crammed with lights and illuminations and I was reminded of walking round the village at this time of year, when the children were young, searching out the “crazy houses” with their wonderful light shows. Yesterday evening’s soak in the hot tub with hot chocolate was a relaxing start to the weekend. Now I can hear people outside scraping ice from car windows, so maybe tonight, I will have the hot tub on ice experience. Have a lovely weekend all and thanks for reading!
I had a lovely break down in Yorkshire last weekend. As I mentioned last week, Triar and I went down to Mum and Dad’s on the train. It’s getting dark earlier now, so it was lovely to arrive and warm ourselves in front of the fire. Triar’s rug was already in place and he was soon sleeping beside the warming gas flames.
On Saturday, we walked into town to buy food for Sunday dinner and on the way, I saw some small bedside cabinets in a second hand furniture shop. We went home to fetch the car and returned to buy them. Not that my bedrooms upstairs are close to being finished yet, but when they are, I now have somewhere to put the bedside lamps I haven’t bought yet!
After a fish and salad lunch (I stole some chips from Mum and Dad, but stuck to the Second Nature principle of ordering something a bit healthier) we went home. I had suggested to Mum that our main task for the weekend should be making Christmas puddings, so she had bought in most of the ingredients. We stopped at Booths (surely the cosiest of supermarkets?) and added some chopped roasted hazelnuts to the list, as well as the raisins that had been unavailable when she did her main shop.
I used my own Christmas pudding recipe (here) though as usual these days, I substituted the alcohol content for whatever was available at the time, which this year was spiced rum!
Everyone had a stir, then we left the wonderful spicy mixture in the fridge overnight, and Triar and I went out for a walk to enjoy the autumn sunshine. It was a stunning day. I had perhaps missed the absolute height of the autumn colour, but it was beautiful and I was glad to capture it before all the leaves had fallen.
Another evening in front of the fire and we watched some early episodes of Shetland on the TV, back when Perez was still in his cottage in the centre of Lerwick. Another sleep with Triar curled up on my feet, then it was Sunday. It had been a little cloudy overnight and there was a heavy dew, but no frost.
Triar seemed to be enjoying looking out as much as I did,
As well as steaming the Christmas puddings, I prepared a chicken and vegetables for dinner (which my parents eat at lunchtime) and we sat down early as Triar and I had a train to catch.
And then we were on the train back to Scotland, with a two hour wait in Carlisle, when Triar used his charm on everyone he saw to pass the time.
And showed off his favourite trick.
I’m not sure where I picked up the virus, or whether it was that chilly two hours in Carlisle that tipped me over the edge, but by the time I walked and drove back from the station in the evening, I was starting to feel ropy and by Monday morning it was obvious I’d come down with the lurgy. I’m now much better, though bored of coughing having finally succumbed to taking time off to rest on Thursday and Friday. Had I still been in Norway, I would have taken the whole week off, but I worked from home Monday to Wednesday and at least all my paperwork is now up to date.
Yesterday evening, Donna invited me round for pizza and some of Aldi’s Christmas range which, with Halloween over, they are beginning to launch. She welcomed me despite the coughing, for which I am very grateful. Today, Triar and I are joining Donna and Will and their dogs in a Doggy Field for a good run, so I’d better go and get ready.
Thank you for reading. By this time next week, I’ll be on holiday and preparing for our journey to Teeside. Hope you have a good week.
I’m going to start with some pictures of cattle I saw in Yorkshire last weekend. It struck me as I looked through my photos that two of them were of Highland Cattle and the other bovine close up was a Belted Galloway. Of course, there are other cattle in Yorkshire, so perhaps I only noticed the Scottish ones as they’re especially picturesque, but it amused me so, in addition to the lovely lass at the top of the page, here you go.
It’s been a good week at work. I revisted a welfare case and things haven’t improved much, but that is sometimes the way of it. We can only help people who want to change. We will continue working on it though, through various means. I have closed two of my TB cases. I say TB cases, but the disease was never confirmed in either. Two cows that reacted to a skin test were slaughtered. Their lungs were checked and nothing was found and the rest of the herd were tested.
The skin test is generally considered accurate in that, if the test is unequivocally positive, there is a high likelihood the animal has TB, but perhaps both were rare false positives, or maybe they were both in the early stages and hadn’t passed it on. Anyway, two good farmers, who have worked with us patiently through a difficult situation, have now been given the all clear. I can remember the days when there was no TB in Scotland. I hope we can get back there again.
I will leave you with some pictures of Blackbird Lane. It’s beautiful now, as autumn is beginning to approach. Thanks for reading and I hope you have a good week.
The week started well with a nocturnal walk at the local RSPB centre at Mersehead. My colleague, Cris, had mentioned it on Thursday and I jumped at the chance. We arrived at nine in the evening, when dusk was approaching. As you can see in the picture at the top of the page, the nature reserve has a few belted Galloway cattle on it for controlled grazing. That was the only photo I took, because the walk itself started in near darkness and ended at eleven, by which time it was properly dark.
Provided with hand held infra red cameras and instruments that converted bat sounds to a frequency audible to human ears, we set off for a wander. The first bats we heard, and then spotted, were noctule bats. I hadn’t seen these before and was surprised to see them crossing the sky at dusk, flying high, in straight lines. It took a bit longer to spot the more familiar pipistrelle bats, which flitted along the lane.
We took a detour into the butterfly field, where pathways had been cut through the waist high grass. There, our infrared cameras picked out a deer in the darkness. We watched for a while as it moved gently in the long grass. Back in the lane, more pipistrelles, then along to an old farm steading, where we failed to see badgers in the garden. There were barn owls in the shed on the other side of the lane though, letting loose their weird, screeching cries. They were sheltering high up in the corner, atop a pile of round bales, bright white outlines on the camera. Then on some more, a rabbit in a field, lolloping around, before a few drops of rain began to fall, then a flurry and before long, it was raining steadily. We made our way back to the centre. Our two hours had more than passed anyway. It had been a wonderful evening.
The builders moved in on Monday. They’re stripping out the rooms in my roof in order to put in insulation and hopefully a shower room and toilet. The rooms were light and bright before, with warm pinewood window frames and features, which I hope they can replicate, though I might end up with something more generic. I had thought that if the work went on into the winter, I could simply shut the doors at the top of the stairs to keep the heat in, but I was disabused of that misunderstanding when I came home on Wednesday or Thursday and glanced up the stairway to see a brick wall, wooden beams and the underside of the roof, stripped bare.
From this…
To this…
As far as I can see, that small amount of insulation in the last picture was the only insulation anywhere in the roof. Hopefully the difference in the heating bills will make it worthwhile.
With all that going on, and an uncharacteristically quiet week at work, I decided maybe it was time to use up some of the flexi time I had built up. Anna and Lauren had popped in to Dumfries at the end of their month-long tour of Scotland and were now back in Yorkshire, so I thought I’d join them for a long weekend.
So here I am in Yorkshire again. It’s mixed weather, but we managed a walk into town yesterday, as well as a visit to the cheese centre, which now features a pizza restaurant with a wood oven as well as the very stinky cheese shop. Annually in Settle, there is a plant pot festival, where people make models from plant pots. The three below my favourites, but I have two more days of the weekend left to find more.
Hope you have a good week all! Thank you for reading.
This week has felt so long, and has been so full, that it was almost a surprise when I looked back at my photos and realised that it was only last weekend I went to the Northern Canine and Equine Therapy Centre in Rathmell, where they do hydrotherapy for horses and dogs. They had advertised it as a coffee morning and we did indeed purchase a lovely coffee from a van outside the centre, but the real attraction lay inside.
The horse hydrotherapy session was due first, so we walked into the part of the centre where the horses were kept. I wish that I had taken more photos, but it was a lovely place and I instantly felt at home. The centrepiece of the covered yard was obviously the pool (pictured at the top of the page) but around two edges there were stables for the hospitalised horses. Some were there for lameness, some for weight loss and conditioning. Others were there, not so much for treatment, but for pampering. Imagine sending your horse away for a spa weekend!
Having swum round, the pony in the picture was taken out, towelled down, then treated with oils to replace the natural oils that would have been removed from his coat. He then was walked into a solarium to dry out a bit.
After we’d seen the horse swimming, we moved through to the dog pool. There. We watched as a dog physio put her labrador through his paces in the pool.
She told us about the different conditions they helped with. Her own dog doesn’t need any therapy, but he does love swimming. It’s also possible to book a half hour fun session with your dog and I immediately decided I’d like to take Triar to see if he would like indoor swimming. I also found myself wishing I worked there, or perhaps was a vet who could refer animals to them. It felt like a very positive place.
We had rather a bombshell last Friday afternoon, which I couldn’t bring myself to mention last week. My lovely boss, Kirsty, unexpectedly sent out a message to say she was leaving and her last day would be early in August. I will be very sad to see her go, and by the outpouring of shock, so will many of my colleagues. Both Lindsay (my Veterinary advisor – one step up from me) and Sue, who has just taken on a year long post after locumming on and off, called me up, mainly to express their sadness. Though it feels very sudden, it’s good for Kirsty and I hope she gets some much deserved time to relax.
Back at work on Monday, I visited a chicken farm with my colleague, Aleks. I have to do three visits with other vets before I can go solo, and this was my third. Because everyone is so busy, it’s difficult to find dates when two of us can go out together, so I’m glad my third accompanied visit is done. I have three of my own to do, so now I can more easily fit them into my timetable.
I can’t even remember what I did on Tuesday. It all feels so long ago! I was due to revisit a welfare case on Wednesday with David, who works for the local authority with animal health and welfare. We often work together and the revisit was to a farm where we witnessed some serious welfare issues before. But when he arrived, he asked me if we could divert to a more pressing issue. A group of pigs had escaped from their field and had turned up in someone else’s farmyard. It wasn’t the first time they’d escaped, but the farmer, quite correctly, now had them coralled in a barn.
Other authorities, including the police and the SSPCA had been called out when the pigs had escaped before, but nothing had been done. These situations are complicated to deal with. Animals do escape from time to time, and unless they’re on a road or causing risk, it’s really the farmer’s responsibility to get them back and secure them in the field or barn. For David and me, it was essentially a welfare issue. It’s not safe for the pigs to be marauding round the countryside. All farmers have a responsibility to keep their animals safe and keeping them enclosed within a safe area is key to that.
After the big foot and mouth outbreak in 2001, various laws were brought in to try to reduce the risks of another big outbreak. These included standstill laws on animal movements. If cloven hoofed animals (mainly cattle, sheep and pigs) are moved onto a farm, then the farm comes under a standstill order and for thirteen days, no animals can be moved off the farm without special permission.
So pigs landing unexpectedly on someone else’s farm presents quite an issue to that farmer, especially if they were planning on selling some animals, which our farmer was, and imminently. Our first action was to find out if the sale could go ahead. The pigs had not, to anyone’s knowledge, been near the animals that were to be sold, but equally, they had been loose, so where they had been was anyone’s guess. The movement ban applies to all animals on the farm, so the sale had to be stopped. That was done before we left the office.
Our next action was to visit the farm. It was an hour’s drive, but when we got there, I was able to examine the pigs. They were healthy and being well looked after. The main issue that had to be dealt with (or so we thought) was that they were not where they were meant to be.
Having looked at the entrapped pigs, we then went to visit the pig owner. The remainder of the herd were in a separate field from the ones who had escaped. To get to them, we had to walk through the field where the escapee pigs had been. There were some green boxes that looked like the boxes supermarkets use to deliver produce, but I had walked past them, keen to see if the pigs were okay. David had gone to get something from his van and I expected him to follow immediately, but when I turned to see where he was, he was standing at the gate, looking round.
He joined us eventually and we went and looked at the pigs. They looked well and the field they were in was (in my opinion) the perfect environment, with a small shelter, long grass and rushes to hide in and mud in which to wallow when the weather was warm.
It was only when we turned and walked back, that David told me what he had seen at the gate. Across from the supermarket boxes, there was litter, lying about. And in that rubbish, which was mostly food packaging, he had found empty packages for sausage rolls, ham and bacon, along with bags for bread and hot dog rolls.
I mentioned foot and mouth and the rules created after the big 2001 outbreak earlier. In addition to new rules on animal movements, strict rules were brought in about feeding pigs. Feeding them any kind of human food or kitchen waste is banned. We asked the farmer about the packages. It wasn’t impossible they had been left by someone having a picnic, but he didn’t know where they’d come from and said he thought people sometimes came and fed the pigs.
So now we had a situation, where there were empty packages for pork products that the escaped pigs had access to, and worse, that it was possible the produce, including raw bacon, might have been fed to the pigs.
These are the kinds of situations that have immediately to be sent up the food chain. Even if I had dealt with such a situation before, I would still have to call it in, without delay. The upshot of my phone call, and the work I have been doing for the last three days, is that both farms have to be locked down, with no movements of live or dead animals onto or off the premises, except under special licence. All the animals have to be inspected every 72 hours for signs of disease for a week, then probably weekly thereafter, for another two weeks. There was also the matter of the pigs being on the wrong farm, which was resolved yesterday, after lots of negotiation and paperwork.
So a vist which I thought might be a little complicated to resolve has turned into a behemoth case. One thing I will say is that we have an enormous amount to be grateful for with the farmer who took in the marauding pigs. She did everything right from start to finish, including calling us in. Chances are, the pigs don’t have foot and mouth, but now we have everything under supervision, so if the worst happens, we are already on top of it.
Had she chosen not to trap the pigs and call us, but had shoo’d them away and sent her animals to the sale, the potential for us being faced with another 2001 was there. That was started by pigs being fed improperly processed food and the disease wasn’t spotted until it had been sent all over the country. I may now be faced with three weeks of visits and a ton of paperwork, but this is the kind of work that can prevent a world of pain for farmers and a devastating cull that costs the country billions.
So this is what I am here for. I’m only a tiny cog in a very important chain, and kudos to both the wonderful farmer who called it in and for David for his observational skills. Next time, I won’t be so quick to pass by litter to look at animals.
But if I have one final thought, it is that I wish the government could see what we are here to do and how important vets and animal health and welfare officers are to this process. There should be more of us on the ground and the pay for those of us who choose to do this should be much better. Staff come and go, or work quickly to get promotion as there is no pay progression in our part of the civil service any more.
We need experienced people on the front line, but there is zero financial incentive to come and stay. Maybe saying this publically could get me into trouble, but if so, so be it. The people responsible for removing progressive pay bands for these roles have put the health and welfare of the nation’s animals at risk.
I work alongside a few, faithful staff, who have years of experience, a network of connections, a load of invaluable local knowledge, who are asked to train new entrants on the same wage as them. That is both plain wrong and absolute insanity. We should be making sure those people have an incentive to stay, that they know they are valued and that they don’t have to move to a different job to be properly rewarded.
And on that cheery note (sarcasm alert for non Brits) I shall leave you to your weekend! Have a good week all, and see you next week.
A few “after the rain” photographs for those who love Blackbird Lane.
Andrew and I were out a fair bit last weekend. Waiting lists for dentists in Dumfries are so long that I have joined my mum’s dental practice in Addingham. Fortunately my teeth are fine and now also clean. Andrew came with me on Saturday when I saw the dental hygienist. We had lunch afterwards. In a deli on the edge of town.
On Sunday, we drove back to Scotland. As it was a lovely day, and there was plenty of time, we decided not to head along the main road to the motorway, but instead drove up through the dales, to Hawes then Kirkby Stephen, then up the old A6 almost to Carlisle. I didn’t stop for many photos as it was warm and we had Triar in the car, but we did stop for lunch in an inn called the Fox and Pheasant at Armathwaite. The roast dinner sounded lovely, but more suited to a chilly autumn day, so we both had pizza, while Triar sat hopefully under the table.
I can’t say my first week back at work has been great. I did have a lovely day out, inspecting a very well-run farm with my colleague Lauren, but that was the only high point.
One of the most negative things was receiving an indirect message from the financial service that deals with wages and expenses. When I moved here from Norway, it inevitably cost a lot. One of my considerations when I saw the advert for this job was that they were offering “relocation support” for “some of our locations”. I was originally offered a post in Penrith, which would have been nearer my parents, but I asked about other posts where expenses might be available and I was told Dumfries was one of them.
The offer was made and I accepted, booked in my furniture removal (which in itself, cost more than the £5000 on offer) jumped through the hoop of getting several quotations from different removal companies (quite a faff in itself) and then made the long journey over.
There was an ongoing email discussion about the expenses and I was mildly suspicious when nobody seemed to know exactly how I would go about making the claim. The expenses information I was sent was ten years old, but I kept hoping those in contact with me would be able to find someone who knew how to do it.
That’s often the way in the civil service. There are many different functions and often, it’s about finding the right person, but even when I was in post and began to make the claim, it remained unclear. The form was off putting. It was obviously designed for those who already worked in the civil service and were being compulsorily relocated. Nonetheless, I was assured it was the correct form, so I filled it in as best I could, gathered all the paperwork and sent it to my manager, who sent it onwards to be paid.
That was in January and I have been waiting since. During that time, I have bought a house, thus tying myself down. My manager has been trying to chase it up, but I confess, with my cynical mind, I was wondering whether someone, somewhere, was going to try to weasel their way out of paying me, and the message I received on Monday (directed to my line manager, but sent on for info) made it clear I was right.
It stated that they had been delayed as they were investigating my claim. It went on to say that, as a new entrant, I was ineligible for relocation expenses. It would have had to be explicitly mentioned in the original advertisement, and that they hadn’t been able to find any reference to it. They realised that “Sarah will be disappointed” but there was really nothing they could do.
Reader, I was not disappointed. As any normal human being would predict, I was angry. There is an ongoing problem in the civil service in that everything has been cut to the bone and many of the benefits of working for the service have been slashed away. As I said, when I filled in the form, it was obvious there was no longer provision for relocation for new entrants, however by then, I was already in post and all the expenses incurred.
Back in April, when I was waiting for interview, I realized the advertisement had been taken down. I wanted to make sure I had all the information, so I dug back through a government portal and found it. I took screenshots to make sure I didn’t lose the information while I might still need it. Luckily, I hadn’t deleted it.
Admittedly it uses the word “support” and not “expenses” but I think you will agree, there is no mention made of this not being available to new starters. I was told at the interview that £5000 should be available and that was confirmed in various e-mails afterwards.
Underneath the anger though, what I feel is sad. There are a few people in my part of the civil service who’ve been here a long time and it’s obvious there used to be a lot of benefits and good things that have been taken away. Now there’s a never ending mill of trying to attract new staff, then losing them as demoralization sets in, or they rush for promotion as that is the only way to get a raise, since the wage bands and incremental raises have been removed.
I have been here six months and though I can see there are parts of the job I enjoy, I have half an eye on the job market, looking for other opportunities. Given how much money the civil service has already spent on the process of getting me on board, and given that I have hit the ground running and already am managing a significant workload, it seems very shortsighted to be messing me around like this. Anyway, I have sent my complaint right to the top of my section and we will see where it goes. In the meantime, if anyone knows of any good jobs in Dumfries, I’m all ears!
This is going to be a brief post. Thursday was spent in the new house getting Wi-Fi and a washing machine installed and with an insulation assessor, measuring up for several hours. On Friday, we did the big move – removal men for the big furniture, then clearing the last of the stuff and cleaning the remaining kitchen cupboards and floors and carpets that hadn’t yet been done. I hadn’t really slept much in the two nights leading up to it as there was so much to juggle and yesterday morning I was so exhausted, I decided to take a break from blogging.
Andrew and I came down to Yorkshire after we were finished on Friday. Anna and Lauren came up from Winchester to join us. Triar cried with excitement when he saw them, which was nice because he’d been very obviously stressed by the signs of another major shift. He’s moved house five times in his life, but hopefully this will be the last.
Yesterday, I got a couple of other things done that I’ve been putting off. I’m going to Norway in May, but hadn’t bought tickets home, so I got that done. Now, hopefully Mum will be able to book me a dentist’s appointment when I get back. Apparently all the dentists in Dumfries have massive waiting lists and my back teeth are gradually crumbling, so keeping on top of tooth care is important.
I also finally sorted out my Norwegian tax return. That one has been playing on my mind for weeks and I thought I was going to have to call them, but I found a video about how to add my UK earnings and tax. I’m going to have to fill in a tax return for the next three years. I only found that out after I’d left. Moving internationally is more complex than I could have ever imagined. Going out to Norway, I guess I was lucky, partly as the UK was in the EU, and partly because Charlie went six months before me and the children, so he had already sorted a lot out before I arrived.
Anyway, I only realised how heavily the tax form had been weighing me down after I’d done it. The feeling of relief was unexpected, but for the last two nights, I’ve also slept better and though there is still a lot to sort out, I feel I’m over a big hump. Hopefully it’ll all be downhill from here and life will gradually settle down.
Anyway, I haven’t many photos to offer you, but here’s another from Mum and Dad’s garden yesterday morning, when Triar and I went out to greet the new day. Spring is really here in Yorkshire, which is wonderful when I’m used to having to wait for May or even June.
I almost forgot it was blog day this morning. It feels like ages since last weekend. I took the astonishing photo at the top of the page last Saturday after dropping off the man who sold Anna his car back at his house. The intensity of those iron grey clouds, brooding above the sunny Yorkshire Dales landscape was so arresting that I had to try to capture it.
I worked from Yorkshire on Monday, then left Anna, Lauren, Andrew and Triar at Mum and Dad’s to head back up to Scotland. I was sad to miss Anna and Lauren’s last day, but my furniture was due to arrive on Tuesday (at last) so Scotland beckoned.
I started work early on Tuesday morning at Donna’s house, which is only a ten minute drive from the house I’m renting. Having heard nothing from Pickford’s, I called them, getting through at about nine-forty, only to be told my slot was between ten and twelve. Grabbing my work bag, I rushed out to my car and drove over, arriving only moments before ten. The only furniture in the house was a single kitchen chair and I set it by the living room window, thinking I’d try to get some work done before they arrived, but before I could open my laptop, they arrived.
Regular readers will remember the awful day back in October when the removal men arrived a day early, causing chaos and doing an appallingly bad job in general (Last Post) so I was very pleased that this time, the (different) crew had arrived right on schedule. The contrast continued as they unpacked my sofas and beds, working hard to find all the parts of the beds, as they were worried I wouldn’t have anywhere to sleep without them.
They eventually found the three metal barriers that hold the mattress in place and the remote control for one of the beds in two random boxes, but when I assured them that I had somewhere to sleep that night, they gave up on the search for the legs and the parts for the other bed (both are adjustable) and carried on bringing the remaining furniture in. Their willingness and communication was such a contrast with the firm at the Norwegian end. They worked for a company called Bee Smart and I found myself musing that, if I move again within the next year (the rental house is temporary) I would probably call them.
Donna had offered to help me unpack on Thursday and so, having taken the day off work, she and I headed over to start to get my new house into some kind of order. Like Shirley, who helped me to clean the old house, Donna worked so efficiently that, by the end of the day, the kitchen was cleaned, all my kitchen equipment was found and washed and both beds were assembled. We had a bit of a laugh over some of the packing. As I said in my October post, the removal men had run out of boxes and complained I had too much stuff. Donna, who was going through the boxes, brought two of them to me to show their contents, or rather, the lack of them. This kitchen box was only half full.
Perhaps there was some excuse as that one was heavy, but this was the most sublime:
Top tip: if you’re moving in Norway, don’t use Vinje’s!
The landlady (Lorna) unexpectedly arrived, just as as Donna was finishing up the kitchen. As I brought Lorna in, Donna was standing in a cloud of steam, sleeves rolled up, placing the last of my bowls onto a towel she had placed on one of the worktops, having run out of space on the drainer. All the cupboards were washed and standing open to dry. For a first impression, as a new tenant, I couldn’t have hoped for better.
We had discovered the night before, that the toilet flush wasn’t working properly, so within minutes, Lorna was on the phone to a plumber. They gave a tentative promise that they’d try to pop in at eight the next morning. No mean feat two days before the weekend before Christmas. Then she left and Donna and I went back to sorting through my stuff.
There were a few broken things, but fortunately not too much. Donna had offered to wash some bed clothes, so that when Andrew and I came up there would be beds all ready to go and anyway, I was beginning to feel tired, so we headed back to Donna’s at about three.
To top off the day, Donna had friends coming round, and again, I was included in the invitation. We had wine and Chinese food and plenty of friendly chat. I slept well overnight, but had to get up early to go back to the rental to meet the plumbers. And so, I now have two beds, ready to sleep in, a kitchen full of clean pots and pans and a working toilet. It was sad to leave Donna’s yesterday, though also lovely to be back at Mum and Dad’s. This will be my first UK Christmas in over ten years and I’m really looking forward to it.
On Saturday afternoon last week, Anna, Triar and I were due to board the ferry that would take us from Amsterdam to Newcastle. Having quit the AirBnB at ten, it felt like a long day as we waited in Amsterdam central station. Originally we had planned to return to Cafe Luxembourg to try more croquettes, but we were back to carrying our cross-Europe luggage in the rain and the idea of getting somewhere under cover, close to where we had to catch the bus that would take us to the ferry was quite appealing. We spent a good while sitting in Dunkin’ Donuts, stretching out cups of coffee before we moved to a gourmet burger place, which had the added advantage of having its own toilet. Given how many shops there are, as well as trains and buses, the general toilet provision in Amsterdam Centraal is entirely inadequate. Fortunately the burger was also delicious!
The view outside was also worth looking at, especially as an incoming rain shower spread a rainbow across the skyline.
At three thirty, we boarded the bus and by four thirty, we were in our dog friendly cabin on the boat. On the Stavanger – Hirtshals ferry, I think we might have been the only passengers with a dog, but now we definitely had company. The dog next door was crying and there was periodic barking along the corridor, probably in response to the racket of car alarms wailing away on the nearby car deck, but Triar was an old hand at boat travel by now and within a few minutes, he was curled up on a bunk bed, peacefully sleeping.
I had been concerned about coming through customs with a dog to declare when we arrived the following morning, but in the event, after a quick passport check, we were waved on through. A short bus ride into Newcastle took us to the station and before long, we were on the last leg of our journey. We had a rather chilly stop on Carlisle station, but I got to use the lovely sitting mat I received from my friends and colleagues at the abattoir for the first time. I can confirm that it works well!
It didn’t take Triar long to settle in at Mum and Dad’s. Though I had assured Mum that she didn’t need to buy him any food, he was soon chomping down on a packet of bacon treats and his usual dry rations have been partially replaced with some tasty looking Pedigree sachets with jelly. I guess any visit to Grandma and Grandad’s will always result in being spoiled, at least a bit.
Having been incredibly fortunate with the weather for both our ferry crossings, a storm hit on the Tuesday that blew down a tree on the railway line, delaying Anna’s homeward travel, and shut off the electricity for a few hours. I arrived back from dropping Anna off in Skipton to find the house in near darkness. Much as I love candlelight, I prefer to have other options, so I was very glad when the lights came back on, just after ten.
As for the start of my new life in Scotland, things are gradually falling into place. I have rented a house, which I haven’t seen yet, but which will give me a bit more time to find somewhere to buy. I’ve looked at cars, but because new taxation is being brought in that punishes those with older cars if they need to drive into cities, I am going to have to save up to get a newer car than a direct replacement for my beloved, ten year old BMW. In the meantime, Dad will let me use his car. We’ll see how that goes. My intention is to come down most weekends for now, but if Mum and Dad need it back, I may have to come up with a different solution.
I’ve got a UK phone now, though as yet, I haven’t used it at all. And I’ve ordered a refurbished laptop from a shop in Skipton. Writing this block or e-mails is possible on my iPad, but everything else has to be done on paper right now.
Anyway, after days of rain, yesterday morning I woke up to one of those beautiful golden mornings, when the sunrise is softened by low lying mist and the tops of the black winter trees stand graceful in the morning light.
Today the rain is hurling itself against the window again, but it’s cosy inside. Mum and I started making the Christmas pudding on Thursday. The mixture is in the fridge and should be maturing nicely. We’ll cook it tomorrow. I’ve also sent off for some candles for an advent crown and they’re winging towards me as I write. Next week, I’ll be back in Dumfries and I’ll see the house that will be my home for the next few months. I’m feeling optimistic about what’s coming next. See you next week.
A Vet’s Life 