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.
The storm came last Sunday, as forecast. It wailed around the thick walls of my snug little house and wuthered in the chimney. Despite having no doors on the rooms upstairs, my living room stayed warm and cosy. I grew up in houses where the central heating was in minimal use and one room was kept warm with a fire, so it was nothing new. With Triar snuggling on his sheepskin rug beside me, we weathered the storm in comfort.
Triar seems to have recovered well, for which I am enormously thankful. I was out with a colleague from the local authority on Wednesday. He also lives alone with his dog and we discussed how much a dog becomes part of your life when it’s just you and them. My morning walks down Blackbird Lane are shared with Triar and without him, I might never have walked there. More than anything else, those walks help me stay centred and because Triar enjoys exploring all the scents under the hedgerows, we take our time. As he sniffs around, I enjoy the birdsong.
Wednesday was a particularly beautiful morning, calm at sunrise, with mist rising over the fields and the birds were in full song. It’s a while since I used my Merlin App, but the Dawn chorus was so beautiful that I pulled the phone out of my pocket and switched it on. As well as the inevitable blackbirds, sparrows and robin (his sweet little song always lifts my heart) I picked up the song thrush that breaks snails on my patio, a long tailed tit and a goldcrest, among other things.
I took some photos too… of course I did!
Despite knowing I had a potentially difficult day ahead, there was a true moment of peace, there in Blackbird Lane.
I’m not sure whether it’s the time of year, or whether it’s the fact that the other vet that works with me has been seconded to another department, but the welfare referrals have gone crazy in the last two weeks. My lovely line manager has been away, so these were passed on by other managers from another region and I think there were seven of them altogether. Wednesday’s sounded most urgent and there’s at least one that (in my opinion) isn’t an indicator of poor welfare at all, but it is overwhelming.
When I say it might be the time of year, several of them came from slaughterhouses. As winter approaches, the farmers send off their old stock that will struggle through the cold weather, so inevitably those include animals with problems. Part of my job involves reminding farmers that welfare doesn’t end on the farm, but needs to continue until the end of the animal’s life. If it isn’t fit to travel, or perhaps it is, but shouldn’t go far, then they need to work out whether it should be taken to a local abattoir, or culled on the farm without going anywhere.
Too many farmers rely on someone coming to collect their cull cows and “organize all that,” when they should be making the arrangements themselves. Difficult to change the mindset, when that’s what they’ve always done but it’s a discussion I’ll be having a lot. Getting the best price for the meat or taking the most convenient path shouldn’t be the standard. Given the animal has given them the best part of its life, its welfare in death should be given decent consideration. If taking that cow with overgrown hooves to the local abattoir saves them from me and the local authority turning up to inspect all their animals and paperwork, that’s surely a good thing? Even if that’s their only incentive, I try to make it count.
Anyway, it’s almost breakfast time, so I shall wind this up. Triar and I came down to Yorkshire yesterday evening on the train. It’s not too expensive and as winter comes in, it might be more relaxing than driving, so we gave it a try. Luckily, Triar is an old hand on trains now. Here he is, under the table.
There’s too much going on and my brain has reached capacity status. On some levels I feel I’m still functioning, but I may not be a good judge of my own performance. My boss had to remind me yesterday to finish up logging my working hours for September. There was probably a mass e-mail earlier in the week reminding us, but I guess I missed it. My boss did tell me though, that I won’t get paid for any flexitime I have accrued. I’m glad she told me as it’s easy to build up flexitime in the season without really thinking about it. Now, on the odd days when I have the opportunity to go home early, I will grab them with both hands.
A few things are starting to wind down, but I am still dealing with three relatively serious cases, two of which I took on before I knew I was moving and one which falls to me as it’s something for which I have responsibility and I was the person on the spot when a serious incident occurred. It’s interesting that, even now, I’m still learning a lot. The incident was serious enough that there have been meetings with senior and specialised staff. It’s important that everything is done right, so it ends up being a team effort and not something I have to handle on my own.
It’s also interesting as it helps me reflect on my own performance. This and another lower key case have highlighted to me that, while I am relatively good at observations and recording visual information, I am much less good at drilling down when interviewing others. I think this is, in part, due to language, but it’s still something I need to work on. The good thing is that people can be interviewed later, so even though I have missed the chance to get first impressions and immediate reactions, it should still be possible to drill down and get most of the factual information.
Some old colleagues of Konstantin are coming from Latvia to look round the abattoir at the end of next week. Having discussed the visit with Konstantin, we will be highlighting health and safety. The H&S manager has agreed to come and give a short presentation, as will the managing director. Fortunately, Hilde had done some of the groundwork before Konstantin and I approached them, as we (well specifically I, as it was my responsibility) were quite late in approaching them. Now the biggest potential fly-in-the-ointment is that it has already started snowing, so the chance that Konstantin or I will have to go to the reindeer abattoir next week are significantly higher. The reindeer are mostly walked down from the pastures, which is much easier to achieve using snowmobiles. Usually Konstantin goes, but as his absence might leave significant translation difficulties with the Latvian visitors, it will probably have to be me.
Not that I mind. I looked up reindeer in Scotland, and see that there are some in the Cairngorms, which is quite a trip, but probably one I will make sometime. I might even drag my mum and dad along. Sadly, due to Covid, they never made it over here to the north of Norway. Perhaps I can still give them a taste of it without having to travel quite so far. I drove round the road where the reindeer abattoir is yesterday, and as you can see from the photo below, there had been quite a significant snow fall there.
There’s not quite so much snow at home, though it is snowing at the moment. I took a couple of photos earlier in the week, when the snow line was starting to make its way down the mountainsides. There are still cattle outside across the road. Even the domesticated animals here have to be incredibly hardy!
That one was taken from the front of the house, and this was out the back.
And this is how it looks this morning!
John has moved various items of furniture out, so now we have two rooms which are empty, or will be very soon. We are trying to keep the main living room looking as normal as possible until the last minute. It’s good for my mental health to be able to sit somewhere that still looks homely and welcoming. I’m tempted, with all the snow, to light the stove, but I cleaned it out really thoroughly, earlier in the year and I am quite reluctant to use it again. If it gets really cold towards the end of the month, I may have to, but it probably won’t get so cold before the end of October. I hope the people buying the house have planned where to get their wood. It can be difficult buying it in later in the winter, but it’s expensive and such a labour intensive job putting it away, that I haven’t bought them a load. There is some in the wood store, but nowhere enough for the whole winter.
I went home yesterday via my friend Shirley’s house. I met Shirley on the fast boat to Tromsø in October last year, when I heard her and a friend speaking English behind me in the queue. This was a rare enough event for me to accost them, and now Shirley and I are good friends. When I popped in yesterday, her friend that I met on the boat was over on this year’s annual visit. We ate toasted cheese and ham sandwiches and played a game and I have arranged to go over on Sunday, when we will go out for lunch together. Shirley doesn’t really drive, so it feels good to be able to do something nice for her. She has already offered me a bed for when the removal company have taken the last of the furniture, and depending on what John is doing, I may well take her up on it, at least of a couple of days. She is generous to a fault, so I hope this is something I can do to give back a little bit.
Anyway, I had better go now, but I will leave you with another snow picture. The combination of autumn colours and fresh white snow is arresting. Though I was rather dreading it, given how oppressive I found it towards the end of last winter, now it’s here, I still find it irresistibly beautiful. See you next week!
Time is getting short and things are starting to move. Quite literally in John’s case. While all this has been going on, John has been searching for a job. He has a girlfriend in Tromsø now, so he looked for, and found, a job there. He has now handed in his notice and will leave at the same time as me. Everything happened very fast, and almost as soon as he was offered a job, he and Yoana found a flat. This weekend, he’s hoping to move some of the furniture out. We had agreed, a while back, to try to keep the house in reasonable order until as late before the move as possible, because living in chaos is never fun, but moving Johns’ things out early, where possible, makes a lot of sense. The removal company which will take my goods to the UK will be packing my stuff, so it would be ideal if there as only my stuff left, to avoid any mistakes.
I feel I’m mostly there with organising my trip. I still have to check about transport to and from the ferries in various places, and organise tickets from Newcastle to Settle, but that shouldn’t take much doing. Other than that, I have to sell my car and get the house cleared before it sells on 1st November. John has agreed to handle the car sale, up to a point. I think that he is likely to get a better price for it, though we are short of time, so might have to start to drop it quite quickly. It’s a juggling act though as I will need to hire a car if it sells while I still need it.
My planned tasks this weekend include taking the car to a friend of John’s to see if he can put a bit of a shine on it and to sort through my boxes of Christmas decorations. Over the years, we’ve accumulated a lot and up until now, I haven’t really tackled cutting it down, but with an international move coming up, I really need to weed out what’s important and what isn’t. I feel like I should probably be doing more. I know there will come a time when we are going to have to get everything out of the house, and some of it will need disposing of. The removal men are coming on a Thursday though, so the rubbish dump will be open until six. If necessary, we should be able to take anything left over there before it closes.
Of course I am trying to juggle all this with doing my job as well. This week, there weren’t quite as many animals coming into the abattoir as we would normally expect during the season and so I managed to fit in an inspection out on a farm. I had offered to do it months ago and was starting to worry that I wasn’t going to get a chance, but on Thursday, I took Ingrid out and we did the inspection together. I must say, it’s lovely to have a native Norwegian along with me. It makes for much easier communication and as she wrote the “receipt” with our observations at the end of the visit, it was reassuring to know the whole thing was written in competent Norwegian.
As you can see from the photographs, it’s wonderfully autumnal here right now, but as I looked at the weather forecast a couple of days ago, I saw we were in for a change. There is snow forecast this week, on Tuesday, then towards next weekend. That means that, in addition to starting John’s house move and the other things, we are also going to have to put the winter tyres on the cars this weekend. Still, this time last year, I had the feeling we were battening down the hatches for the long winter ahead. This year’s winter is going to be very different for me!
Anyway, I think that’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed the autumn photographs and that I will see you next week! Thanks for reading.
There has been a chilly reminder that winter is coming in the past couple of days. When I drove up through Sweden, I noticed they already had their snow poles up and I thought it was early, given it was the start of September. But when I got back here, I noticed there were poles lining the roads here as well. And the past couple of days, there has been fresh snow on the mountain peaks.
It wasn’t this picture I sent to my friend, Donna, in Dumfries, but a different one of the same mountain. Her reaction “Looks gorgeous!” would have been mine too, a couple of years ago. Right now I have mixed feelings about it. The chief one is probably, “it’s too soon!” along with some speculation over whether we’ll have to start clearing the driveway before the removal van has to manouevre its way in here!
I am looking forward to being back in a place where my chief reaction, when I look out of the window and see snow flakes in the breeze, is to hope it will lay! The one winter I spent in Castle Douglas (half an hour from Dumfries), thirty years ago, saw temperatures plummet to minus ten and there was such a huge snowfall that a state of emergency was declared! I was so excited, being snowed in for the first time in my life!
Donna also pointed out a Facebook post to me. Dumfries has a celebration each year, celebrating the connections between Dumfries and Norway that were established during the second world war when Dumfries hosted the exiled Norwegian army. I had been speaking to John, only the day before, about how sad I felt that I was probably going to lose some of my fluency and that there probably weren’t enough Norwegians in Dumfries to have any kind of meetings or clubs with Norwegian speakers, but Donna has already offered to introduce me to someone Norwegian. I feel amazingly emotional over the offer. Leaving Norway feels a little bit like losing a part of myself, and that’s something I hadn’t really expected.
It’s very much autumn here now. I went to visit my British friend, Shirley last weekend and took some photos along the way. The sullen sky, ruffled lake and the sunny trees in the foreground made for a breathtaking combination.
Further on, the fjord looked equally dramatic.
Visiting Shirley is like clinging onto my British self, I guess. We chat about anything and everything, but we have lots of shared experiences about how alien it can feel when you have left your home country. Shirley came here so long ago and is so immersed in the life she has built, that she sometimes slips into Norwegian when we’re chatting and she writes down stories about her life in Norwegian as well. She read some of my Hope Meadows books and said it was a long time since she’d read that kind of descriptive language about the British countryside. She had enjoyed it, she said.
I can’t remember if I have talked about Shirley before, but she came to Norway for a year, as a young, unmarried nurse, met and married a Norwegian and had a family, who have long flown the nest. I had often thought, especially when the children were younger, that it would have been much easier, had I been married to a Norwegian. It’s difficult to pick up on the subtleties of social norms and customs, as an incomer. But she is now so connected that leaving is not an option. If it was, would she take it? I don’t know, but she is unable to visit the UK at the moment because of responsibilities here. It often crosses my mind now, that life is so much longer than I envisaged as a young woman and decisions, lightly taken in optimism for the life ahead, can throw very long shadows, much further down the line.
This weekend’s tasks include emptying Andrew’s bedroom, then sorting through my clothes and throwing away those I don’t use. That’s a job that’s long overdue, but my chest of drawers is falling apart. I’m not taking it to the UK, so I have to take it to the rubbish dump. The dump is only open late on Thursday evenings, so I will try to fill my car before then. Six more weeks to go before the house has to be empty. I have to use that time efficiently, given work is ramping up. That said, with the house sold, all other tasks can now take precedence, and that’s great.
I will finish with a couple of autumn photos, also taken last weekend. The autumn colours here are spectacular. Long may they last!
It still feels like a miracle. Just over a year ago, I was sitting in a hotel room, bidding on a house with trembling fingers. The house had been on the market for six months. I couldn’t really understand why it wasn’t selling. There were some aesthetic problems. The previous owner had painted one of the bedrooms black and lilac and covered one wall with mirror tiles and there were more screw holes in many of the walls than seemed ideal, but it seemed a nice house and it was positioned well, half way between Finnsnes, with its fast boat connections to Tromsø and Bardufoss, which boasts an airport.
Before – Black and lilacAfter: Blue and grey
A couple of suggestions had been made by colleagues as to why it might not be selling. It is directly beside the main road was one. Though small, it had three bedrooms, but a fast road outside the door might mean children were not safe in the garden. The other observation was that the previous owner hadn’t done much to the house (mirror tiles aside). That comment was made with an attitude that improvement (or as a minimum, upkeep) of a house ought to be a priority for all, and of course, with the hard, hard winters, that is a lot more important here than in other, gentler parts of the world.
I already had plans to build a fence. John had learned how, so I would only have to pay for the materials. The fence was mainly for Triar, but in future, if I sold the house, it might also keep children safe. In my head there were two other immediate plans. Firstly, I wanted a bigger heat exchanger. The old one didn’t sound like it was functioning properly. Secondly, there was an air vent on the roof that was leaking. Those were the most pressing problems, I thought. The two worst bedrooms would also be decorated before we moved the furniture in, because that was easier than shuffling everything about. As well as the black and lilac room, there was one that was painted an aggressive pink colour.
Beyond that, if I was going to sell, it would be years into the future, I thought. There would be years to plant trees to damp the sound of passing cars and tidy up more generally.
But as regular readers will know, last winter was harder in many ways, than I ever could have predicted, and the decision was made to move back to Scotland. So then I was faced with having to sell the house a long time before I’d ever thought I would, and with not a lot of time to do it. I considered holding onto it and renting it out, but then, as I discovered last winter, if your roof falls in because you didn’t clear the snow, you might find your insurance doesn’t cover it. And if it was hard to sell while I was still living in it, how difficult might it be if it had been rented out for a while and not looked after?
So all that has been in my head over the past couple of months and I found myself driven to get it looking as good as I possibly could. Since contacting the estate agent, I have painted the ceiling in the hallway, painted the garage, painted all the white railings on the front and side of the house and (with Trude’s help) cleaned and stained the wooden deck outside the front door and the veranda. Add on a deep clean inside the house and a major declutter. I haven’t pushed myself that hard in many years, and as the day of the visning came, I could only hope it was enough.
In Norway, houses are normally sold by auction, often on the day after the visning. I didn’t ask until the last minute, but I was pleased to hear there were six interested parties who came to look at the house on the day. Still, it wasn’t a certainty anyone would bid.
I misunderstood the process somewhat. I thought that nobody could bid until midday the next day, so I was disconcerted when the estate agent called me at around nine in the evening on visning day, to say that the first bid was in. It was way too low and the date for taking over the house was the first of October. The agent seemed to think it was a good thing, but it was too late to discuss details. What she probably didn’t know, was that before I bought the house, there had only been one previous bid made, months earlier, and for the same amount I was being offered now. I had the idea in my head that the same thing might happen. First of October looked impossible as well. I had been in touch with three removal companies, all of whom had agreed to mid-to late October.
After a restless night, I slapped out e-mails to the removal companies, asking if there was any chance they could manage the earlier date. When I got to work though, Trude reassured me that a super-low starting bid was normal. I also came to understand was that the midday deadline was not for bidders, but for the sale. I could not agree to any bid before twelve. This is in line with a Norwegian law intended to make sure all who attend a visning have enough thinking time to consider whether they want to bid.
All was quiet until ten thirty the next morning. The bid that came in then was only a little higher, but what it did mean was that there was more than one party interested in buying. Almost immediately there was another bid and then another. Bid number four was a major turning point. It was for 1,8 million kroner – the same price I had paid a year earlier, and the price I had decided was the level at which I would definitely sell. The date on that one was first December, but all that would mean was that I wouldn’t be there personally for the handover: not a problem.
By now the agent was ringing me regularly. I told her first October was so difficult it might make a difference to which buyer I chose. When the phone pinged again, the date was my chosen date of first November. The estate agent was ringing the bidders as well as me, pushing them upwards and the bids were still coming in. 1,9 million… 2 million… And then a jump I hadn’t expected, right up to 2,1 million.
By this time several of my colleagues were sitting around the table, keeping me company. They’ve probably never seen me so grinning so broadly. Not only had I made back the money I had spent on the house during the past year, but I had probably covered the costs of buying and selling as well. The estate agent rang again to say she thought it would be the final bid, but really it was already way beyond anything I dared to hope for. It was also the first November bidder, so perfect date as well as price.
I have come down a bit since. There’s still a lot to do. I have to get rid of a lot of stuff. John’s things have to be separated from mine. The removal company is now arranged and they will do the packing, but that means we have to be very clear about what is to go and what isn’t. There’s lots of paperwork to be completed so that the importation of my furniture goes without a hitch and doesn’t cost me a fortune in import taxes. I have to sell the car and then get to the airport without it. I am working in the abattoir right up to the day before the keys are handed over, so it’s a logistical jigsaw, more complicated than any I’ve handled before. But it all looks so much more doable now. Selling the house was always going to be the biggest challenge.
Anyway, I had better go now. I have to fill in some UK government forms so that I don’t have to pay tax on my goods as they go into the UK. I also contacted a car dealership last night to see whether they would buy my car. I thought they’d make me an offer, but they’re asking how much I want, so now I have to go and work out how much it’s worth. Steps and steps and steps, but I know I will get there eventually.
And I’ll leave you with a couple more bad moose pictures. I love seeing them, just outside the garden, but they do like to hide behind the trees. Thanks for reading and I hope to see you next week!
A lot has happened this week. I’m starting to feel that life couldn’t be much more up and down if I was strapped into a roller coaster beside a demented grizzly bear.
Last weekend was mostly good:
John and I drove down to Narvik on Sunday to buy a snøfres or snow blower. I can see, when I look at the estate agent pictures of my house from last winter, that it obviously gets a lot of snow, so working out how to clear it is important. I like snow, which is just as well, and at least I now have a garage – no more getting up at 4a.m to clear one car, then a second ten minutes later. But I will still have to clear the driveway, which is longer than the old one. John found the snow blower on Finn – a Norwegian website that has everything from second hand stuffed otters to holiday booking and jobs.
The bloke selling it laughed at us when we arrived with my car and no trailer. I seem to have been beset by arsehole men of late (not sure why – I wouldn’t have said it was typical here) but happily John had brought his tool kit. He very quickly removed the wheels and the funnel that directs the snow, and we soon had it in the boot to drive home. Here’s John checking it out when we got back.
Sturdy, orange snow blower
In addition to the snow blower, I have also invested in a Roborock Vacuum cleaner. This must surely be the best invention ever for those of us who don’t like housework. In order for it to work, the floor must be clear, so that was a good start and gave us the final push to put away the last few things that were still lying around after moving. The first time I set it going, I discovered that you can watch its progress on the Roborock app. This was oddly fascinating and I sat and watched the lines building up as it cleaned the floor in sections. I actually watched this for about 40 minutes as it wove in and out of the hall and kitchen! A couple of days later, I showed John and he was equally mesmerised. And all that comes with the added benefit that the floor is unprecedentedly clean.
The highlight of the weekend was a visit to Trude’s to see the puppies. We had a puppy cuddling session and then coffee and I even came home with some plants for the house.
Puppys at the milk bar
Monday wasn’t a bad day until the evening. I was checking my online bank when I noticed there was very little left in my current account. This does sometimes happen, but I wasn’t expecting it, right at the start of the month. When I checked the outgoings I realised, to my horror, that an automatic rent payment had been paid out to my ex-landlord. I went and checked, with shaking hands, and realised that the monthly payment, which I had stopped, had restarted.
The bank helpline was still open, so I called them. They told me it was my responsibility, that the stop button was only for a month, and that it was now on me to try to get the money back. I was reeling. It was a lot of money as I was paying 14,500kr per month rent (well over a thousand pound or US dollars).
John was frantically searching online – a difficult task as all the information was in Norwegian – and he told me I had to contact the person I had sent the money to, to establish that it had been sent in error and that I wanted it back. My first instinct was to message the wife of Mr Abusive, so I did so, but then thought afterwards that I should tell him as well, given it was his bank account. I’m glad I contacted her as well as him as, though neither of them responded, I can see from her messenger (and thus can prove) that she read it, which might turn out to be quite important.
My bank have not been particularly helpful. I will be making a complaint, as if I click on a button that says “Stop transfer” and a button pops up that says “Start transfer” I assume that the process is stopped until I start it again. When I looked again, I can see there was also an option to delete. It was a while ago, so I’m not sure why I didn’t take that option, but with a word like “transfer” which can refer to an individual transaction, or the monthly transfer of funds, that the bank should have made it absolutely clear that the stop was only temporary and would restart the next month.
Of course, Mr Abusive has not sent the money back. I presume that he thinks he will keep it as a kind of “deposit” against the 40,000kr he thinks I will have to pay him. Taking a deposit in your own bank account is illegal in Norway though, so I hope that the rent disputes tribunal will take a very dim view.
In the meantime, I have contacted his bank – apparently they are obliged to take “reasonable steps” towards getting my money back. My own bank told me I should contact the police, if he doesn’t pay it back. I think they might be referring to a particular branch of the Norwegian police force, who work in debt collection, rather than him being arrested, but that is all still to come.
In the first instance, I have been able to obtain legal assistance from Jusshjelpa i Nord Norge, a group run by the university in Tromsø, where law students assist people with legal issues. I have also informed the rent disputes tribunal and they have extended my response deadline so that I can find out whether he pays me back or not. If he doesn’t, I will be adding it to that case, which will be legally binding, if they decide in my favour. Given Mr Abusive’s ongoing behaviour, I think it’s becoming increasingly clear who isn’t being honest and reasonable here. Legally, he should send the money back and wait for the tribunal result, but it’s looking unlikely that he will do so.
Anyway, having picked myself up from that debacle, I was feeling tired, but pretty happy towards the end of the week. The house and my life in general are still giving me a good feeling of happiness and stability. So I was looking forward to the weekend yesterday, when I was on the sheep line at work. We use sterilisers for our knives, which are filled with water that is usually simmering. My knife fell into the water. I was wearing a latex glove with a cotton glove underneath, so I put my hand in to retrieve the knife, as I had often done before. Unfortunately, this time there was a hole in the glove. It took a moment for the pain to hit, but I had to rush off the line, ripping the gloves off and leaving Vaidotas alone.
It was one of those horrible moments. I was wearing loads of protective clothing and it was becoming increasingly clear that I couldn’t continue without running my finger under cold water, so I had to throw off all the gear as quickly as possible and rush to the Mattilsynet room, where fortunately Ernestas was sitting at the table. I asked him to go in for me, and went to run my finger under the tap. Having looked at the NHS website last night, I can see that the first aid advice for burns has changed from ten minutes under cool water to twenty, but having stopped after ten minutes, I was still in so much pain that I had to ask Trude to take me to the doctors’. Another change of clothes was required. I guess, in an out and out emergency, they’d take you in your white “clean area” clothes, but a scalded finger didn’t really qualify. I was in enough pain that I had been sitting with my finger under another tap at the surgery for fifteen minutes, before I noticed I hadn’t actually done my trousers up.
So now I have a bandaged middle finger on my right hand. Second degree burns, apparently. There’s a blister encompassing a good section of my finger tip and another at the top of the nail. The pain seems to be under control for now, but typing is definitely not as easy as it usually is. Fortunately, I will be inspecting live animals on Monday, which will only require me to wield a pen, rather than a knife, so that should hopefully be okay.
Sunset taken on a walk with Triar near the house
And now I need to go shopping, partly for food, and hopefully also to buy an outfit for Anna’s graduation, assuming I feel up to it. She and I are also planning a trip to Stonehenge when I go over. We share a love of the ancient, so that definitely qualifies.
And I’ll leave you with a photo of a snow capped mountain. It’s rather distant and therefore difficult to photograph, but beautiful nonetheless. Have a good week all!
I am getting a lot of pleasure from small things at the moment. For example, I enjoy getting up in the morning. Triar wakes, greets me and stretches and I take him outside and see how the weather is looking as he rushes around the garden. This morning it’s frosty and the sky is clear. I love the freshness of the air as I breath it in, and the glow of the sunrise along the horizon. Then I come back inside, give Triar some breakfast and make myself a cup of coffee. I go back and drink it in bed with some gifflar: small cinnamon flavoured buns. My new bed is a great addition, with its tilting mattress so I can sit up effortlessly and in comfort.
The house is bringing me joy as well. We’ve bought various floor and table lamps and we’re using Philips Hue bulbs which turn different colours, so the living room feels very warm. Better still, last week we lit the wood stove for the first time. I feel that even when we’re in the darkest winter months, we’re going to be wonderfully cosy.
Wood stove with circular wood holder
The whole family have been enjoying wildlife spotting from the kitchen window. At the beginning of the week, we watched a weasel playing in a pile of planks in the back garden and yesterday there was a family of moose in the woodland. I couldn’t get a good picture. I will need to buy a camera with a good zoom lens if I want to do that better. In the meantime, this was the best I could manage.
Moose in the woods behind the house
I have more or less finished my evidence report for the Rent Disputes Tribunal. It was so long that I asked Trude to read the first half and Marit to check the second. I still have Marit’s corrections to make (though there aren’t too many) and John’s witness statement to add. After that, I’ll need to work out how to send it off. Writing it has eased my mind at least. Until I had it down, I kept having flashes of thought where I remembered things I wanted to add, or thought about how I wanted to express things. Now that’s all gone and I’m sleeping better again and back to enjoying life.
Trude’s dog has had puppies and it’s been wonderful to hear about them over the past couple of weeks. They’re just starting to walk – she showed me a video – and are already showing markedly different personality traits. She has invited me round to see them this weekend, so I’m really looking forward to that.
Tomorrow, John and I will drive to Narvik and (hopefully) buy a snow clearing machine. My colleague Ronny, who lives across the road, has warned us that there is a lot of snow here in the valley we’ve moved to, so when it’s four in the morning and there’s a snowstorm, I will need something better than a shovel. Once all the leaves are gone from the trees, I’m going to have to send John up a ladder to clear out the gutters as well. That sounds like I’m pushing him into it, but when I discussed it with him, he said I could hold the ladder for him, but there’s no way he’s letting me go up it. It’s fair enough (and I’m very grateful) as my balance is terrible.
Anyway, I’m back to enjoying life again and there’s still lots to be done as we prepare for our first winter in our new home. The equinox has passed and we’re heading into the darkness. And I, for one, am looking forward to it.
Autumn is progressing fast, and earlier this week, I saw some early snow dusting the top of the mountains. It was only on the highest peaks, so the (now disappeared again) snow line was probably about a thousand metres above sea level, but it will return and gradually descend. I think there are many areas in the UK where there is no snow from one year to the next. It suddenly struck me as odd to live somewhere where it was inevitable that there will be many months of snow on the ground. It never really crossed my mind, growing up, that I would ever live anywhere other than the UK. I never had a burning desire to do so, yet here I am.
John bought a new car this week. He’s been driving an old banger since he passed his test, but the clutch has been slipping towards oblivion ever since he got it. He’s bought a five year old Ford Mondeo, which will hopefully be more reliable. They don’t use salt on the roads here, so there’s less of a problem with rust. The stunning autumn colours and the new car prompted me to suggest a road trip this weekend. Campsites in Norway often have cabins to rent at very reasonable prices, so I had booked one in Alta, but John called me at work yesterday to say he thought he was coming down with a cold, so we cancelled. Alta is a six hour drive, so doing it after work on a Friday night would ideally only be done with both of us fit and well. We’ll probably go somewhere next weekend instead – perhaps somewhere in Sweden – though as Triar doesn’t have a doggy passport, he’ll probably have to sit that one out.
Projects with the house are ongoing. I’m still waiting for quotations for work to be done by the builder. In the meantime, we are still putting stuff away after the move and trying to get some smaller tasks done. For example, the living room is quite large and only has one overhead light and two small wall lamps. If it was only for use in the evenings, we could probably get away with a standard lamp or a couple of table lamps, but as there are months in the winter when it’s dark almost all day, it’s necessary to provide enough light to mimic daylight, otherwise it is all too easy to go into hibernation mode. We’ve invested in some smart bulbs from Philips. Some provide different shades of white (bright and warm) while others also can be coloured. We finally got internet earlier this week, so we will be able to get Alexa up and running so she can turn the lights on for us. We’ve also found a stand to put firewood into, so hopefully we will be able to get the living room into better shape this week.
I’ve been at the abattoir most of this week. We are already short staffed, but when the call came in from the reindeer abattoir that they wanted to open for a day or two, we realised that we were going have to manage with one person less. Konstantin said he was happy to go, so though it was somewhat chaotic on Thursday and Friday, we managed to get through it. The reindeer abattoir is small and run by a Sami family. I’ve written about it before, but it’s difficult to plan around as the reindeer are often herded there on foot, rather than being transported in lorries.
Something of a hammer blow fell on Thursday afternoon. We were sent an e-mail to say that there was a suspected case of CWD in a reindeer that was slaughtered in Bjørgefjell in Helgeland. CWD (chronic wasting disease) is a prion disease, somewhat similar to Scrapie in sheep and BSE in cattle. There are two possible forms, one of which crops up occasionally in individuals. The other form is infectious and could potentially lead to huge problems and a great deal of suffering, if allowed to spread.
So for now, there are preparatory actions being set in motion. It’s likely that all the meat produce from that herd will have to be traced, but that is minor in comparison to working out all the reindeer that might potentially have been in contact with the affected one. Reindeer are not fenced in, but herded loose on pastures that are traditionally used by various Sami families. In wild reindeer, the infection can be passed on through infected saliva, and prions are very difficult to remove from the environment.
Norway is incredibly strict about disease outbreaks in animals, the consideration being that if a disease becomes endemic, the suffering over time will be worse than that caused by a cull. Back in 2016, infectious CWD was found for the first time in Europe in wild reindeer in Norway. The entire herd of over 2000 reindeer was culled in an attempt to stop it spreading. The devastation that will occur if there is an outbreak in domesticated reindeer will be cataclysmic. Relations between the Sami and the powers that be in Norway are already strained. And so, we wait for answers. Hopefully the wait will not be too long.
Time seems to be rushing by again. Last year, when everything was new, it seemed to move a little more slowly, but I feel I am beginning to feel the rhythm of the place and the seasons, if not yet well, at least with a degree of awareness. We are losing an hour of light each week now. At the end of next month, the Polar Night will be with us again. In the meantime, the progression through autumn continues to be so beautiful that I find myself sighing out loud at just how wonderful it is.
My work is seasonal, as all who work (or have worked) with large animals will understand. This years lambs are being brought in to the abattoir and then their meat is beginning to appear in the shops. That sounds very blunt, I guess, but on some level it feels right that I witness the whole cycle. I have seen a few people on social media express the opinion that all who work in abattoirs (and indeed farming) must be sadistic or macabre, but that isn’t my experience at all. Most of the people I encounter are both down to earth and resilient.
As well as the slaughter season (as it’s called here) I am waiting for the sheep and cattle to be brought in from their summer pastures. Part of our job is to check all aspects of the chain that goes ” frå jord og fjord til bord” (from the land and fjords to the table) and one component of that is traceability. All farm animals must be tagged (or tattoo’d for pigs) shortly after birth, and the tags maintained until they die. All the births and deaths and numbers have to be recorded in the “husdyrregisteret” or livestock register. The vets at Mattilsynet have to go out and check that the farmers are carrying this through, so we will go out and do checks on a number of cattle and sheep farms in the autumn and winter.
As well as looking to see whether all the animals have ear tags, we check the farmers are keeping medical records for all the animals. Medication (and specifically antibiotic/antibacterial use) are much more tightly controlled here than in the UK. We also check that they are entering the details of their herd or flock into the livestock register. Failure to do any of these things results initially in warnings, then fines and (where there is a severe breach of the law) in restrictions on the movement of animals on and off the farm until the traceability requirements are fulfilled. Though we ideally check every farm on our patch over the course of a few years, we also try to integrate these visits with our welfare program. So if we receive a concern message from the general public, or for example one from the electricity suppliers (who give us advance notice if any farmer is at risk of being cut off) and we feel the situation does not sound serious enough to require immediate attendance, then we will try to call them to assess the situation, then add that farm to our list of places where we will carry out “routine checks”.
Life at Mattilsynet can be unpredictable at times, perhaps predictably so! During the season, there are seven members of staff working in the abattoir on any given day. I’m not due there every day, but as well as having the crew of seven, there is always someone listed as back-up. It was me on Monday this week, and so I was not entirely surprised when a colleague called me on Sunday night to explain that one of their children was sick, and therefore they needed me to go in. Because there are so many staff, engaged in different tasks, and we have to cover the whole day (which can often be longer than the standard seven and three quarter hour working day) the start times are staggered. The first vet there, who has to carry out the live animal checks, comes in at 05:45 in the morning. The next wave comes at 06:45, another at 07.45 and the last at 08:15.
I was due to be in with the second wave, starting at 06:45. It takes me about half an hour to get up, and then close to an hour to drive my car to work, grab the keys to one of the work cars from the office (if I haven’t done it the night before) then finish my journey to the abattoir. Rather than starting work at 08:00 locally, I was now going to have to head out at 05:45 and so I had to head to bed almost immediately after receiving the call. I am always worried that I will forget to set the alarm clock on my phone, which of course has a whole range of times to choose from, and so I quickly set it while I remembered, then went to sleep.
It’s always lovely and cool, first thing in the morning, and I enjoy driving in general, and so as I drove in, I was quite happy. As I said earlier, it’s getting dark very quickly, and I found myself musing on the way on just how much darker it was this week. Only a week earlier, on the same shift, I had seen the moose and the detail of its white breath on the air, and I thought that if the same moose was standing there this week, I would barely be able to see it. I even thought that this would be something to tell you in my blog.
It was only when I arrived at the abattoir, that my mind came up against something I thought was odd. When arriving at 06:45, the car park is perhaps half full. But as I drew in on Monday, it was all but empty. It took only a moment to dawn on me that, in my hurry to get to bed the night before, I had selected the 04:15 alarm, rather than 05:15. In fact, I had even arrived before Thomas, who was working that day in Vet 1 position, doing the live animal checks. Thomas was quite surprised when he did arrive, but at least I had already had time to make coffee, which was gratefully received.
Anyway, given that I have raved at the top about how beautiful it is here at the moment, I’d better share some photographs. Seeing the sun out in a perfectly blue sky on Wednesday morning, I decided to use some of my precious flexitime and take Triar out for a walk. We headed up to the ski-slope area and took a walk there. The view was truly dazzling.
Triar seemed to be enjoying himself, rushing through the undergrowth and up and down the rocky outcrops, walking (as ever) four or five times further than me.
As you can see, higher on the mountainside, the trees are already bare, but looking down into the valley, there is still a riot of autumn colour in amongst the huddle of houses.
I awoke to another beautiful day on Thursday, and felt suddenly that I might as well use some more of those hours to take time off while it was still wonderfully light outside. Though I didn’t go on any significant walks, I decided I should make the house look a little better. Triar goes on the sofas in the house, and we do quite often eat while sitting on them, and therefore I try to keep them lined with fleecy blankets. The old ones were rather grubby and still look grey now after washing, so I bought some new ones. I had also accumulated some autumn candles, but was in danger of not getting round to deploying them. So now, as I go into winter, the inside of the house is looking as well as I can make it look. As the evenings are drawing in, and I will shortly be spending a lot of time indoors, it’s important that I have a space that lifts me up when I am there.
Setting out for work on Friday morning, I noted it was five degrees Celsius as I drove through Finnsnes. We live close to the sea, and even this far north, the Gulf Stream stops the temperature from going down as far as it does inland. So as I drove east, I was unsurprised to see the temperature dropping, quickly to three degrees and then further, down below zero and I could see there was frost on the undergrowth on the edges of the forest.
The sun was also rising slowly behind the mountains, giving them the most incredible molten gold edges and so I stopped to try and capture it. Unfortunately, by the time I found somewhere I could pull off the road, where there wasn’t forest in the way, the gold had mellowed into a normal sunrise, but it was still beautiful.
I took a couple of photos of the frost as well, not because it was anything out of the ordinary, but simply because it was the first of the year for me and a reminder that winter will very soon be here.
A Vet’s Life 