Tag Archives: Fish and chips

All in a Day’s Work

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

APHA have finally offered me my job back. I now have a very formal e-mail, asking me to report to APHA on 6th January 2027 and ask for… well my old line manager. I know, it’s the civil service and everything is by the book, but given I asked to go back only two months after I’d left, the whole thing is (more than) faintly ridiculous.

In the meantime, I have been asked to stay on at PDSA Middlesbrough until the end of December, which is pleasing me hugely. It’s always nice to be appreciated and, given I’ve only recently returned to small animal work after a ten year hiatus, it feels especially good. When I’m consulting, I still sometimes quail slightly when I look at the next appointment and it sounds complicated, but now I click on it anyway and get on with it. I still run my treatment plan past another of the vets now and then, but go to them with that plan formed and not for help in forming it. I was on ops on Wednesday and, having operated on one bitch with a pyometra, I volunteered to do a second one that came in the afternoon. I’ve come a long way from the fearful early days after the post-op bleeding spay in Glasgow.

My current accommodation is as quirky, in its way, as the caravan, however it does benefit from a flushing toilet and shower, that don’t involve going outside and into another building. When I booked it, I assumed it was an apartment attached to a bar, but it’s actually a garage conversion on the side of a house in an unassuming housing estate. There’s no sitting area, but there’s effectively a box bed with a TV at one end. Behind a thick curtain, there’s a fridge freezer and a microwave, so cooking is limited, but the shower is excellent, with enough water pressure to comfortably use the large, rainforest shower head – a rare enough treat in the UK!

Last night and today, we’re on the edge of a yellow met office storm warning, so yesterday morning, Triar and I went to Redcar to walk along the beach. This time, I remembered the essential ball.

To my mind, the most striking thing about Redcar (other than that rather wonderful view behind Triar) was that, even at this time of year, the car parks still charged money, from the one extreme end of the promenade to the other. I tried to pay, but the machine wouldn’t take card payments. It demanded coins, and I didn’t have any on me. Fortunately, I managed to find a small car park on Fisherman’s Square that was free on Saturday and Sunday, unlike all the surrounding streets, where only Sunday was free.

The small town of Staithes had been recommended to me to visit, so we drove down the coat from Redcar. There, there was only a paying car park at the top of a hill, with cars for access being the only vehicles allowed down into the centre. Had I had more energy, I would have done it, but I was already tired from the beach walk and the blustery weather was already starting to close in, so I bought some fish and chips at the Excelsior Fisheries (half an hour free parking allowed outside) and then drove to a nearby layby to eat it. I was surprised to be offered “scraps” (extra bits of deep fried batter) with my chips. Usually, in Scotland, you have to ask. Anyway, it was good, hearty fish and chips, cooked in beef dripping and very tasty indeed.

The coastal road leading south towards Staithes

I will probably return to Staithes and walk down to the harbour another day. We also passed through a small town called Loftus, that looked interesting. I’m glad I’m going to be coming back here, so I can spend more time exploring. Redcar is only fifteen minutes drive, so assuming I can find somewhere to park, it would be lovely to take Triar there for a short run, sometimes, after work. He’s being very good and deserves more interesting walking than I’ve currently been giving him.

By this time next weekend, I hope to be waking up in Tromsø. I’m off to visit Shirley for a couple of weeks and I’m very much looking forward to being back in Arctic Norway. Current plans include lots of baking and making apple crumble. Anything else will be weather dependent, but one thing I do know is that there won’t be many hours of daylight left. Winter is coming!

And for now, I’m hoping to enjoy a quiet day in my cosy apartment while the storm rages outside. I bought plenty of provisions yesterday, though we seem to be quite sheltered here, so I should be able to take Triar outside shortly. I’ll leave you with a couple of photos of the quiet graveyard, where I take Triar (respectfully on the paths) for a walk sometimes during my lunch break. Hopefully the storm won’t take down all the autumn leaves, because I’ve been enjoying the beautiful colours.

Thanks for reading and have a good week.

New (Closed) Abbey

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

Triar and I went over to New Abbey last Saturday. It’s a sweet village, not too far from Dumfries, and it hosts two Historic Scotland premises. Sweetheart Abbey has been swathed in scaffolding and fences for a while, but I have been intending to visit the corn mill for a while. I parked the car and walked in through the gate. The door was locked. Having checked the board outside with the opening times (10 till 4) and my watch (just after 10) I tried the door again, in case it was just stiff. No joy!

I was slightly bemused that they hadn’t blue tacked a notice on the window or on the notice board that said the opening times, but she explained they were having refurbishment done. It was on the website, she assured me. Seemingly taking pity on me (I had been polite, as usual, but persistent enough to knock when it was clear I was being studiously ignored) she opened the gate to let me into the garden to see the water wheel.


She then advised me it was a lovely wander up to the mill pond. Unfortunately there was no water in it, she told me. They’d had some invasive weed which the council’d had to drain the pond for, swathing it in black plastic to finally finish off the evil plant. Well I had to take Triar out somewhere and she’d assured me it was pretty. I’m sure it would be lovely with water, on a lovely summers day. Triar posed for a picture with the plastic swathed backdrop pond. At least one of them was pretty!

She’d also told me it was possible to walk in part of the garden at Sweetheart Abbey, so we went there next and did that, then tempted by an attractive looking cafe opposite it, I decided to go in for a coffee. I had been mostly fasting during the days (coffee aside) and eating only in the afternoon, so my intention was to continue that pattern, ut when I went into the cafe, the server there told me it wasn’t really opening time yet. They opened at 11, but I could go in and wait, if I liked.

As I sat there in lone splendour among the tea and coffee awards hanging on the walls, listening to the ponderous ticking of the grandfather clock, I decided it would only be polite to order breakfast. When she finally came back, I ordered scrambled egg and smoked salmon toast with my latte and have no regrets.

There were also some interesting vegan items on the menu, including bean and hazelnut pate, with various bread and toast combinations, so I shall probably go back and try something else another day.

It’s been a beautiful week. This was the view from my kitchen window on Tuesday morning when I went through to make coffee.

On Wednesday I was through in Stranraer to visit some chickens and on Thursday, I went to Glenluce to look at some cows in a field! Both visits were successful and straightforward, so the paperwork only took me a morning’s work, which was nice. I also stopped for Fish and Chips at Port William (at least, I think that’s where we were!) which were pretty good, though the chips weren’t as lovely as the fish.

It was, altogether, a lovely day.

Our reason for being in Port William was that there had been a report of a dead sheep on the slipway, but either someone had taken it away, or the tide had done so. We had a good look around, but saw nothing.

Anyway, I’m now at Valerie’s for the weekend and I believe we might go wild swimming somewhere, so I’d better get up and get some warming breakfast. The bright sun seems to have deserted this morning, so it may be a little chillier than the hot tub. Wish me luck!

I’ll leave you with a photo from a ruined chapel Triar and I explored yesterday, up at the now, tragically deserted and vandalized, Airth Castle, which was a hotel when I lived here, many years ago. Have a lovely week all!

Fish and Chips

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

Sunrise/sunset: 03:36/21:58. Daylength: 18h22min

I didn’t update last week. I was too busy wallowing in the nostalgia of my UK visit. The past two weeks have also been filled with movement and travel, some further afield, but others involving more local discoveries.

Ten days ago, I travelled back down to Rogaland, where I used to live. I was bound for a Mattilsynet meeting about the important communication on welfare between abattoirs and the vets out in the field that I talked about in this post: The Ever Changing Sky

I emerged into the 11pm darkness at Sola Airport to be greeted by the ever present smell of slurry. It’s a very famous phenomenon. Jo Nesbø even mentions it in one of his books. Anyway, I had completely forgotten until I stepped outside into the warmish night air.

Knowing I would arrive so late, I had toyed with the idea of staying in an airport hotel and travelling onwards on the morning of the meeting, which didn’t start until eleven. But I had found a bus that would take me to Sandnes – the number 42 – and so I thought I’d risk it. I remembered the airport buses from when I used to live there, so I assumed I would be able to pay on board, but when the driver only opened the doors in the centre of the bus, it was obvious I wasn’t going to be able to buy one. Scrabbling online, I found I had the Kolumbus App already. Crossing my fingers that there would be no inspectors at that time of night, I finally bought a ticket for what I thought was the correct area, just as we pulled into Sandnes.

By this time it was midnight. Technically, I was still working, still on the clock, which I had switched on in the office when I arrived in the morning. Logging onto my computer to clock out, I thought I would check tomorrow’s meeting, so I opened up the Teams app to check the calendar. There was no venue listed. In fact, it was listed as a Teams Meeting. For a long, sweaty moment, I thought I had just travelled 2000km for a Teams meeting. A check of the e-mails confirmed that I had not. It wasn’t the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had!

But the meeting was a success and I’m very glad I went. One of the tasks I struggle with at work is speaking up in meetings, but I had some valid points to make, based on both experience and reading around the topic. It was also great to meet some of the other Mattilsynet staff from other areas of Norway.

I flew back on Thursday afternoon and arrived home almost as late as I’d arrived in Sandnes. There was no rest though, as I had arranged an inspection with Gry on the Friday (post about Gry). The tour took me on an exploration of a part of Senja that I had never visited. Indeed it’s a small corner of the island that I had missed in all my driving around. We stopped in Gryllefjord for a surprisingly tasty chunk of pizza from the local shop. *

Surprisingly tasty pizza

Gryllefjord is an amazing place. It’s ramshackle collection of houses, clustered on the edge of the fjord, under a brooding overhang of mountains, with a small harbour. It was a cloudy day, and the tops of the mountains reached up into the mist.

We also drove to a nearby village, reached through a tunnel in the mountainside. The old road, which went over an exposed ridge, was often blocked in winter.

It’s always a joy finding new places near to where I live. There was also a restaurant in Gryllefjord, which was closed at the time of our visit. I had heard from others that it was a good restaurant, and when I checked online, it appeared that there was fish and chips on the menu.

For anyone living in the UK, that probably seems like a non-event. Fish and chips is the original British fast food. I can remember before Chinese and Indian takeaways became common, and well before the invasion of the US burger craze, that fish and chips was a staple. But in Norway, fish in batter is rare. So when John came over the next day, which was also his birthday, I suggested that we should take a tour out to Gryllefjord to try out the Skreien Spiseri and he jumped at the chance.

It was a much brighter day and we stopped along the way at Hamn to take a few photos. There were also some reindeer by the road, looking surprisingly defenceless without their antlers.

The fish and chips was delectable. We will definitely be back.

Fish and Chips from Skreien Spiseri

As you can see from the photos of John’s birthday, the weather was almost spring-like. I was hoping for a smooth segue from winter to summer, but it wasn’t to be. It started to snow again a couple of days later. I went to Tromsø on Thursday this week to go on an inspection with Line, who works there. Arriving back on the fast boat at five thirty in the afternoon, I walked back through Finnsnes centre and paused to take a couple of photos.

Still, I enjoyed the walk, even if it was a little more “refreshing” than I would have predicted a couple of weeks ago.

And as you know, there’s one member of our household, who always welcomes the snow! Hope you have a great week everyone.

Triar, looking cheery at the new snow fall

*I forgot to say that I also drank a cup of black coffee from the shop, when I was out with Gry. Perhaps, in time, I will indeed be truly integrated into Norwegian society. Maybe if I tell the authorities that I managed it without milk, they will give me a Norwegian passport faster.