Tag Archives: Government vet

Tripping

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

I finally made it out of bed on Monday, just in time to go back to work. By Tuesday, I was on the road again as I made my way to Edinburgh for a conference, where APHA staff from all over Scotland came together to meet and learn.

When I drove over to Stranraer, I was craving memories and was rather disappointed at the lack of familiarity. Although I grew up in Penicuik, which is not very far from Edinburgh, and that I went to university in Edinburgh, it hadn’t crossed my mind to hope for something similar. It hadn’t crossed my mind that our route wouldn’t take us on the featureless motorway network, but rather through a load of places that were embedded deeply from my childhood.

We passed through West Linton, then Carlops: familiar names and places from long ago. But it was when we reached Nine Mile Burn, where you can turn off to drive to Penicuik, that I had that sudden feeling of nostalgia.

My adult life has been interesting, but I was fortunate enough to have a very happy childhood. One of my sweetest memories is of climbing onto a low hanging tree bough and sitting in dappled sunlight with my friend, Sharon. We had been watching Robin of Sherwood, Sharon had pictures of Michael Praed on her wall and we were at the age when everything still seemed possible. If there was one moment in my life that I could go back and relive, I am fairly sure that would be the one I would choose as it is so unsullied. A young man fractured my mind at university and by the time I was 25 I’d had skin cancer twice and I think that’s why that memory of unsullied innocence is so precious. I’d love to relive it with Sharon, but she also got cancer and she didn’t make it.

Goodness, I hadn’t expected this to take such a sorrowful turn, but those sweet, sweet memories do come with a hefty dose of melancholy. Anyway, the road carried on past Nine Mile Burn and we passed Silverburn, where my parents once considered buying the farmhouse. It was run down then, but now looks very smart. And then the Pentland Hills were on my left and those really were my old stomping ground. I remember some names: Carnethy, Scald Law, East and West Kip. Scald law was the highest hill, but we more often walked up Carnethy, or took the path over between the hills to a wonderful waterfall, though I don’t remember its name.

Pentland Hills – I think this one is Scald Law, but feel free to correct me!

The hotel in Edinburgh was very pleasant, though very much a typical, identikit modern hotel, with no distinguishing features. I’m still at the stage where there’s lots to learn, so there was plenty of new information to pick up. I enjoyed the evening meal, although the milk chocolate cheesecake, which I expected to be a sweet and fluffy concoction was more like a dark chocolate brick of solidity that even I couldn’t finish.


The conference ran from lunchtime on Tuesday to lunchtime on Wednesday, then on Thursday I had to go to Ayr to have a mask-fitting appointment. This was to check whether I can use the FFP3 masks at work safely. This involved having a mask on, which was attached to a tube which monitored the air I was breathing, while performing various manoeuvres. As this involved marching on the spot, while moving my head around in various ways, and then counting out loud, while trying to breathe normally, it was quite a challenge, given that I am still coughing after being ill, but I survived without falling over, and now I am officially allowed to use a mask if I have to check out any sick chickens.

Much as I love travelling (especially those identikit hotels) and consider it a definite perk of my job, I am rather looking forward to next week, when the most distant visit I have booked in is to Castle Douglas.

I’ve probably gone a bit quiet about my house buying. Compared to an international move, it’s very low key, but I’m now at the stage when all the papers have to be signed, I have to show where the money for my deposit is coming from, and I have to arrange to shift my accounts with all my providers from one house to the other, while leaving an overlap as I don’t want to move everything on one single day. I’m quite excited about buying a house, but it doesn’t quite seem real yet, even though the intended date of exchange is less than two weeks away.

You know, I write these blogs mostly to keep in touch with people, but I sometimes think they will end up being a bit like a diary. Maybe one day in the future, I’ll look back and all the memories will come flooding back. My mind feels odd at the moment. Part of me is chugging onwards, being quite competent, learning lots of stuff, but it’s overlaid with a feeling of there being too much going on. It’s not perturbing me too much, but I do have a sense that there is chaos rushing all around me, while I just wander through it, waiting for everything to settle. I write this weekly and I can’t tell whether any of that feeling is coming across, or whether what I write is as scattergun as it sometimes feels. This week, I volunteered to work as a vet at the Royal Highland Show, and I can’t yet tell if that will turn out to be a marvellous opportunity or a daunting responsibility. Maybe both! Still, you know me. I tend to grab what comes my way and worry about the consequences later.

Anyway, as usual, thanks to anyone who made it this far. I hope you have a good week, and I will leave you with a couple of pictures of Biggar, where we went on school trips to the street museum. I was intrigued by the tiny scarlet door in the first building. I presume the road and pavement have been built up over the years, but anyone using that door would really have to watch their head! See you next week.

Tuberculosis

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

The rain is hurling itself against the window as I write this, having returned home after half a week in Stranraer. The wind there was relentless and felt like it was filled with icicles. Not quite the balmy, maritime climate I might have hoped for. Despite the chilly wind and the sleet that fell, the fields were still green and many animals are still outside. So different from the months of snow and ice in the far north. I finally found the time to take a few photos when I was out and about, which I’ll share in between the streams of reminiscence!

It was strange being back. A lot has changed in the last thirty years, although one thing that hasn’t changed much is the little lodge house I lived in back then. It now has oil central heating, where once the only warmth came from a coal fire, and the wheelie bins are out front, rather than tucked away at the back door, but other than that, it still looks much as it did when I lived there. I swore, after those eighteen months that I would never again accept a house without central heating.

The practice I worked in is long gone. The younger of my bosses sold it to the neighbouring practice (now Academy Vets) years ago. I went into Academy Vets as I had to chat to them about a case. I thought I didn’t know any of the staff, but I discovered that one of the senior vets had seen practice with me when he was a student, which illustrates how long ago it all was. My older boss is still around, apparently. Hopefully I can visit him, next time I’m over.

Simpson’s the bakers is still there on the main shopping street. I remember Anne, the kindest receptionist ever, asking if I wanted anything from Simpson’s at lunch time on an almost daily basis. I bought a sandwich: coronation chicken on white bread and they must still be using the same recipe as they used, all those years ago. It was as delicious as I remembered, though it now comes in plastic, where once it was in a white paper bag. The cakes haven’t changed either: very traditionally Scottish, all intensely sweet, no fresh cream and some very garish icing.

I was quite surprised (and rather saddened) by how unfamiliar a lot of it seemed, though I did keep tripping over memories over the course of a few days. I thought the Morrisons supermarket was new, but when I went in, it dawned on me that it was the precious supermarket that was built when I was there. It was Safeway when it arrived in town and was a wonderful addition. Before that, there was only a dim and narrow W.M. Low’s that I would walk around, looking for something for dinner, finding no inspiration. Morrison’s was closer to the centre than I remember and I don’t recall using a roundabout to get into it, but maybe I’ve just forgotten. A colleague who grew up in Stranraer reminded me that the old cattle market was knocked down to build it, and I do recall that as well, but only in the vaguest of ways.

Mostly I drove around, thinking how unfamiliar it all seemed, though when I drove away from Academy Vets (where we used to take dogs for x-rays as my practice didn’t have one) I knew exactly how to get to Lewis Street, where McTaggart and Williamson used to be, and for a few moments, I felt as if time had shifted.

Though my time in Stranraer wasn’t particularly happy, it is where I met Charlie. He took a job in my practice, having spent time as a student doing extramural studies around the corner in Academy Street. We were married twenty three years and have three wonderful children together, so it was a significant time in my life.


Anyway, enough reminiscing and back to the present. This week I have been learning about tuberculosis. It’s important that I do as I will be taking over several TB outbreak cases in just over a month’s time, when my Stranraer colleague goes on maternity leave. Although I’m learning a lot at high speed, I am now reaching the stage when I can see just how much I don’t know.

There’s an online course I need to take, as well as having time for the cases to be handed over. I am finding out where to look up case handling and I’ve an offer of help with the tracing and epidemiology, but I am still going to need a lot of guidance. Each case is different, depending on whether there were signs of TB found when an animal went to slaughter, or whether it was picked up during a skin test, and beyond that how exactly the case progresses, once a positive skin test occurs. There are a multitude of pathways, depending on those factors. I did the skin testing thirty years back, but there were no positive skin tests back then, so the rest is new to me.

Now in addition to skin tests, they can take blood tests and are beginning to understand some of the genetics. Tracing where it came from (and where it might have spread to) is now becoming more clear. You can sometimes tell where a strain might have come from, because it is genetically similar to a separate case. When I was testing, thirty years ago, there was no TB in the area. The aim is to return to that situation, but I think that will take a very long time, if it’s possible at all. Only time will tell.

Yesterday, R and I visited a farm where the investigation is just beginning. One of their cows had a small reaction to the injection during a routine skin test. When tested again, sixty days later, she reacted more. Now she will sadly be taken to slaughter, where they will check her for visible signs of TB and also do a PCR check, where they look for TB DNA. After that, whatever the result, the whole herd will have to be checked again. Until they get the all-clear, with no reactors, they cannot sell any of their animals, or move them off the farm, other than for slaughter. It’s a huge blow to any farmer to find out some of his cows will have to be culled and that there is disease in the herd that can spread to humans. I hope, for their sake, that the tests all come back clear.

I had left my car in a car park in the middle of nowhere while R took me to the farm, and on my return, I was quite surprised to see a van parked beside it. R headed off and to my surprise, the driver of the van came over to chat to me. He was wizened as if he had spent a lot of years battling the weather, but he seemed cheery as he told me he was a mole exterminator! He is seventy five, he said, and still tending to over seventy farms, though in his heyday, he cleared a hundred and twenty. I confess that it had never crossed my mind that the job of mole exterminator existed, but he seemed very upbeat about it and was obviously very efficient. It did cross my mind that perhaps I should consider a new career, but he said he thinks he has someone lined up to take over his patch when he finally gets too old.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with some food pictures. I ate every night in the North West Castle Hotel and would highly recommend it!

Sea bass with creamed potatoes, prawn and chive butter and seasonal vegetables
Breast of chicken with mash, haggis and peppercorn sauce

… and the piece de resistance…

Strawberry cheesecake

Delicious! See you next week.

Cross Compliance

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

On Friday, I headed out to meet S. S is a locum vet, currently working with the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) and she is being sent out over half of Scotland to cover welfare inspections on farms. Many of these visits are what are called cross compliance visits.

In the UK, farmers and land owners can apply for subsidies from the government. In order to receive these subsidies, they have to follow some rules that are designed to ensure that they are taking good care of the land and any animals that they keep. There are a number of different rules, some of which are for protection of the land from pollution and ensuring boundary markers, such as hedges, are maintained. Others are related to identification of animals via ear tags and so on, but the ones APHA are responsible for are the animal welfare regulations.

You can read a bit more about the cross compliance rules here: Cross compliance

When carrying out a cross compliance welfare visit, many of the aspects of care we look at are similar to any welfare visit. We check whether animals are being looked at regularly and fed and watered, whether they have shelter from the weather and from predators, whether they are protected from injuries, and if they are taken care of when sick or injured. If the farmer is found to be in breech of some of the rules, an assessment is made on how serious the breech is and that can depend on whether he or she knew that they were breaking the rules, how severe the effect is in terms of animal suffering, whether the effect might have spread to other farms and whether it is rectifiable.

For example, a farmer who has been warned before that she needs to treat her sheep as they are infected with the mites that cause sheep scab, but has let the infection continue to the point where the sheep are suffering and some have died, and worse, hasn’t maintained her boundary fences so that it has spread to the neighbour’s sheep, has ticked all the boxes for a very serious breech. She should probably expect to have her subsidy substantially reduced.

The vast majority of visits we do are triggered by other events. These can be reports from neighbours or the market or abattoir. Every year there are routine visits to a certain number of farms. A very small percentage are randomized, but most are risk based, depending on past performance and previous breeches. Most of the farms we inspect still have good standards of welfare though and most farmers are doing their best and do care for their animals. Unfortunately, there are a few rogues, and those are probably the hardest to deal with.

As I discovered in Norway though, it’s rarely as simple as that any farmer who allows animal suffering to occur is an awful person. Very often problems arise when something happens and the animal owner finds themselves in a situation where it’s difficult to cope and then things spiral out of control. There’s a risk that docking someone’s subsidy when they’re already struggling financially might actually have a further negative effect on the animals, so it’s a nuanced situation where some of the decisions can be very difficult.

Next week, I will be spending some time in my old stomping ground of Stranraer. Thirty years ago, I worked in a practice there. The practice is long gone, but the farms I used to visit are still there. A few of the names that come up sound familiar, but so far I haven’t come across the double recognition of a surname and farm.

I will shortly be taking over responsibility for a TB outbreak over there and the farmer’s name is familiar, but he is on (to me) the wrong farm. So I don’t know whether it’s a new farmer, or whether it’s the same family and they’ve moved to a different place, or whether two families have intermarried. That is relatively common of course. Farming families are often connected and back in the day, I also joined Young Farmers when I lived there.

My memory is not that great, but of course the few farms and farmers I do remember were the ones I was friendly with, either at Young Farmers or through visiting their farms. When I started, I had to declare any possible conflicts of interest and I didn’t think I had any to declare as I was working in Dumfries. But over in Stranraer, there might be some minor considerations. Should I be dealing with the farmer who was an asshole on a date back in 1993, do I have to declare it? Probably not. He’s had plenty of time to mature since then, as have I. But I’m looking forward to spending some time there.

Viaduct at Glenluce

And last but not least, my solicitor has now made an official, written offer on the cottage I hope to buy. Keep your fingers crossed for me please. All being well, by Easter I may have a house of my own.

In With the New

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

This week, Andrew and I spent our first few days in the house I am renting in Dumfries. We travelled up on Tuesday amid dire warnings that there was a storm on the way. It duly arrived that night. I had bought some new duvets in a sale in Skipton and had worried that 13.5 and 15 tog might be ridiculously warm, but I was glad of mine as I huddled in bed, feeling the chill of the bedroom on my face. Before I left Norway, a few people asked what I would miss and I couldn’t answer. You never really know which things you will feel most intensely, but I can now tell those people that the thing I miss most so far is having a draught-free house!

It did get better. The storm changed direction the next day and the house warmed up a good deal after I’d adjusted the central heating. We don’t have internet yet (which is why this post is late) but Andrew had downloaded some TV programmes onto my laptop, so we had something to watch in the evenings and it was, in the end, quite cosy and comfortable.


Work has been up and down. The whole IT situation seems very sketchy. A new planning system is coming into use and there seem to be daily e-mails about getting ourselves on board. The only problem for me was that, when I followed the link that should have taken me there, I got a message to say that an app was missing and I should ask my administrator for help. I took a screenshot before I started the Christmas break and sent a message to IT support. I came back to a series of messages, the last of which said the case had now been closed as it had been marked as resolved for three days,

Working backwards, I finally found the message that supposedly resolved the issue. Rather than helping me with instructions on how to get the app, or who to ask, there was a message saying everyone had the app, with a series of links about how to use it and all the different applications it covered. At least that was the topic of the first three or so links. I didn’t open the entire list because none of them appeared in any way related to my actual problem, which was that I didn’t have the app.

The most spectacular part of the message though, was the instruction at the end. It said that if you still had a problem, you should refer to the links and that if you wanted to ask them again for help, you must have read all the links. You had to give a full explanation of what you had tried, with reference to which link it related to. If you hadn’t explored every option, you wouldn’t receive a response.

I was close to sending back a snotty message, pointing out that they had just asked a qualified vet to waste several paid hours wading through a long list of articles that (from the evidence of the first three links) were not even targetted for the problem I had reported. My second thought was to send a message appealing to their better nature and asking them to treat me as if I was an elderly relative asking for help with working their newly installed TV.

Instead, I went back to one of the daily e-mails exhorting us to get onto the new planner and check our profiles. Right at the bottom was an address to contact if you were having trouble doing that. Crossing my fingers, I sent a message. The response came back quite quickly. I was, apparently, one of a tiny number people whose laptops had slipped through a crack in the system and hadn’t had the app installed.

I must say that the original e-mail left a bad taste. Presumably the terse message was borne of frustration with their own system somewhere, but it was so impolite that my gut reaction was to abandon any attempt to use the new planner until someone insisted I use it, at which point they would be forced to address the issue that I couldn’t. I’d add that it hasn’t all been bad. I’ve had some very helpful experiences with the IT providers as well, whenever I’ve actually called rather than sending a message, so it definitely isn’t that they’re heartless and horrible. I need to remember not to respond with a knee-jerk reaction when something seems a bit off.

But maybe that’s the second thing that I miss. In Norway, Øivind was often my first port of call when I had an IT problem and he also arranged great parties. I think we need a Party General with IT skills in Dumfries.

Despite my IT teething problems and the weather, it’s been a good week. I’ve been handed my first welfare case, and though my first reaction was that I didn’t know how to tackle it, I’ve had enough help to jump in and make a start.

The report that was sent in used the What3Words system and my first inclination was to follow that trail and see what I found. For anyone who hasn’t come across What3Words, it’s a computer mapping system, where every three square metres of land is allocated a combination of three words. If you are standing somewhere and want to direct someone to find you, the system tells you the words, which then can be used by the finder to trace the location.

So interested was I in seeing whether it worked, and wondering what I would find, I forgot that I hadn’t put my kit in the car. What I actually found was a muddy field and what I now have is a lot more information and a ruined pair of shoes. As G said as he helped me to find out who owned the muddy field the next day, I won’t make that mistake again. Still, tackling my first welfare case was a great reminder that this was what I came here to do.

Andrew and I stopped for lunch on the way from Dumfries to Yorkshire yesterday. Robert Burns’ Selkirk Grace at the top of the page was painted on the wall and I thought it was an apt quotation on a day when Auld Lang Syne – Burns’ most famous song – will be sung in so many places round the world as the year turns. While sitting there, I was struck by another difference between Scotland and Norway. I had Cullen Skink – Scottish fish soup – with crusty bread. In Norway, there would have been two slices of bread and one small pat of butter. In Scotland, there was one slice of bread and two pats of butter. There’s also a lot of haggis on the menu everywhere, which I’m embracing with gusto. Triar and I are going to have to do a lot of walking when the rain finally slows down.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with a photo, taken from Mum and Dad’s conservatory, just after midnight last night. For me 2024 is going to be very different from 2023. I hope (once I have internet in my house) you’ll join me on my journey through it.

Happy New Year!

Turkey Calling

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


I arrived back at Donna and Will’s on Sunday afternoon and we spent the evening putting up Christmas decorations. They’ve got a real tree and Christmas decorations from different people and places they’ve been. I was also impressed they had even more boxes of decorations than I did before my moving rationalisation, when sadly, I had to cut it down to three boxes. Can’t have too much Christmas cheer, in my opinion. The amazing Lego Christmas Village picture at the top of the page is theirs. Building an entire village is real dedication to the Christmas cause.

Although my online induction continues apace (deadline 24th December for the general program) I’ve been out on two visits this week. The first was to a veterinary practice which carries out some Official Veterinarian work on behalf of the government. Much of this doesn’t seem to have changed too much since I was doing it myself back in the early nineties, though we didn’t use much rabies vaccine back then, before the days of pet passports. We inspected equipment such as the guns that are used to inject tuberculin to check for TB and the practice microscope for looking for anthrax. There was a feeling of familiarity, being back in a mixed animal country practice, though the lingering scents of iodine, vitamin B12 and calcium were sadly absent from the stockroom.

I also went on a visit to a fallen stock plant, where culled animals that are not fit for human consumption are taken. Though they’re not going into the food chain, the animals are still tested for BSE or Scrapie (the sheep version). One thing I’m really revelling in is chatting to people effortlessly. Back in Norway, I’d go out with Birgit and she’d launch into chatting about what was happening at that time of year and perhaps more local news. Suddenly I can do it too!

We received a directive about carrying out welfare visits on turkey farms at the time of slaughter. As regular readers will know, killing animals as humanely as possible is something that really energises me, so I was hoping to get involved, but it seems that there are very few in our region and that most of them either send them outside the area or are already finished. This is definitely something I should write in my calendar for October next year. I was asked to do some of the phoning though. I can see I’m going to be leaping into this job like a pig rushing to the muddy corner of its field, only with more disinfectant involved.

Andrew arrived last night from Norway and will be here over Christmas and New Year. Triar was very pleased to see us both when we arrived at Mum and Dad’s, though it was well after his bedtime when we got here. Anna and Lauren will be arriving later today for a weekend visit, so it’s going to be a full house. I went to Aldi on the way to pick up some party food. Another novelty for me. Vol-au-vents, cocktail sausages and duck spring rolls were in short supply in Finnsnes. I miss ribberull meat on my sandwiches though. I wonder if I could make my own.

My furniture should arrive on Tuesday and I’m hoping to take a couple of days off later in the week to unpack. Donna has offered to give me a hand, which I’ve gladly accepted. It’ll be good to get my things back, though I’ll be sad to move out of Donna’s very comfortable spare room. Her social life is so busy that I will need to make appointments to see her, once I’ve moved out. We’ve already booked Pilates classes including one in January though, so we’ll be keeping fit as well as in contact.

Anyway, I’d better go and get breakfast. See you tomorrow for the exciting third installment in this years advent adventure!

Wading Through

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

No trip down Watery Lane this week, but after a colourful sunrise on Saturday morning, Dad, Triar and I took a walk along the bank of the river Ribble. It was another frosty afternoon and Triar enjoyed frisking among the trees and then chomping down on a few flavoursome, frozen cow pats!

I worked from home (in Yorkshire) on Monday, then headed up the road to stay with Donna. She has made me feel very welcome all week. She told me on the first evening that she would be starting a Pilates class on Tuesday. As I was still feeling quite couch potatoish after all those long spells lounging around on trains and boats, I asked if I could join her. I’m admittedly more chewed apple core than core of steel, but we’ve booked again for next week and will probably book up a few new years classes so as to get in there before the amateurs, who will only realise on New Year’s Day that it’s time to tone up.

A few weeks back, Donna put up a winter menu for Carlo’s Italian restaurant in Castle Douglas, which sounded both delicious and very reasonable at £15 for two courses. She was meeting a friend, but added me into that as well. This was the mushroom crostini, which was rich with garlic and cream and easily as delicious as it looked.

I won’t add an image of my main course as it also involved mushrooms and looked quite similar, but we were all full enough to decide not to order dessert. I did have a liquor coffee though, which came with a mince pie and a chocolate mint. Being back in Scotland definitely suits me!

The wading through of the title doesn’t refer to water or mud. Rather it is in honour of my first full week at work, which was bogged down in IT issues and induction. I was introduced to many other members of the team in various online meetings and in a short blurb I wrote about myself, which boss K sent round in an e-mail.

Wanting to seem keen and enthusiastic, I carefully avoided using any hint of implication that the work I was doing felt like slogging through a treacle infested swamp, but on Thursday K herself used the phrase when she asked me how I was getting on. Still, I’m quite good at wading so I’ve already got through courses on Equality and Diversity, Health and Safety, Civil Service Expectations, Counter Fraud Bribery and Corruption and Security and Data Protection.

Having done the last of those courses, I was reminded that I should ask K whether it was okay to continue with this blog. After all, the course had told me, as a newly minted member of the civil service I was ripe for criminals to attempt an attack. Presumably if the farmers pay me enough, they will get through their TB tests with flying colours and I will turn a blind eye to their incipient blue tongue or bird flu outbreaks. The rules did seem quite strict though, and I was concerned that K would ban me from mentioning anything about my new role online, but having read last week’s entry, she thought it would be fine to continue so it looks like you’re all stuck with me for a bit longer!

Yesterday, I met R, my veterinary counterpart from Stranraer and LM, my Veterinary Advisor, who will be guiding me through my first cases. I asked whether I might be able to go to Stranraer to shadow R in some cases and LM suggested I might be able to go for a few days, which would be lovely, both in terms of getting to know other parts of the team better, and seeing a bit more of Stranraer. The most criminal behaviour I came across over there was a farmer, who told me on a date that he didn’t think I could calve a cow if he couldn’t manage it. Perhaps he was more skilled than the average farmer* but as I was only ever called out when they couldn’t manage and had experienced few problems, I wasn’t impressed with his first date contemplations. Funnily enough, we didn’t make it to a second date. Still, you know I’m now old, free and single. There’s always the chance of a second crack of the whip. Bring it on, I say!

*He wasn’t.

Leaf Strewn Lanes and Brand New Kit

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After days and days of rain, I woke last Saturday to one of those beautiful wintery days when the fields are pale with frost and the low sun glows golden over the world. Triar and I set out to walk along Watery Lane, which as you can see, lives up to its name.

Watery Lane runs between two, mossy dry stone walls and is lined by trees, which were mostly bare, though the floor of the lane was thickly strewn with fallen leaves.

We turned past the barns onto Lodge Lane and as we descended towards the road, a farmer drove by in his tractor. To my surprise, he grinned and waved cheerily as he passed, which improved my day even more.

I had asked my parents to take me to a garden centre. I wanted to grab a bit of Christmas spirit before the end of my time off, so they took me to Holden Clough near Clitheroe. Having previously visited Stephen H. Smith’s Garden Centre in Otley, which was filled with baubles and tinsel, like a series of Christmas grottos, Holden Clough was distinctly up-market, but cheery nonetheless.

Tuesday was another fine day and Triar and I walked through Settle, which by now, had a few decorations of its own.

We then headed up Constitution Hill and along the aptly named Highway, which runs along the side of the valley with views over Ribblesdale.

Dad took me to look at a car on Wednesday. It was an X3 like the one I had to leave behind in Norway, but I took it for a test drive and although the engine sounded sweet, the steering was behaving very oddly. I suggested I would go back and test drive it again, once they’d fixed the tracking (which was his theory as to what the problem was) but was told the car wouldn’t be fixed up until someone bought it. As I was unwilling to buy a car that I wasn’t certain would be fixed by the proposed changes, I decided to pass. On Thursday, I had planned to have a nice, easy drive to Dumfries before starting work on Friday, but having found another X3 for sale in Glasgow, I took a detour there to look at it and this time, I decided to go for it. It went for its MOT yesterday and will be serviced next week and hopefully, I will collect it next weekend.

Yesterday was my first day in my new job. I met my new boss, K (though she corrected me to line manager when I asked) who helped me with getting set up on my new computer and together, we made a plan for the coming months. There are some courses I will be taking before I start to tackle the challenges ahead. There’s a lot more work with notifiable disease in Scotland than there was in my remote corner of Norway, so I’ll be learning how to tackle bird flu first and then TB. It sounds like there will be a lot to get my teeth into. I met G, who’s an animal health officer of eighteen years standing. He seemed very knowledgeable and also makes a mean cup of coffee, so I quickly felt at home. I also met L, another animal health officer, and she’s in charge of the stores. She has sorted out my new kit for me. It looks quite extensive and I am very glad the car I’ve bought has quite a sizeable boot.

There was also this rather scary looking hood, which I will have to use if I’m on a farm with suspected or confirmed avian influenza, until I get a properly fitted mask. After watching the horror show arguments about equipment in the UK during Covid, I’m very pleased that the agency seems to take my protection very seriously.

I went to Donna’s house after work. Donna and I met thirty years ago when we were both working in Stranraer, so it was wonderful to catch up and I immediately felt at home, which is just as well as I’m staying with her and her husband, Will, next week. My furniture is still somewhere wandering on the other side of the North Sea, but I’ve been offered a comfortable bed in her lovely cottage, so I’m already looking forward to going back.

For now I’m back in Yorkshire and Triar is asleep on my feet. It feels like a good start to the weekend.