Tag Archives: Hiking

Cancelled

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

I was meant to be going to York this week for a conference on TB. I suppose I’m not surprised, but my trip was cancelled yesterday afternoon as they need me to cover duty vet from Tuesday evening to Thursday morning. I knew others had already cancelled, and really it was going to be hard to fit in my TB cases (and ongoing work round the bird flu outbreak) around it, but I am disappointed. It would have been a good chance to meet with the UK APHA team who are trying to eradicate the disease from the UK and to better understand the fuller picture.

I do have a day of flexi booked for Monday and at least that is being honoured. I’m paying a flying visit to see mum and dad, so that can still go ahead. They are still in the throes of moving house, so help is needed.

On the home front, the decorator finally arrived on Monday and has been doing a sterling job on the woodwork bedrooms upstairs and the hallway. I asked him to paint the hall white. It’s an old house and rather dark, so this seemed like a good plan, but it struck me when looking at it that I’m used to Scandinavian white walls with wooden skirtings, that break the whole thing up. It’s not quite finished, but I’m now looking at what I can hang on the walls and how many plants I need to bring in to break up the blank look. I don’t really have the spare mental capacity or indeed the finances to tackle it all at once, but I’ve been living in a building site for more than a year now. I can wait a bit longer.

I was out yesterday at two farms. One has a TB outbreak, the other has been put under restrictions because some stock from the first farm are being overwintered there. When a farm has an animal that reacts to a TB test (or where TB typical lesions are found at the slaughterhouse) that farm is automatically placed under a movement restriction. This isn’t as cataclysmic as the bans for bird flu (which mean everyone and everything coming on and off the farm needs a licence) but it does mean cattle can’t be moved on or off.

Straightforward enough, you’d think, but I’ve been amazed since returning to the UK, to find out how intricate the UK farming industry is. Perhaps I just wasn’t seeing some of the detail, but mostly in Norway it seemed that cattle were born on a farm, grew up there, gave birth and milked and/or raised their young (some of which were sent to the abattoir when big enough) then died. People sometimes sold animals and of course, they were moved from winter housing to summer grazing, but mostly I wasn’t aware of too much moving around.

Here in the UK, many beef cattle are born on one farm then go to the market and are sold as “stores”. They stay on that farm for a while, then go back to the market and are sold as “finishers”, before finally being sent for slaughter. In addition to that, lots of farms send a few of their cattle to overwinter on someone else’s farm. I guess this maximises the number of animals. If you have plenty of grazing, but not quite enough housing, and someone else has sheds they’re not using, it makes sense in a way, but from a notifiable disease perspective, all these moves are a nightmare.

So then, back to my second farm that is under restrictions because there are animals there from the breakdown farm. There are animals from three farms on that premises. They are there for the winter, but there isn’t grazing space in the summer and now they are under restrictions where they can’t be moved off until we are as sure as we can be that none of them have TB.

Not talking about the specific farm, but in general, there are various possible groups. Some might be finishers, so they can still go to the slaughterhouse (under licence) when they are big enough. Others might be dairy heifers. They are overwintered on farms where there is no dairy or facilities. If they are in calf and calving is imminent, they may need to be moved to somewhere they can calve and then be milked.

As you can imagine, this all becomes very complicated. Occasionally we can move animals on welfare grounds, but all such moves have to be justified, with an assessment of how much it will increase the risk of spreading disease and how much it might cost the government if a healthy animal is moved to an infected premises and picks up the disease. I must admit, I often look at this whole web of movements and wish it didn’t happen.

Anyway, after looking at this particular situation, I now need to apply for general licences for the two sets of finishers that are present, then I need to call the third farmer, who I haven’t yet spoken to (the land owner should have informed him of the restrictions, but I can’t control what third parties do) and ask what animals he has there and whether they are fine there for the foreseeable future, or whether being there longer than expected might create a welfare problem.

So as you can probably see, finding a single animal that has reacted to a TB test can cause a cascade of work. And that’s before we start to look at testing neighbouring animals that might have said hello over a wall, or where animals might have come from and been sold to. In one of my other cases, they have finally identified the strain of the bacteria. Now I have to look at other farms where they’ve had related strains to see if I can find any links. It’s fascinating work, but there’s quite a lot of it and a finite amount of time in which to do it. So really, it’s probably just as well I’m not going to York, but it’s still a bit sad I can’t go.

Last week, Triar and I walked up Knockendock, which is a smaller hill attached to Criffel, which we walked up last summer. It was a bit misty on top, but Triar posed very prettily beside the cairn, as you can see in the picture at the top of the page. There was a great view from nearly the top and I survived walking through a high-level peat bog without unexpectedly sitting down or falling on my face, which was undoubtedly a result!

For me, seeing Triar trotting happily ahead of me is one of the best views possible. But that’s all for now. Thanks for reading and have a lovely week.

Belated Puddings and Watery Sunshine

Blog, Food, Hillwalking, Holiday, The Vet Who Came In from the Cold, Writing, Yorkshire Dales, , , , , , ,

John and Yoana have returned to Norway. 2025 is here and in a couple of days, I will return home and to work, but for now I am making the most of the time I have with my parents. I roasted a chicken on New Year’s Day and cooked lots of green vegetables to eat with it, though my efforts were slightly undone by dad’s suggestion, that we took up, of eating one of the Christmas puddings.

I can’t lie, it was worth it – utterly delicious in its caramelly, fruity luciousness. I managed to get through much of Christmas sticking to my Second Nature instilled habit, “Avoid products with added sugar,” but I have rather fallen off the wagon this week, or rather, as Second Nature would prefer to think of it, I haven’t been voting so much for my healthier self. I will be back to voting for less sugar and filling half my plate with vegetables when I get home. For me, it’s easier to control what I buy than to resist cakes that are lying around. I haven’t brought my scales, so I’ll have to wait and see where my festive voting has taken me when I get home.

The weather has mostly been grey, with clouds swathing the tops of the fells, but on Thursday, I woke to blue skies. Despite the fact that Watery Lane was bound to be living up to its name after all the wet weather, I headed there and from there took a little side gate that led me up the lower fellside, through the gorgeous, green fields with their endless dry stone walls and picturesque barns.

The path, such as it was, took me out onto Lodge Lane and Triar and I turned and walked downhill until we reached the farm steading, where Lodge Lane and Watery Lane meet.

The choices here were to turn left back onto Watery Lane, which leads along a bridleway, between walls through the fields, or follow Lodge Lane down to the B road that leads into Settle. The latter would have been the drier option, but given I had my sturdy winter boots on, I thought I’d risk the Watery diversion.

It was dry, at the beginning and I took some photos of the sheep that were basking in the warmth of the sun.

But the further I walked, the wetter it got, until there was a diverted beck actually running along the bridleway. I guess the horses wouldn’t have minded!

Here, it was stony and Triar and I picked our way through the shallows, but the next section was so muddy that the risk of slipping was too high. We made our way back to a gate that was difficult to open. I guess the farmer doesn’t want people walking through the fields any more than necessary, but we made it through, and finished our walk through the drier field. It was a lovely walk, but even Triar was glad to get home and relax on the sofa by the fire.

There are more weather warnings for this weekend. They feel endless at the moment, but so far, none of the threatened snow has arrived and this morning looks grey and damp. I have spent the spare moments of the last few days writing and will continue with that into the weekend. It’s lovely to be able to concentrate on the story and I have started to consider the edits I will need to make, even though I will still only be two thirds of the way through by the time I get back. Still, my writing group are meeting on Wednesday next week, so at least I can say I’ve been writing. For much of last year, I was too busy to get much done. I hope 2025 will be a turning point.

Have a lovely week all, and thanks for reading.

From Crewe to Kirkconnell Flow

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

I seem to be in a perpetual state of travel at the moment. After Perth, I had a night in Airth, then down to Yorkshire, and from Yorkshire, I headed directly to Crewe, not having spent a single night in my own bed. Luckily in Crewe, I was staying in a Premier Inn. I guess some would find their ubiquity boring, but I rather like knowing exactly what the room will be like, and what’s on the breakfast menu, even if I’ve never been to that particular hotel before.

This week’s training was on dealing with outbreaks of notifiable disease, with particular attention to bird flu, or avian influenza, as it’s called officially. It was quite sobering to hear the accounts of a couple of vets who arrived two years before me, and found themselves dealing with outbreak cases within a few weeks of arriving. That must have been a baptism of fire, given all the kit you have to wear, including hoods that cover your entire head and blow air over your face and require you to keep an eye on the battery levels if you’re in the sheds too long.

There was a day of practical training, out on a chicken farm. I’ve seen lots of broilers before – chickens bred for meat – so I was interested to see this one, which had laying hens. Though the hens were all inside, so not free range, they were not in cages, which I was glad about. Unlike the broilers, who were mostly on the floor, with a few perches and “toys” to interact with if they wanted, these hens were much more energetic and had different levels to walk on and metal bars to navigate across. It seemed a relatively good environment to me.

We saw some chickens being euthanized. It wasn’t particularly pleasant to watch, though the aim is to have high welfare throughout the process – hopefully actually higher than they would have in a slaughterhouse. There are various roles I might have to take if I go out to a notifiable disease case and one is the Welfare Vet. It’s important that I know the correct way everything should be done.

It wouldn’t necessarily be a big, commercial farm either. If I had to deal with someone’s pet chickens, I would want to be able to explain to them about what might happen, to prepare them for what they might see, just as I used to do when I euthanized people’s dogs when I was in practice. Dying doesn’t always look peaceful, even when there is no suffering involved.

We also carried out some post mortems. If I’m first on the scene, I have to be capable of carrying out some basic diagnostic procedures. Ultimately, all notifiable diseases will be diagnosed via tests sent to an official laboratory, but if I can rule out notifiable disease without it getting that far, it can save a lot of disruption. It can take twenty four hours for the tests to come back and until then, depending on which disease is suspected, movement restrictions will be in place, not just for the farm we’re on, but potentially for a large area surrounding that. With suspicion of foot and mouth, the whole country might potentially be brought to a standstill, so it’s incredibly important that the key vet is competent and backed up with a competent team.

At some point, I will be sent out to a report case where there is suspicion of a notifiable disease. While I know it will be daunting when it does happen, I feel better prepared now than I was before.

I finally got home on Thursday and have spent the last two nights in my own bed. As my friend Lara can confirm, I only own super-comfortable beds, so being home is always pretty nice! On my way up the road from Yorkshire, I stopped at Gretna Outlet to buy myself a new weekend happiness kit.

Though it wasn’t the weekend yet, Triar and I went out to Kirkconnell Flow Nature Reserve last night to start breaking my new boots in, ready for some more Perthshire hills next week. Kirkconnell flow is an ancient, raised, peat bog. Very rare apparently and stunningly beautiful yesterday evening in the golden light. We walked along the edge and through the forest, which reminded me of the forests in the north of Norway, with their tall pines and smaller silver birches sheltering underneath.

I was enjoying it so much that we did the outer circuit first and then the shorter inner circuit. I have a walk planned for today as well. Nothing too strenuous and good, well marked paths so getting lost is not possible. It’s about time I started exploring Dumfries and Galloway on foot and not just in my car.

Thank you for reading. I hope you have a good week.

Dog in a Bog

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

Sunrise/sunset: 03:14/ 22:29. Daylength: 19hr14min

I am looking forward to my holiday. It’s only a week away, and somehow until now, it seemed distant, but now it’s almost upon us. Not that we’re going far afield. Coronavirus has seen to that. But it seems fitting, given that this past week has been the anniversary of my epic drive from the southern tip of Norway to here, that I will be heading north once more, this time to Nordkapp. Our accommodation will be mixed. The first night will be in a tiny cabin with four bunk beds and an electric hob. I haven’t managed to book anything at all for the second night. Everything seems to be full, but we’ll take the tent and hope it doesn’t rain. Then we’ll be staying in a hotel while we explore Nordkapp. I had hoped to spend a couple of nights in a lavvo, which is a Sami wigwam. We found one on AirBnB and I quickly booked it, but my request was sadly rejected after twenty four hours with the succinct explanation “holiday”. I will keep my eyes open for it reappearing though. Despite the fact that it would undoubtdly be inhabited by the unexpectedly vicious Northern Norwegian Mosquitos with their huge evil fangs, I still find the idea very appealing.

On Thursday next week, I will be sitting an exam. I applied for Norwegian citizenship last year and happily filled in the section that said I had passed an exam in Norwegian social studies. I thought this was covered by the Norwegian course and exams I sat ten years ago when I first came to Norway, but I recently discovered that the rules had been changed and now everyone who wasn’t schooled in Norway has to take a test. As soon as I’ve finished writing this, I shall start revising. A lot of the subject matter is based on things I have experienced, such as the inner machinations of the health service and workers rights. But some of the questions on the mock test I took were very specific and rather obscure so I’d better get learning. My appointment with the police is on the week after I get back from my holiday, so I only have one chance, unless I want the whole thing to be delayed even more. I feel like getting a Norwegian passport will mark both the end of another journey and a new beginning.

Ann and I went out for another walk yesterday. Last week, we had a walk, followed by fish and chips. This week, Ann came over to mine and we went for a walk on Senja. I took her to Ånderdalen, of course. It’s still my favourite walk. But Ann, it turns out, has some books about walks in the area, so now we are planning more. In the meantime, I will spam you with the usual Ånderdalen imagery of pale ghost trees and mountain vistas.

Triar found both a bog to jump in (when does he not?) and a Burned Sausage of Unknown Origin, secreted in the barbecue close to the shelter at the highest point of the circuit. Ann very quickly prised his jaws apart and rescued the sausage, which was definitely a sausage and not the more traditional hot dog. The civilised Norwegian habit of providing both a grill, and the wood to burn on it at the end of a pretty walk continues to please me. I must get into the habit of taking matches, whittling knife and food with me more often.

Anyway, I must go and study. Procrastination won’t get me very far. Hope you will all join me on my journey next week. And in the meantime, a toast from Senja. Cheers!

Fit for the Summer

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

Sunrise/sunset: Up all day.

Ann was on holiday this week and so I worked every day from Tuesday to Friday at the abattoir in Bardufoss. I was on animal welfare duty all week (which involves an early start) and as John is living over there in an apartment with a spare bedroom, I spent the better part of the week at his place.

As we set off to drive over on Monday evening, we began discussing health and fitness. Through the long winter, walking in the countryside was largely impossible. Trails were blocked with snow and even if you wanted to park and walk along the road, you often couldn’t as the car parks hadn’t been cleared and there was nowhere to stop. Looking back, I realise how unprepared I was. Next winter, I will have to find a solution other than sitting on the couch for three months, but for now, the challenge is to get my untrained muscles outside and get some fresh air into my lungs.

John suggested we walk up an unmade road close to his house that weaves up the side of one of the fells. Because it’s technically a road, it was cleared through the winter. A few weeks ago, there would have been an icy crust and walls of snow, but those have melted. There are large laybys all the way up. In winter, these were crucial passing places when the road was hemmed in, but now they are big enough to park in.

John’s proposal was that we should start from the bottom and walk up in stages, so that’s what we did. The first day’s walk was a steep twenty minute trek through woodland. It was pretty enough, even as I gasped my way uphill. A large stream, recently frozen, ran alongside sections of the track. The forest floor was still lined with snow. But it was only when we reached the end of the first day’s segment and turned round that I could see just how beautiful the scenery was.

Day one from the highest point of our walk.

Only a couple of weeks ago, the mountains were swathed in pure white. Now their rocky faces are emerging and the trees that line their lower slopes are beginning to be tinged with purple as new branches and leaf buds begin to grow.

Icy mountain stream.

We stopped to photograph the stream on the way back down. The peaty water flowing over the ice gives it a very different look from the streams in Scotland in springtime.

Highest point on day two.

On day two, we took the car up to the highest point we had reached on day one and set off from there. The trees were more sparse up here, clinging on to the thin layer of earth over the rocks. In the lower right corner of the photo, you can get an idea of how thick the snow still is. It’s treacherous to walk through. There’s a crust on the top, which occasionally holds firm, but more often you fall through and find yourself off-balance in a knee-deep, foot-sized hole. As your other foot is similarly wedged, moving it quickly to correct your balance is impossible. I haven’t yet fallen flat on my face, but that’s because I mostly avoid making the attempt.

Mountains beyond the trees.

The emerging colours are stunning. After months of white, it feels as if the world is coming to life again. The pussy willow trees are so rife with pollen that it almost looks like blossom. There were birds too, singing in the trees.

Tree in bloom.
Day three, close to the top.

By day three, my legs were beginning to flag and so we walked only ten minutes instead of the normal twenty. The sky that day was filled with dramatic clouds, and yet it was still warm enough to walk without a jacket. Then again, five degrees feels warm to me now. There’s no doubt my body has adjusted to the local climate.

The colours of spring.

I came home yesterday and walked here instead, but I confess that I love the new project John has created for me. We will continue walking up the mountain over the next few weeks, and hopefully when the trails on Senja are properly opened up again, we will be able to tackle some of the mountains there.

And, of course, I can’t write this blog and fail to mention the fact that we now have twenty four hours of daylight. I stayed up last night, to see whether there would be midnight sun, but it dipped behind the mountains at eleven fifty. Going to bed is more difficult when it is still so light. It’s also difficult when you wake in the middle of the night and there’s bright sunshine filtering round the edges of the blind and curtains. There’s no way to judge whether it’s morning or not. I have to check the clock each time. Tough to go back to sleep at four in the morning when your eyes are telling you it’s full daylight. Have a great week everyone.