Tag Archives: Mattilsynet

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

Sunrise/sunset: 08:50/16:11 Daylength: 7hr21min

It’s been a crazy week! It started well, with me returning to work and feeling much more like my normal self. I’ve a couple of cases I have to complete or pass on and I am working with Ingrid to go through as many of the semi-routine tasks she will be taking on as possible. She is learning so fast that I can see that she will soon outstrip me, which is wonderful as far as I am concerned. My aim was always to get the public veterinarian things running as well as possible and I had made a start, but I can see she is the ideal person to complete the process.

There were also two students in the abattoir this week. Amanda and Glenn are at university in Hungary (I think – no doubt someone will correct me if I’ve got that wrong) and are on the various rotations that usually come in the last year of a vet degree. Amanda is Norwegian but Glenn is from Ireland and they met at university. I haven’t been much involved with the students before – there are some most years – but as team coordinator, it was one of my jobs to ensure they completed the tasks they have to achieve.

It was great having them there and I was able to ramble on a bit about my favourite theme, which is creating and maintaining chains of information between separate teams within Mattilsynet and other agencies, in order to build up a kind of animal welfare map of the area. They seemed both interested and enthusiastic and told me that before they came, they thought Mattilsynet could be boring, but that they were impressed by how wide ranging and important the job we are doing is. As far as I am concerned, my job was done then, even before I ticked off the boxes and put my signature to the more routine things they had to learn about. Hopefully they will consider Mattilsynet as a career, even though they intend to start out working in practice in Ireland.

On Wednesday, my pleasant last week was severely rocked when the team from the removal firm phoned and told me they were coming that day and not on Thursday as planned. My objections that I was not ready were swept aside and I was told it had to be today as they had to be somewhere else tomorrow. Thank goodness for my wonderful colleagues. Trude immediately calculated an alternative plan for who could do what and told me I should go.

The call came in at twenty past eleven. I rushed home and quickly put the last few things in the dishwasher and switched it on. Most things were already organized, but there were a few last minute tasks. As well as the dishwasher, I had to pack clean clothes for the last few days at work and my ten day journey to the UK and I intended to go through each room to remove the last of the items which were to be left behind or thrown away.

On the phone, I had told them I finished work at three, so I thought I had a bit of time, but the lorry rolled up at one, before even the dishwasher was finished. They decided to make a start on the bedrooms while I worked in the kitchen. They were super speedy at dismantling the beds, not so good at wrapping everything up, as they were meant to. I took a picture of the half-packed van and on checking it just before I started writing this, I can see that my lovely light-colored bed bases, under and over mattresses have been put uncovered into the van. Given that the beds were the most expensive items and the ones I most wanted to take to the UK as they are made my a Norwegian company that doesn’t sell products in the UK, I am even more underwhelmed than I was on the day. They also put my electric keyboard in, unwrapped, but unfortunately I don’t have a picture of that.

They were also barely filling the boxes at the start, then when they came to the last room, they told me I had too much stuff and they were running out of boxes. I was booked in for ten cubic metres, they said, and was already taking up fifteen. I asked if it was likely I would be charged more and they said it was quite possible.

By that point, I was seriously starting to feel quite panicky. The move was already costing £6,000. If they charged me half as much again, it was quite possibly going to end up costing more than it would have done to replace everything. They were urging me to come in and decide which items were most important. This was in the last room, where I had actually already sorted everything out from the garage and other rooms, so everything in there was really non negotiable. Ignoring their urging, I walked away, found the Pickford’s e-mail, copied down the phone number and called them. To my relief, someone answered immediately. I explained the situation and he assured me he would find out what was going on and would get back to me. He also told me that he could immediately tell me that the information they had given me was wrong as I was booked in for twelve cubic metres.

I can see from my phone records that I called them shortly after three in the afternoon. Given that they weren’t meant to arrive until three and this was them packing the last of my stuff, you can probably imagine the whirlwind that had rushed through my house. The man from Pickford’s called me back half an hour later, by which time the van had departed. He asked me what they had told me when they rang to say they were coming a day early and I told him. Apparently they had told Pickford’s that they had called and asked me if it was okay to come today. I assured him that wasn’t at all how the conversation had gone. He also said I had been booked in for twelve cubic metres and the final load was fourteen, and that the extra was no problem at all. My furniture will likely be placed in storage until I can find a house, so he said he would arrange for the first month of storage to be free.

After the call ended, I sat down on one of the kitchen stools and spent a few minutes looking out at the snowy mountain and the winter trees, pulling myself together. It felt like a sad ending to my life in Fagerfjellveien. I had expected to spend one last night in the house and that had also been taken away from me, along with the unwrapped beds. I had messaged Shirley at quarter to three so ask if I could stay the night. She messaged me back to say yes, just before four. Abandoning all thoughts of any more tidying, I set out to Shirley’s house. Wonderful woman that she is, she opened a bottle of wine and fed me comfort food, then installed me in front of the TV to watch Hearbeat with a dog on my knee, before going out to a prearranged yoga class.

I spent Thursday (which I had booked as a holiday so I could supervise the removal company) sorting out all the things that had been left behind and trying to empty the house. John came after work with a friend’s trailer and we took the washing machine and some broken furniture to the refuse centre. Then after that, I made my way along the icy backroads to Konstantin’s house. He is cat sitting for Ann at the moment, but had agreed to give me a bed for the nights when I have to be up early for work the next day. I made myself a lovely curry and then went to bed.

Friday was another enjoyable day at work, carrying out the routine live animal inspections as well as tidying up a few loose ends . To my delight, Ingrid sent out next week’s rota and summarized the week at the weekly are Teams meeting. She is already integrating herself into the team, joining Trude and Konstantin in being efficient and really getting things done. Thomas also said in the meeting that he hoped I would come back, which was lovely.

Last night there was a party in Finnsnes. We had lovely tapas and Hilde summarised my time with Mattilsynet and presented me with a beautiful book with photos and descriptions of Senja. It was a lovely end to a mostly pleasant week and also a celebration of my time spent here in wonderful Troms in the north of Norway. And while this will be my last dispatches from the far north, I will carry on blogging for a while. I hope you will all come with me now on my new journey.

Wild Running

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

Sunrise/sunset: 07:51/17:14 Daylength: 9hr23min

I want to start with a quick update on a couple of things. Several people have asked me about the guinea pigs, so I guess I missed out on saying that Bowen, who cut my lawn throughout the summer, agreed to take them for his children. Bowen is from a farming background and is very good with animals, so I have no doubt they are being well cared for.

And earlier in the week, Kaj surprised me in asking whether he could buy the car. We have agreed a price and he will take it over on the last day before I leave. I was slightly nervous until yesterday as he hadn’t driven the car yet, but he took it out for a spin while I was in the meeting and seemed to be very satisfied. I can honestly say that I am delighted. Not only is it extremely convenient for me to have the car right up until the last moment, I also like both Kaj and the car well enough for me to be glad they will be taking lots of road trips together.

Yesterday was like some kind of dream, though it began with a nightmarish tone. I got into work and opened an e-mail from Hilde that asked about a case document that’s been sitting in my inbox for months. I had made some limited moves to follow it up, and had asked for some help, but should have asked for more, rather than naively believing it was something that it was all in hand. Actions should have been taken when it came in and weren’t and that was down to me. There was another case too that had gone wrong. Not entirely my fault this time, but there were things I should have done that again, I forgot. I am rationally aware that I am no longer fully functional, yet on another level, I don’t feel incapacitated enough to take sick leave. Hilde is fortunately so level headed that she is cheerfully dealing with everything, without seemingly allocating blame or changing her opinion of me as a reasonably competent person. That in itself, feels like a miracle.

But from a poor start, the day quickly improved. Some of Konstantin’s old colleagues from Latvia had arranged to visit the abattoir. Konstantin and I spent a few hours last week organising a program for them, which included a tour of the laboratory where they test samples of meat for various bacteria and parasites, a presentation from the Health and Safety Lead, a trip into the big hall where the carcases are skinned and cleaned, and a tour of the lairage, where the live animals are kept. Hilde came too, to welcome the visitors and to tell them a little about Mattilsynet. There was a lot of interesting discussion, ranging from the domestic animal population on Svalbard (almost a thousand dogs, but few other animals, in order to protect the unique environment) to how border control with Russia had changed as a result of recent hostilities.

As well as the official visit to the abattoir, Konstantin had arranged with a local Sami acquaintance to take a trip to see reindeer afterwards. I was due to work on the sheep line yesterday. Ingrid filled in for me while I was in the meeting, but I was expected to take over from her when the visitors left. I had hoped that the sheep line would be finished early enough for me to go with them to see the reindeer, but by the time they were due to leave, there were still too many sheep left. As Ernestas and I went to the line, we met Konstantin in the corridor and I regretfully told him that I wouldn’t be able to go.

However, I had reckoned without the generosity of Vaidotas and Ernestas. Having heard my exchange with Konstantin, Ernestas accosted Vaidotas when he arrived on the line to relieve me half an hour later. Between them, the urged me to go and say goodbye to the reindeer while I had the chance.

By the time I was ready, almost an hour had passed since Konstantin had left, but I drove out to Andsvatn where the reindeer had been gathered, hoping that I would still catch up with the party. When I pulled up, I couldn’t see Konstantin’s car, but there was a big people carrier there, so I thought they might have all come together. I couldn’t, however, see anyone. There were a few reindeer on the far side of a high fence, through a big, securely tied wooden gate. Konstantin had told me that Per Mathis (who owns the small, family run reindeer abattoir) had told him that visitors were fine, so long as they closed the gates, but this one was so heavy and so securely tied, that I knew I didn’t want to attempt it.

Just as I was about to get back in my car, another car drew up and a woman got out. I asked her whether she knew if Konstantin was still here and explained he and I worked at Mattilsynet and sometimes did meat inspection at Andsvatn. She didn’t know, but assured me someone else would be along shortly, who might know, and sure enough, within a couple of minutes, a youngish man arrived on a snowmobile. He told me that he had no idea if they were still there, but that if I walked round to the back of the building we were parked beside and followed the snowmobile tracks up the hill, I would probably find them, if they were.

By this time, another woman had arrived with her daughter. She had a rucksack with her, which she rearranged and filled with provisions while I watched and I wondered whether she was going to stop the night somewhere. She and I spoke a little, but I found it hard to understand her, or more specifically, what she was referring to. Still, she seemed to know where she was going and seemed happy enough for me to tag along behind them. We walked up the hill together, her with her snow poles and me in my natty red suede boots, that probably were not designed for trudging along snowy trails, but which fortunately had enough grip to serve me well.

It was a beautiful sunny day, and though they were distant, I could see reindeer in all directions. Many of them were on the move and they were calling to one another – a kind of guttural grunting that sounded primeval under the wonderful blue sky. I felt as if I was entering a kind of dream like state, such was my delight at seeing and hearing these wonderful animals. I was also aware that this was something I was unlikely to experience again, so I was taking my time, drinking it all in.

As we walked over the brow of a hill, there was a fence in front of us. Behind it, a few reindeer ran past and then a few minutes later, a couple more. There were reindeer in the field where we were walking too, but still they were distant and I found myself hoping that we would be able to get closer. The tracks turned left here and we followed them between two fences, where there were a few snowmobiles parked. A black and brown dog watched us from one of them, but made no move as we passed. Beyond them, I could see a high wooden fence with a door. And now there were reindeer much closer.

We reached the door in the fence and it opened. The woman and her daughter walked in and I followed them through. To my amazement, I found myself inside a high-walled wooden corral. There were people there, some working, some watching, as well as a few reindeer, though as I looked around, there was no sign of Konstantin and his visitors. Some of the men were wearing traditional Sami dress, brightly coloured tunics and hats with intricate embroidered patterns. Others were wearing traditional Norwegian woollen sweaters, blue with red and white patterns over the shoulders and top of the chest. An older woman wore a brightly coloured fur hat with small flag-like embroidered projections. Unlike me, everyone else was dressed suitably for the temperature.

There was a moment, a long time ago, when my parents lived in the north of Scotland. A friend visited me in the summer holiday and we decided to walk to the local pub, half an hour away. We pushed open the door to the bar, which was filled with people and chatter, and stood there as the voices dropped away and every eye in the pub turned our way. It wasn’t quite that bad, because many people in the corral were working and the reindeer were circling, but the feeling of being an unexpected stranger was not dissimilar. Everyone else here probably knew who everyone else was. Per Mathis might have recognised me, and perhaps one or two others, but I really didn’t know any of the men I worked with two years ago well enough to talk to or recognise, and anyway, they were busy.

But as I looked round, to my enormous relief, I saw a friendly face. Merete who works as a technician at the abattoir was there. She has been off for a long time with a shoulder injury and I had half expected that I wouldn’t see her again, but there she was, opening and closing the gate one handedly, a part of this wonderful extended family scene.

And so I stood a while and watched as the reindeer were sorted. The traditional Sami method for identifying reindeer is to cut nicks in their ears in different places. Each family has a distinctive pattern, though the reindeer’s ears were so furry that it seemed remarkable that they could see which reindeer were theirs and then capture them as they circled past.

Having caught an animal by the antlers, they would tug them over to one of several gates around the corral, each of which led to a different field. Some were injected with wormer, some were marked on their rumps or their legs, and then they were allowed to go. When there were only a few animals left, a gate was opened and the remainder rushed through. Another, bigger gate on the far side was opened. Some of the workers went out , selected another group, isolated them from the herd with a huge tarpaulin that they stretched out between them, and guided the new group into the corral.

And now there were so many reindeer that I could have reached out and touched them as they passed. How beautiful they were, and how wild, with their wary eyes and velvet antlers. I could feel a deep happiness building inside of me, that I was having the honour of witnessing this wonderful gathering. I began to notice other details, like the lavvo – a traditional wigwam-like sami tent – on the far side outside the corral. There must have been a fire inside as there was wood smoke rising from the centre of the canvas roof. There was frost beginning to nip my fingers, but I stood there entranced as the reindeer flowed past me, circling round the corral as they probably have done for hundreds of years.

But as the animals were sorted, and the number in the corral dwindled, I began to feel the chill of minus three entering my bones. Merete had gone away to find some entertainment for her toddler godson and there was no sign that she was coming back. Straightening up, I opened the door I hade come in through, stepped back outside the corral and began to make my way back down the hill. I hadn’t taken any photographs inside. This was a family gathering, and not my family. But I took a few photos as I walked back, though as always, when photographing wild(ish) animals, I regretted not having a camera with a zoom lens.

Still, despite the lack of photographs, I hope I have done enough to paint you a picture of what I recognise was one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences: one that was all the better for being unexpected.

That wonderful feeling of deep happiness is something that will stay with me for a long time.

Organisation and Offloading

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

Sunrise/sunset: 06:30/18:48 Daylength: 12hr40min

My laptop is dying. It will be a sad farewell, because when I depart, I will leave it behind. If I wasn’t moving, I would probably buy a new one and pop this one on a shelf somewhere. It can’t be sent with my furniture, even if it was worth sending, as lithium batteries are not allowed. It’s heavy too.

If it was still working properly, I would take it, even though it will take me almost a week to travel by land and sea to bring Triar to the UK and all I take will have to be lugged around in the hand which isn’t holding Triar’s lead. I will have to carry his food and blankets and my clothes, as well as packing all my important documents, which you are also advised not to send with the removal company. Being attached to objects is pointless of course, but I have written six published books on this computer and have all my photographs stored for this blog and it will be quite hard to part with it, but part we must!

The season is in full swing at the abattoir. This years crop of lambs are coming in before the long hard winter sets in. Vaidotas and Ernestas have returned from Lithuania for a few months and the whole place feels fully alive. I’m still teamcoordinator and also the veterinarian who carries the responsibility for everything from animal welfare to hygiene, but now I am training my new colleague Ingrid to do all the tasks I’ve acquired over the last year. Hopefully, she will have a bit more idea what she is doing than I did as I felt my way through all the unfamiliar tasks after the season ended last year. She certainly retains information much better than I do!

Of course, I am juggling my job with all the logistics of an international house move, which is seriously interfering with my capacity to remember things. Last week I bought tickets for the overnight ferry from Stavanger to Hirtshalls. This week, I have bought the train tickets to connect up that journey with the ferry from Amsterdam to Newcastle. This will involve travelling first to Hamburg, where we will stay in a pet friendly hotel for the night, and then the next day, the shorter leg from Hamburg to Amsterdam. I also phoned a veterinary practice in Amsterdam and have booked Triar in for the Echinococcus worming treatment he needs before he can enter the UK.

The snowline on the mountains has been going up and down a bit. On Thursday morning it was minus three when I went outside to the car (and minus six at one point on the drive to work) but the temperature has risen again, and according to the weather forecast, will hopefully not drop below zero again in the next week.

This weekend, I need to get my car into shape. Selling it is the last big challenge and something I find quite daunting. There are instructions on the state highways website, which include a directive not to transfer ownership until the money is in your bank account. There’s also the small matter of needing a car to get around. I guess if it sells quickly, I can get a rental car for a few weeks. Hopefully the price I get will be enough to cover the expenses and there’s no doubt it will be a great weight off my mind, which is something worth paying a little bit for. I had hoped to sell to a dealership, but the price difference between what I could theoretically get selling it privately and selling to a dealer is so huge that it’s worth taking the risk.

The pictures this week were all taken on Thursday, when I went outside to find the world was sparkling with frost under a clear morning sky. It wasn’t quite hoar frost, but hopefully there will be some, before I leave. Have a good week all!

Happy Place

Holiday, In Darkness and In Light, Travel, , , ,

It’s been an interesting week. I’ll start with an update on the water situation. The temporary fix with the tank and pump failed on Sunday due to an airlock. Sunday wasn’t great, but the main concern was still that it might be tough and costly to get the problem sorted out.

On Monday, the representative for the insurance company came back and quickly fixed the airlock (this time I remembered to ask him how he did it. After that, he went off to speak to the owner of the house nearest the well. He called me back about an hour later. Apparently the other house owner had actually begun to run out of water on Friday evening, but despite having our phone number, he hadn’t thought to tell us. There was an ice bridge blocking the stream further up, which meant the well had gradually emptied. Our water disappeared first because our pipe was highest up. So the mystery was solved and (thank goodness) no major digging works were required. So all in all, a bit inconvenient, but several lessons learned about where everything is and what to check if it happens again!

We had an interesting case at the abattoir on Wednesday. Some animals were sent in that were thin enough to set the alarm bells ringing, not only in me, but in the abattoir workers that work with the live animals. It’s almost a physical punch to see animals that are so obviously struggling. It’s quite a big job when we start to document such a case. I took a number of photographs while the animals were still in the pen, though I was worried enough about them that I didn’t go in and stir them up. The last thing I want to do is cause any additional distress.

I asked the animal handlers to call me back when the time came for the animals to be slaughtered. That way, I could photograph and handle them when they were already restrained. I then went back and sent messages to Hilde and Thomas. This case was serious enough to warrant immediate follow up.

I came back to examine the animals as they were being brought onto the line. It wasn’t reassuring. Close up, the animals were distressingly thin. The animal handlers obviously felt the same as I did and while it was upsetting, at least I was doing my utmost to make sure we had plenty of evidence.

The farm where the animals came from has been on our radar for a while, but things had been improving, so this was a real blow. But there was a curveball on the way, because after the animals had been killed, it was discovered that quite a large percentage of them had very unpleasant looking lung lesions.

Having spent some time inspecting the lungs, it was obvious we needed to find out what disease this was. So having photographed the carcasses and the lungs (evidence of everything must be recorded) I sent off various samples to the lab. It doesn’t sound so much when I write it down, but with all the extra tasks in addition to my normal work, it ended up being a ten hour working day. I spoke to Hilde and Thomas after I had finished and Thomas had already set up a visit for the next day.

I had been planning to catch up on some paperwork on Thursday as Ann was coming in to cover my morning shift, but I really wanted to be involved in the follow-up and so, mentally casting aside the reindeer overtime fees calculation checks I had been sent, I asked Thomas if I could join him and he agreed.

Though the thinness of the animals had been distressing, the farm visit was actually somewhat reassuring. There were thin animals there as well, and though things weren’t perfect, various steps were being taken. The grass is starting to grow now, so some of the problems will resolve once the animals are back outside and major plans for improvement are under way. But now we also have to throw in the possibility of some kind of infection on the farm. Once we know what caused the lung problems, then we will have to work out how to manage the problem. That could involve anything from a new vaccination program, right up to mass culling. Either way, we will be offering whatever support we can to the farmer, who has already expressed himself as being very grateful for any insight we can give on what’s going wrong.

This is the kind of work I signed up for when I chose to be a vet. I know there are times when it is incredibly heavy work, but at the end of the day, this really is what I want to be doing.

But as you can see from the photo at the top of the page, I am now a very long way from all that. I flew into Manchester yesterday, into the chaos of a failure in the electronic passport system. Having survived that, I am now back in beautiful Yorkshire, where the summer is coming in. There are fat, healthy cattle in the field behind the house and everything in the garden is beginning to bloom. And now I can hear that mum and dad are up and the kettle is on, so I will drop a few photos here and then go and join them. Have a lovely week everyone!



Somebody Else’s Slaughterhouse

Blog, Life in Norway, Travel, , , , ,

Sunrise/sunset: 03:04/22:29 Daylength: 19hr24min

A quick warning – this post contains details of the workings and meat processing in an abattoir, so if you don’t want to read about that, this probably isn’t for you!

The year is sliding on by at a great rate now. It’s only a couple of weeks until we will have twenty four hour daylight, though there is still snow on the ground and no sign of any plant life growing. It was lovely then, to fly down to Rogaland in south west Norway: my old stomping ground, where I lived for twelve years before moving north. I had a wonderful feeling of nostalgia when I saw the green fields and gently rolling landscape as we flew in to Sola and then later as I travelled down to Egersund by train.

A peaceful scene, taken from the platform at Klepp Stasjon on the journey between Sandnes and Egersund

There was a degree of nostalgia in visiting the abattoir in Egersund as well. I worked in a temporary, part time post with Mattilsynet in Rogaland, and though I never worked at Nortura Egersund, I had colleagues who worked there, and other colleagues from the area came along to take part in the audit, so it was lovely to catch up with a few old friends as well.

You have probably gathered from my posts over the past few months, that my entry into the world of responsibility for the goings on in Nortura Målselv (where I currently work) have been somewhat chaotic. There are things I am in charge of (including legal EU requirements for certain inspections and audits) that I still feel I am wading into, as they are not set out as clearly as I would like. It was good then, to see how my colleague, Inna, runs her abattoir, and I have returned home with a whole raft of new ideas and paperwork, that I will have to present to my colleagues in the north, so that we can work out what is useful and how we can implement it.

The key activity I was there to observe was a hygiene audit, and that was very interesting. I have carried out a lot of inspections, which examine how things are working on the ground, and whether any laws are being broken. An audit takes a step back from that. It examines the management processes within the slaughterhouse, firstly to check whether there are clear processes in place which, if followed correctly, would properly ensure hygiene is adequate, and secondly an assessment of whether those procedures are actually being put into practice. Obviously there’s no use in having wonderful paperwork, outlining how everything should be done, if that information is not then disseminated to the people doing the job.

I felt like there was a very thorough examination carried out. There was a lot of intensive reading of the operating procedures, which required those carrying out the audit to have a firm understanding of the laws underpinning the functionality of the abattoir, as well as a good knowledge of how things were being done along the line. I can see that the oversight of the latter is something that I am lacking at the moment. Inna told me that she had been advised by an earlier boss, that she should take a tour along the line most days and just observe what was being done at the different stations. I guess most people have never seen this process, but after the animal is killed, the carcase is hung up and travels along the line, where at various stations, removing the skin is followed by removing the inner organs, and gradually along until the carcase has been fully cleaned and is ready to be cut up for meat. There are lots of points in this where the meat could be contaminated, from contact with the skin at the beginning, to contact with the floor (generally with very oversized animals, such as large bulls) towards the end.

Any contamination, whether through soiling with gut contents or from an unsterilised knife, could mean that the meat ends up with too many bacteria on it, which could make the difference between a joint that is safe to eat and one that isn’t. As well as there being instructions on how contamination can be minimised, there also has to be recognition that sometimes, it does happen, so then there must be procedures for how to handle those affected carcases as well. This can include trimming of obviously soiled areas, wrapping and treatment of the surface with steam, or throwing away any parts that are considered not suitable for human consumption. Intermittent tests are also carried out for the presence of certain bacteria, such as salmonella, and if those are found, then the entire batch might be cooked (which kills the bacteria) and sold as a finished product, rather than sending out raw goods that might pose a public health risk.

It was also a treat to stay in Egersund. It is a pretty little town, partly made up of narrow streets lined with painted wooden houses. The hotel I stayed in had been created from some of those wooden houses, which were now integrated as part of a more modern building.

This is my room, with its lovely sloping ceiling. It was on the top floor of the green house on the outdoor picture – what looks like a row of houses has now been integrated inside into a medium sized hotel. The photo on the right, with its green walls and false windows, is part of the original external wall of the green house, which now makes up the decor in the inner well of the hotel within a glass walled stairwell, which winds around a lift.

Egersund is quite well served with good restaurants, and it was difficult to choose between Indian food, sushi and good quality pizza for the one evening meal I ate there. I chose Indian, in the end, as the nearest Indian to me in the north, is in Tromsø. Andrew is moving down to Stavanger in the summer though, so I think we will take a tour around when I travel down with him. Egersund will definitely be on the list of places to revisit.

On my way back, I stayed overnight with Wivek, who owns Triar’s mum. It was lovely to catch up with her and her family, who made me feel very welcome.

Triar’s mum, Trifli

All in all, it was a very useful visit. I have a much better grasp on what an audit entails, and specifically on how a hygiene audit should be carried out. I’m still not sure that I’m ready to have overall responsibility to carry out our own audit, but whether I will have to carry out the audit with help from knowledgeable local colleagues, or whether I can ask for support from one of my more experienced colleagues from the south west, will be up to my boss.

Tree blossom in Wivek’s garden. Spring has definitely arrived in Rogaland

Marching Onward

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

Sunrise/sunset: 03:42/21:52 Daylength: 18hr09min

I have the strangest feeling, at the moment, that the river of life is plunging forwards while I am treading water. Everything seems to be happening at speed and I feel as if I’m being carried forward. I’m keeping my head above water and have been doing so for some time, but that is all I have the energy for. It probably sounds horrible, but somehow it isn’t. I am being carried in a direction I want to go, and if I keep treading water, I will get there.

That probably sounds odd or fanciful, but the reality is that I was dragged quite low by the winter and the whole Mr Abusive saga, but I have coped and now things are heading in a better direction. Having lived quite a long time now, I recognise these feelings: though getting older certainly intensifies the tiredness. When I was younger, it would have taken a much longer time to analyse and recover, I think, but I know that this is what life is like. There are ups and downs, and sometimes we have to ride through them.

There has been so much to do at work recently, that there hasn’t been time to do anything but the basic tasks that keep everything ticking over. I think I touched on the number of people who were signed off sick a couple of weeks back, but my two trustworthy and knowledgeable colleagues, Trude and Konstantin, were both on sick leave at the same time and that was in addition to two other colleagues who have been absent for a long time. So over Easter, I was was first in line with responsibility for everything that went on in the abattoir. All the routine tasks that normally are done without me really noticing them, were mine to remember. There were checklists and post-it notes everywhere!

Konstantin unfortunately become sick with Covid during his holiday. He was due to come back on Tuesday, though I hadn’t put him in the rota until Thursday as I thought he might need travelling time; he had driven home to Latvia, rather than flying. On Monday, I had intended to work in the Finnsnes office as I had a dentist’s appointment, but I knew that if any animals had been emergency slaughtered over the weekend, I would likely have to drive to the abattoir to check them as there was nobody else to do it. When the message came in that there were four cattle that had been brought in over the weekend, it became a certainty that I would have to go. Four is the maximum capacity for the room where the carcases are hung, so leaving them wasn’t really an option. Driving to the abattoir and carrying out post mortem controls on four animals would have taken a massive chunk out of my working day.

Imagine my surprise then, when Konstantin’s face appeared on the screen in the Teams meeting first thing in the morning. He had come back a day early! With Konstantin back, he would take the emergency slaughter cattle and any other bits and bobs that aren’t very big or difficult, but nonetheless are time consuming. There were a million things I probably should have caught up on, but having gone to the dentist’s (my teeth are in good order, apparently – very well cleaned!) and seen what a lovely day it was, I decided to take the afternoon off. The picture at the top of the page was taken on my way home. Not that I did much, but it was lovely just to kick back and relax.

And now, with Konstantin and Trude back, I finally have some time on my hands again. By happy coincidence, Mattilsynet have finally got their act together and have completed the training course to become an Official Veterinarian in the abattoir. The abattoir is officially not meant to run without one, so I have been acting as one anyway, but it will be lovely if I can finally qualify! There are suddenly four new modules to get through, most of which I can tackle in between other work, but the last module was a task that was only announced recently. As part of the role, I will perform various annual audits in the abattoir and this year’s is a hygiene audit. Though I’ve passed the auditing exam, I need to observe at least three audits before I can qualify. I’ve been struggling to find any to observe and so, when I saw the task in the last module was to observe a hygiene audit, I was quite worried that I wouldn’t manage it before the August deadline.

Happily I have contacts down in south west Norway, where I used to work part time for Mattilsynet. I contacted my old boss, who sounded very pleased to hear from me. Better still, there is a hygiene audit next week down in Egersund and so, on Monday I am flying down to Stavanger, then taking the train to Egersund, where I will meet up with some of the lovely people I used to work with. It will be spring down there, I think. I’m hoping for some sunshine. I’ve already started looking through some of the paperwork for the audit and I think I’m going to learn a lot.

Good Job!

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Sunrise/sunset: 05:55/19:51 Daylength: 13hr55min

I am not going to say much about last week’s case. Thank you so much to all of you who reached out to me with both comfort and bracing advice. One lovely friend advised me to “Shake the dust off [my] sandals and move on.” Given my job, I think that “Hose the bullshit off your wellies” might be a more apt version, but the advice is good. As a quick summary, I haven’t paid yet. I shall pay at the last possible moment. I know it isn’t clear cut enough for a court case, but I have in mind a complaint as the person who was supposed to represent me was obviously as much use as a leaking wellie boot in an undrained pig pen. I have therefore reached out to two sources who know Norwegian law well and will (hopefully) give me free advice. My therapist suggested I should do as much as I felt was reasonable before moving on and that is what I am doing.

Last weekend, John and I drove to the top of the fell he and I climbed in May last year. Unless otherwise stated, the photographs this week are taken from there.

I had planned a much more upbeat post last week, before the doomsday judgment arrived, so I shall revert to what I was talking about, which is that, exhausting though it is, I am increasingly enjoying my job. There are parts of it that probably don’t seem too attractive to many. Back in the UK, I quite enjoyed filling in forms neatly, creating clear, useful instructions for how to perform complex activities and writing reports. Though it’s more challenging to do all that in Norwegian, it does make up quite a chunk of my job. It pleases me though, that I am quite efficient at it. Some of my colleagues don’t like to write reports, but have other, complementary skills. We have to carry out inspections in the abattoir, for example. I don’t (yet) have the knowledge that others who have worked there long time have, but I am delighted to follow them and learn from them, and then write up the summary of findings afterwards.

I also like problem solving and don’t mind responsibility. I qualified as a vet at 22. Suddenly I found myself out in the real world, having to take huge responsibilities that I hadn’t even considered when I was training, probably because I was too young. It was a gruelling experience, but young minds adjust, and adjust mine did. And it’s not like I am alone, as I often found myself in veterinary practice in the UK. If there are things I need to find out in order to resolve a case, I have a whole team of people round me. Better still, I have a boss who believes in me, gives pragmatic advice and is generally supportive if something goes wrong. Those things are beyond price when the job you do includes significant power and comes with high moral obligations.

But as well as all the heavy stuff, there are brighter moments, when I feel I am being paid to do something that is so light that I could happily do it on holiday. At the end of last week, we had a gathering of Team Dyrego, which is the team responsible for animal health and welfare out in the field. We are scattered far and wide – Birgit and Astrid are in Storslett, which is nearly four hours driving from Finnsnes. Thomas and I work in Finnsnes and Anya and Annik work in Tromsø, which is perhaps half way between, though also not on a direct route between the two. These team meetings generally take a similar format. We drive to meet on Thursday, taking some inspections along the way, spend a night in a hotel, then hold a meeting the next day to share information and plan for the coming season. Some of the team were covering heavy cases on the way there, but as I am now mostly working in the abattoir, my inspections were routine. In order to comply with traceability regulations, we have to check a certain number of farms each year to see if they are eartagging their animals in line with European law. And in order to maintain our disease status for TSEs (Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy – which can occur in many species, but the most famous is “mad cow disease”) we have to go out, inform about the symptoms and remind 10% of our sheep farmers of their obligations for testing.

I almost didn’t go. Due to people being signed off sick, I thought I would have to work in the abattoir, but my lovely colleague, Kaj, stepped in. On Tuesday, I was quailing as I didn’t think I had enough time for preparation for a day’s inspections, but he also stepped up on Wednesday, so I threw some stuff together, spent an hour on Thursday morning compiling a list of possible farms and phone numbers, and then headed out on a delicious sunny day to visit some farmers. Because of the short notice, I hadn’t warned them I was coming. We are now allowed to do so if there is a good reason (the sheer distance and the chances of sheep farmers being out as most have day jobs is reason enough) so I had no idea how successful I would be, but I had planned for six and hoped for at least two or three.

I had a hit with the first farm I went to. I knew it was a smallholding, so I thought it would be a nice one to start with. The farmer was in and what’s more, she was very welcoming. I have commented before that we are considered by some to be rather like the police. When we turn up at the door, it can be a worrying experience for an animal owner. But quite a few farmers seem to regard us as an agency they can look to for help and advice, and that is part of our role as well. So I asked her some questions and she asked me some, and then we looked at her sheep. They were a traditional Norwegian breed (Gammel Norsk Spælsau) with wonderfully thick wool and a hardy nature. They lived mostly outside, all through the winter, though with a sturdy, dry shelter, good food and clean water. Seeing well looked after animals is a pleasure for me that goes very deep.

It was a beautiful day in Bardu district.

After that, I didn’t have so much success. The GPS in the car had died, but I made my way round with Google Maps, taking care to ensure I didn’t drain my phone’s battery too much. It was minus twenty in places, so if the car broke down altogether, being stranded would be unsafe. I finally tracked down another farm with someone who could show me round. The farmer himself was away moving snow, but he had employed a young Dutch woman, who was available. She showed me the sheep, which were also well cared for and gave me warming coffee. I left there at about two in the afternoon and, hoping to get one more, I visited another two farms, but one had only a very old lady on crutches present and the other had moved to keeping cattle, due to living in close proximity to a bear that liked eating sheep (mentioned in my very first post here).

And so, having enjoyed a very pleasant day at work, I drove up to Vollan Gjestestue, where we spent the night in comfort (see pictures of cake and fruit from our meeting below). It was lovely to meet up with my colleagues and one of my aims is to improve the links between the abattoir team and the team out in the field. Together, I think we will have a great knowledge base and it’s a way that I can focus on improving animal welfare, which should surely be the aim of any vet.

The past week has also been satisfying. Konstantin is now on holiday, so he has been intensively teaching me about all the routine work he does in the abattoir. I had assumed I would assimilate these routines over time but, with everyone who knows how to do them now absent, it will be up to me to keep things ticking over for the next two weeks.

It was looking like things were going to be quiet, but there has been heavy snow and wind over the last few days. There was news last night of some horrifying avalanches in our area and I know that some farms and farmers have been affected. Where there are welfare issues, I know Mattilsynet will be involved. We are second in line to be called in, after the emergency services. So I am not sure what is on the way, but I sent a message to my boss last night that I was available if I was needed. She was still working, despite being on holiday. That is how it is and I can honestly say that I would always want to help, when there are people and animals in need. Despite occasional frustrations, doubts, and wishes for a quieter life, I know I am in the right job. Bring it on.

What a Difference

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Sunrise/sunset: 08:03/16:02 Daylength: 7hr59min

Last week was all about the snow. When it was coming down and down and down, it was almost as if it was lying heavily in my mind, rather than just on the roof; there was a real feeling of never-ending work coming at me. I took a photo of a snow drift that had formed beside the garage, that was both beautiful and daunting in its sheer volume.

Large snow drift that formed beside the garage, during last weekend’s storm.

As you can probably see, the drift reached almost to the roof. There are still huge piles of snow along the front and back of the house. It gathered on the roof, then partially melted and fell off in huge quantities, to the point where we couldn’t keep up with it. Doubtless there will be more before the winter is out, but as summer time comes nearer, and the sun returns it has begun to feel less daunting.

It’s been very much milder this week and though there is still a thick covering of snow, the relentless feeling has gone. Quite apart from anything else, Andrew and I are going on holiday in two week’s time and it’s finally close enough that I can begin to properly look forward to it. We are heading to the UK. I expect there will be signs of spring there, in the south at least. We are also meeting Anna and Lauren, as well as my parents and hopefully, my sister Helen. I expect it will whizz by, but by the time we return, we will be well into March.

I had an interesting case at the abattoir this week. A batch of pigs came in and two of them had clear signs of a bacterial disease: erysipelas (rødsyke in Norwegian). I’ve never seen it before, but some of its symptoms are so distinctive that I remember them from university. The pigs I saw had very classic, diamond-shaped, raised red patches on their skin. The other thing I remembered from university is that it is a zoonosis – it can spread to different species, including people. The bacteria can survive a long time in infected meat, even if it’s kept chilled, so it’s important that infected pigs are kept out of the food chain. I also had to call the farmer and make sure he understood the risks and would take suitable precautions.

There was also an article on the front page of Mattilsynet’s intranet this week about the fact that tuberculosis had been picked up a some time ago in an abattoir further south. The investigation and (hopefully) eradication process is ongoing, but the article pointed out that though meat inspection is often seen as the poor relation in terms of importance when it comes to animal health and welfare, it can play a hugely significant role in keeping people and animals safe.

I have also been out on some welfare visits this week for the first time since the autumn. It was good to get out and about, and happily both the animals we went to see were not at risk. Thomas and I also went out to pick up a stray cat, only to find it had been picked up by Dyrebeskyttelsen (a Norwegian animal welfare charity) two hours before we got there. Our travels took us over to the far side of Senja, where the snow was largely gone at ground level. It is amazing how much difference in temperature the gulf stream brings, even this far north, though you can see the thick ice on the left, where the snow has been flattened in a car-parking area. Ice takes a lot longer to melt than snow.

Skaland, Senja

With the higher temperatures outside, the temperature in the house has also been more stable. The larger, more powerful heat exchanger I bought on moving in still wasn’t enough to keep the house properly warm when it was minus twenty outside. The wood stove has been wonderful though, and has been of particular interest to Triar. For most of his life we have lived in apartments in the cellars of other people’s houses, which is relatively common in Norway. Neither of our flats had fires or stoves and so he has always curled up on the couch beside us. But I had begun to notice that, now and then, he would go and lie in front of the wood stove when it was on. He didn’t lie there for long though and it crossed my mind that, in the UK, almost everyone I know has some kind of rug in front of the fire and a rug would be much more comfortable to lie on than laminate. And so, we have got Triar a sheepskin to lie on near the fire. As you can see, he loves it very much. Hope you all have a good week.

Super Blue

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Sunrise/sunset: 09:08/14:56 Daylength: 5hr48min

I’ve seen the sun! I wasn’t even looking for it, but went outside at work on Monday just after ten o’clock and, to my amazement, there it was!

I don’t think the feeling of joy this gives can be understood until you’ve lived somewhere where there is a significant period when the sun doesn’t come over the horizon at all. Long cloudy spells, even in the south of Norway, were not the same. I had a visceral feeling of joy at this moment. When the sun isn’t out, the light here is still super blue. I will add some other photos later, taken on a couple of different days this week, and you will see what I mean.

This winter has been hard. The snow came early and there has been a lot of it and on top of that, the temperature changes have been crazy. One day it’s minus twenty, the next it can be above zero. We badly needed the wood that Ann brought because this year has demonstrated that our house is not really insulated well enough. At super-cold temperatures, even the lovely new, powerful heat exchanger I bought doesn’t really cut it and the electricity bill last month was heinous. On the coldest days, when we come home, it can be thirteen or fourteen degrees in the house, which isn’t super-freezing, but isn’t comfortable to sit in. The wood stove solves the problem, but it takes a couple of hours to really start warming the place up. Before next winter, I will be getting new insulation in the loft and I hope that will make a significant difference.

As regular readers will know, I am in the process of moving jobs at the moment, though still within the Norwegian Food Safety Authority: Mattilsynet. I have spent most of this week working in the abattoir, where I am rapidly learning how to do new tasks, in particular to do with administration. The two main aims are to ensure that the food produced is safe and to ensure that animal welfare is high and though the first is very important, it is the second that interests me more.

For the first time this week, I have come across a situation where I am going to have to issue a fine. In Norway, it is illegal to send cows to the abattoir within the last month before they are due to calve. As their pregnancy progresses, the ligaments around the pelvis begin to loosen, and obviously as the calf gets bigger, it’s more likely that loading and unloading and travelling in general can result in pain or injury. In an odd coincidence, having not come across a case before, this week there were two.

In one of these, in my opinion, the farmer seems not to have been careful enough, though I believe he does still care about his animals. It’s not entirely up to me and Thomas explained that I will need to involve the animal welfare advisor before I make the decision, but it seems likely he will be fined. The other case was even sadder to deal with. I called the farmer and he told me that he’d had a vet out to check the cow for pregnancy and that the vet had got it wrong. It happens, of course. Mistakes do occur, but for the farmer it was a significant blow. He won’t be charged a fine as he sent me evidence, but his cow was pregnant with twins and he sounded very upset as he told me she was a good cow. Farming has to be one of the toughest professions there is.

Andrew is in his last year at school. He has known for a while that he wanted to go to folk high school for a year (before probably going on to university), but this was the week when many of them started accepting applications for next year, and to his enormous delight, he got into his first choice of school to study film. We had previously looked at ones closer to home, but the courses local t ous didn’t seem as well suited to what he wanted, and so he is going to move back to southwest Norway for a year. It will be strange without him, but I am delighted with how excited he seems. Anna spent a year studying computer game coding near Trondheim and I think she would agree it was one of the best years of her life so far – an uncomplicatedly happy time. As well as studying computing, there was an unexpected sideline at Torshus where they sang sea shanties and the culmination of the year was to sail a tall ship from Bergen to Shetland and back. It will be very interesting to see how Andrew’s school compares.

Last but not least, my mum is eighty years old today. I hope you have something lovely planned and I’m looking forward to celebrating with you in March when we come over. Happy birthday Mum!

New Beginnings

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Sunrise/sunset: Down all day

Is there anyone who doesn’t find themselves, at this time of year, reflecting on their life? As the new year comes in, it always feels like time to take stock of where I am, where I’m going and where I want to go.

There’s a lot happening at work at the moment. I am moving roles, from a focus on animal welfare out in the field, to animal welfare in the abattoir. They are advertising my old job for the second time now, without any notable success. I understand it is always harder to recruit people up here and perhaps working for Mattilsynet isn’t so attractive right now, partly as the wage is not competitive compared with other veterinary jobs, and perhaps because Mattilsynet is coming under a lot of flack at the moment. Still, I am thriving in my job. Though I can’t completely abandon my old role until I am replaced, there has been a significant change in focus.

I have gradually been taking on tasks related to meat inspection and now I have taken over the role of team coordinator for the team of vets and technicians who carry out Mattilsynet’s tasks in the abattoir. This role is partly administrative. I have to slot people into the rota and let them know what days they will be working sufficiently far ahead that they can work around it. There are currently only two staff who are full time in the abattoir and present: Trude and Konstantin. The rest of us work shifts there while based elsewhere, though it looks like I will be working there more than fifty percent of the time for the foreseeable future. I will need to get up to speed on what should be, rather than what is. Working permanently with a skeleton staff is harder on the permanent staff who are there than it should be, though for the past three years, we have been lucky enough to have enthusiastic and highly competent temporary staff, both in the season in autumn, and year round. Konstantin came for the season in 2021 and has been filling in for missing permanent staff now for almost a year and a half.

But as well as the admin side, I also represent the team, both in the wider department and on various committees, who work towards ensuring animal welfare and complying with the legal requirements we have to fulfil, and that is the role I am most looking forward to. Last week I wrote about Helene in Karasjok and Venche in Mo I Rana and I am excited to be working with them. I have masses to learn, and I love learning new things. I can also imagine a time, further into the future, when I will have learned enough “locally” (Mo I Rana and Karasjok are both about eight hours drive away from Andslimoen where I work) that it might be useful to travel further afield, to find out what abattoir workers in other parts of Norway do. For now though, that’s a long time away. I have my annual review next week though, so there is a lot to discuss with Hilde.

At home, things are reasonably stable, though I think we have messed up a bit with snow clearance. There was something of a thaw last week and all the snow slid off the garage roof. We hadn’t yet finished shifting the snow that had come off the house roof and the handle of the snow blower was broken. There wasn’t time to move it all by hand before the temperature dropped and it all froze again. So now we have huge piles of hard, icy snow around the house and the garage. Obviously it will melt eventually, but I think we probably ought to have cleared some of it to avoid the risk of too much build up through the rest of the winter and potential flooding when it does finally melt again. Only time will tell whether it will be problematic or not. Well, maybe some local people would be able to predict better than I can, but that’s the nature of living somewhere unfamiliar. Whatever comes, it will be dealt with when it arrives.

It continues to be very beautiful, though the tendency to hibernate is strong when it’s minus twenty outside. My pictures then, were taken around the house. The one at the top of the page, with the pink and blue sky, is from the veranda and here are two taken at night when Andrew and I went out on a duel mission to clear the pathway that allows him to get to the bus stop in the morning without walking on the main road and to give Triar some fresh air.

This is the house of our nearest neighbour. It looks very cosy with its mørketid lights.
The barn next door, with complementary aurora.

Anyway, I have to go now. In addition to everything else, I have some editing to do on my book. I told my agent I would have the changes to her by the beginning of next week, so I have to do it now. Deadlines are good for me when writing. Without them, the tendency for procrastination is way too strong.

Happy new year to everyone who has made it this far down the page, and I hope you have a good week!