Tag Archives: nature

Waiting for Workmen

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I’m short of photos for this week’s entry. In addition to a photo drought, I’ve also been struggling for steps. To my amazement, following the unexpected plumber completion after months of waiting, I’ve hit the jackpot because James the plasterer arrived on Tuesday morning, all ready to go. He was here yesterday and said he’d be back this morning.

So with all that in mind, I had hatched a cunning plan to get more photos and steps before I started to write. James told me he’d be here at eight (even checking if it was okay with me to come so early). So, I thought I could go out when he arrived, take Triar for a sunrise walk (steps!) somewhere pretty (photos!) then as a bonus, I could go for coffee and cake at the garden centre and maybe write this there.

I was rather looking forward to all of that, but my plans fell through when eight a.m. came and went, with no sign of James. This isn’t unexpected. James is a lovely man, singing cheerily as he does a fabulous plastering job, but as I discovered last year, he’s also a bit unreliable. I don’t honestly mind. The job he does is great and he seems to prioritize getting my work done (all his kit is in my house, I don’t think he’s off doing work elsewhere) but planning ahead based on when he’s said he’ll come is a pointless exercise.

Still, I’m incredibly happy that the work in my house is finally moving forward again. Once the plaster has dried, I need some decorating done and a couple of electrical installations completing before I can thinking about frivolities like carpets and curtains. It’s probably not going to quite be finished for Christmas, but I had been starting to wonder whether I was going to have to find a whole new team and priming them to take over the project, so for it to suddenly be moving forward again is fantastic.

In equally good news, my car went in for its MOT and service on Wednesday and passed with no problems. Last year, it cost me £2,000 for things that should really have been fixed before I bought it, so I was nervous about finding myself in similarly expensive hot water, but I heaved a sigh of relief when I was told it was all okay. A month before Christmas isn’t the best time for big bills.

Work has been frenetic. When is it ever anything else? If you’re in the UK, you might know already that the bird flu season has started in earnest in England. Well this week, there has also been a case in southern Scotland. It’s not in my area, but it’s had a knock on effect on everything. All the vets in that area are now going flat out. I had to take over as duty vet on Thursday, and all the higher up staff, who usually act as advisors when anything complicated comes up, are embroiled in managing the situation. All the birds will be culled and, in the meantime, animals and birds within a ten km radius are under lockdown, so any movements on or off their farms have to be assessed and licenced.

In the meantime, with that as background, two of my long-term welfare cases are being wound up. By the end of next week, one more farmer will have gone out of business and the marauding pigs will (hopefully) have been removed. From an animal welfare and future work point of view, this is a good thing, but even as I have been putting the work in that will allow these things to happen, it’s been a sad experience. As I looked into various health implications of moving animals off the farm, I could see that in times past (and not so long ago) this has been a good farm, with high standards. How did we end up here, I wondered? Still, for both of the animal owners involved, I hope that as we help to wind up their dreams-turned-nightmares, that we can work as gently as possible and that it will bring relief and not further sorrow.

Only two more weeks at work and I will be on holiday. I need a break. Yesterday, for the first time in months, my FND twitches came back. Not that surprising. Duty vet on Thursday was exhausting with two calls about possible bird flu cases (fortunately negated during the calls, without having to trigger a full report case investigation) and various other tasks, all hitting at the same time. I’m intending to take it easy this weekend, but as a minimum I want to trim the hedge at the bottom of the garden, at least enough to fill the brown bin for its last emptying of the year. But that’s a task for later. James has arrived, so it’s time to head out for that walk and coffee.

Have a good week all! Thanks for reading.


Off to Learn about Chickens

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After all the frenetic activities, work has been a bit slower this week, though no less interesting. I’ve spent time reading up on, and around the new case I’ve been given, which will be very different from anything I’ve done before as I am working in a group of ex-police enforcement and intelligence workers. I’m the one with the veterinary knowledge to their investigative powers. Unfortunately, I can’t really write about it though as people might recognize themselves, or others. I’m sure there’s a novel in there though, if only I ever find the time to write it.

Last weekend, I had a fabulous time visiting Sue at her home and then visiting the gardens at Dumfries House together. Dumfries house is, counterintuitively, in Ayrshire and not Dumfries and Galloway. Sue volunteered there, in the garden, a while back and pointed out a few huge bushes she had planted. Gardening has obviously been a lifelong passion. She wants to help me get my garden in shape. I have let it run wild this summer and finally started cutting the lawn this week. Unfortunately I didn’t get it all done in one go and the rain came after two exhausting sessions, so now I have one half yellow-brown lawn, one half hay field. I will get there…

As you can see Sue’s garden is gorgeous!

I went to the GP earlier this week. I’ve been having headaches, pain when I moved my eyes and sensitivity to light, which has been going on for a few weeks now. It’s been particularly inconvenient as I have been affected when working in front of a screen as well as when driving, especially when it’s bright. The GP couldn’t help, so he directed me to my optician, who has been very helpful in the past when I had some flashing lights in my left eye. I saw her on Friday afternoon and it seems that I have dry eyes, which apparently can cause all those problems. I now have eye drops and a glasses shaped beanbag to heat up in the microwave and use on my eyes for ten minutes twice a day. This should help the oil in the glands along my eyelids to soften and get things going again. I’m mostly just glad it’s not FND related. Hopefully things are starting to get better already, though I’m about to go to Guildford for a week, so will be in a microwave-free zone.

The Guildford trip is for a chicken health and welfare course, so I’m hoping to come back with loads of new knowledge. I feel very honoured to have been selected to attend, so will be making the most of it. Triar will be getting spoiled at Mum and Dad’s. I will miss him, but at least he will be well looked after.

Hope you have a good week and thanks for reading.

Deer in the Distance

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It’s been another week of contrasts. At work, I am chasing my tail a lot of the time. I’m behind on paperwork, some of it complicated paperwork, that requires a lot of concentration and reading around the questions that I have to answer. APHA has what is called a Framework Agreement with the Local Authority, because we work together. We are regulatory, they are an enforcement agency, so complementary.

If you feel slightly lost at that last sentence, you may have an inkling of how I am feeling. There are about twenty pages to fill in, and sixty three pages altogether in the document. I have to read and digest the forty three in order to understand what they want me to write in the twenty and there are snippets on different pages about how to address each reply. Then I have to assess whether the reply (which is about what the LA intend to do – gleaned in a meeting, so based on notes I took about what they said) meets or exceeds the minimum standard. There was nothing about this in my veterinary degree! I guess the one good thing I should consider is that at least I am doing it in my mother tongue!

On top of that, I’m dealing with a TB breakdown. When we’ve found TB on a farm, we have to do a series of tests at sixty day intervals. Part of it is a skin test – injecting tuberculin (purified proteins from bacterial cultures) – to see if there is an immune reaction. In addition, we take blood samples in the early stages. The blood test is more likely to find animals in the early stages of the disease.

Because the skin test can only be done every sixty days (before that, the tuberculin causes desensitisation, so no reaction) what usually happens is that there are periods of inaction, followed by a massive flurry of activity as any positive reactors have to be culled and checked for lesions at the slaughterhouse. They are under restrictions on the farm, so moving them requires – you guessed it – a whole load of paperwork. I am currently in that flurry, so alongside the Framework, there’s a lot going on.

As if that wasn’t enough to be going on with, there’s a bonus I can achieve if I can demonstrate I have jumped through various hoops to show I have progressed at work and am therefore worth more. The deadline for that is the end of June.

I probably should have been working on this for the last year, to make sure I ticked all thirty eight of the boxes, some of which involve training people inside and outside the agency. As well as writing thirty eight mini-essays, demonstrating my super-competence, I am currently creating a training program for those going out to do a DRF – the epidemiological investigation we carry out in TB breakdown cases – and may also go to a Local Authority meeting to train them on how to spot foot and mouth. All that in the next two weeks.

Really, the Norwegian method of progressive pay, based on assessment meetings with your manager, with the possibility of promotion from first vet to senior vet if you demonstrate a willingness to take on responsibility is much more efficient. The irony is, that used to be the same in the UK civil service. In trying to make everything cheaper, they’ve ended up with enormous inefficiency. Even more ironically, if I was in a quieter region, with less urgent work, I’d have way more time for the box-ticking games. The idea that I’m no more useful than I was on the day I arrived, unless I can tick these boxes is just silly.

Still, there are lovely benefits thrown in. On Wednesday this week, I took a day away from all the paperwork to go to a meeting run by the British Deer Veterinary Association. It was down at Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire, so I was able to stay with mum and dad on Tuesday and Wednesday nights and drive over there for the day. The lectures were really interesting and focused on things that were relevant to what I do. There was a talk on welfare at the time of killing – a hot topic for APHA – as well as information on the levels of TB in wild deer and the risk that represents to farmed animals. I must admit that my conclusion was that the UK is never going to be TB free, but really it was a very interesting day and a lovely break from my day to day activities.

The day ended with a walk around the deer park, which was very beautiful. The deer were mostly just dots in the distance, but it was a lovely end to the day.

The drive back took me over the moors and I couldn’t resist stopping to take a few photos along the way. The light wasn’t quite as gorgeous as it had been in the morning as I drove over, but now I had no deadline for getting to where I was going.

And so I will leave you with my June award for WalkFit, which I have already completed. As I was searching for the icon, I saw there’s another challenge coming up in three days, so I shall tackle that when it arises. Thanks for reading and a good week to all of you.

Almost Easter

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So here I am, almost two weeks into my Walkfit project. Am I feeling and looking better? Well I’m not sure about the latter. It’s hard for me to assess, not least because I don’t have any decent sized mirrors to check myself out in. However, I am beginning to notice my energy creeping up a little.

As well as encouraging walking, there’s a kind of mini-aerobics session each day, that lasts between seven and ten minutes. I suspect the times will build gradually, but maybe not. They’re low impact and I’m starting to enjoy them, which is why I conclude my energy is building. I usually do them at the end of the day, by which time my steps are usually done anyway so that feels positive.

The current step count aim is 5,200 which I am easily surpassing most days, but if I overdo it one day, then I can drop it right down to that figure and still have achieved the goal, which feels positive. So far, I haven’t lost any weight at all, so their prediction that I would be at my goal weight by June or July was the nonsense I knew it would be, but I do hope that it will start to drop a bit at some point if I carry on, and if it doesn’t, being fitter is never a bad thing.

I have, of course, been doing most of my walking in Blackbird Lane, which has been gorgeous. My Merlin bird app has often picked up a song thrush, but it’s usually been in the distance. Last night I heard its song so loudly that I looked into the bush beside me and there it was. So beautiful. I reached for my phone, to add it to my bird life-list (birds you’ve seen to confirm the app got the identification right) but alas, I had the wrong phone with me. Another day, perhaps!

At the start of the lane, there’s a kind of brownish pond. While the hedge was bare, it was more visible, but it’s really barely more than a big deep puddle. As I walked past on Wednesday, a flash of green caught my eye. There, on this miniature pond, silent and still, was a beautiful mallard. I was amazed to see him there, on this tiny stretch of water.

The lane is a proper road with tarmac for a short distance, then it turns into more of a pathway. Here there are hedges and fields on either side and my eye (and ears) were caught by a group of graylag geese. This time I had my Merlin phone with me. I clicked on the life-list button, which showed me a picture of a graylag goose and asked “Is this your bird?” I answered “Yes” and the graylag goose was added. Though they were clear enough to my eye, they were a bit distant for phone photography, but I did my best.

Only a little further on, I saw movement near the edge of the field. This time I saw the pricked ears and graceful forms of two deer. Again, I could see them fairly clearly, but on my phone, they are distant shapes, though still beautiful.

It was a damp morning, as you might guess from the sky. As well as the animal and bird life, I am entranced by the new leaves on the hedges as well as the flowers that shelter underneath. Everything was sparkling with new life and raindrops. It was a truly lovely morning.

And as I made my way back along the final lengths of the lane, I peeked through the hedge to see whether the little mallard was still there… and caught sight of Mrs Mallard. I don’t know whether that tiny pond, secluded as it is, would be a good place to raise a family, but you never know!

And after Easter and its long weekend are past, I only have two days left at work, before I head to Stavanger for a weekend, then up to Shetland. If my blog next weekend is late, it’s hopefully because I’m enjoying a weekend with John and Yoana.

Thanks for reading. Have a good week all.

Springtime in Blackbird Lane

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I was truly spoiled last weekend. It was a time of eating and… well eating more! There was some wine, but really… it was a food fest. Saturday dawned sunny, but there was such a cold wind that wild swimming didn’t seem like such a good idea any more. Instead, we sat in the garden, with the chiminea guzzling wood, as we did the same to a tube of Pringles. By Sunday morning, finding clothes to fit was more of a challenge than I had anticipated, but happily a new top came to the rescue for going to church, where my spirits were lifted. After a delicious lunch of leftover pizza, I headed down the road feeling replete, in more ways than one.

What I was though, was ripe for plucking! As a scrolled through Facebook, I came across a walking app called WalkFit. If I took up walking, it said, I would get to my goal weight in three months (ambitious, to say the least) but sooner than that, it promised that in a week, I’d feel better… and in two, I’d look better. I was hooked.

It has certainly had the effect of making me walk a lot more, but with two days left before the week is up, what I feel is not so much better, as knackered! My feet and legs are tired, I feel heavy and bloated and I haven’t been sleeping well. This is not really what I expected, though it might point to ME as a diagnosis for my neuro ills.

That said, the last time I started to walk, having had a vitamin B injection, the effect was that I quickly got fitter and did feel better. I’m not taking vitamin B in any form at the moment, so that’s something to try. Anyway, a nice side-effect is that I have been walking further along Blackbird Lane, enjoying all the birdsong and the flowers and the wonderful sense of peace.

The photo at the top of the page is from one of my morning walks. The dew is still wet on the grass and in the shady corners, there are frosted leaves and flowers.

Everything is growing with the gentle vigour of Scottish springtime.

The eponymous blackbirds are out in force, darting about, calling their sweet songs, curiously brave as I pass, but flitting away when I pull out my phone to take their picture. As so often before, I wish I had a camera with a lens that would allow me to capture them from further off, but still I do my best, and here it is.

The daffodils are passing now, but a few remain.

This week, bluebells have started to appear.

The hawthorn is decked in exquisite white and gold flowerettes.

And in the last two days, these hardy but cheerful perennials have reared their heads.

Meanwhile, back in my neglected garden, spring is also working its magic.

Nature perseveres and so shall I! Have a good week all and thanks for reading.

Frosted Flowers

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It’s been a relatively peaceful week at work. I’ve been catching up with all the work that was pushed aside in the past few weeks and even getting ahead for work that’s coming up. By happy coincidence, it’s been beautiful weather. The skies have been clear and blue, and on the walls and under the hedges in Blackbird Lane, everything is growing.

I came across the ghost of one of last year’s flowers as well and couldn’t resist taking a picture. Nature weaving the finest lace!

With the clear skies at night, there was frost under the hedge too. I think these are celandines, edged with hoar frost, which quickly melted away as the sun came up.

Next week, things are still a bit up in the air. Part of the deal with working for APHA is that for one week every three months, I am expected to make myself available for what is called detached duty. This means I could be deployed anywhere to help with disease outbreak work.

On Thursday, I was contacted and asked if I had any experience of licencing. The central licencing team need someone apparently. I asked what kind of licencing and she didn’t know. She told me late yesterday afternoon that she was still trying to find out, so I may still be contacted on Monday about working for that team. In the meantime, I have other work pencilled in, that might all need to be rubbed back out again. Still, it means life is never boring!

And now I’ve deserted Scotland to inspect the Yorkshire flowers, though sadly, the weather seems to have broken and it’s quite chilly again. Thanks for reading and I hope you have a lovely week, wherever you are.

Muted Sunshine

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Last Saturday I had an emergency trip to the opticians’. On Friday, or perhaps Thursday, I’d noticed flashes of light in the corner of my left eye. I thought it was a reflection from the headlights of a passing car catching the edge of my glasses, but when it happened again in the darkness of my back garden on Friday evening, then again when writing this blog on Saturday morning, I knew it wasn’t.

Having looked up what flashes of this type could mean, I called the opticians’ as soon as they opened. The receptionist asked lots of questions and said they were fully booked, but that she would speak to an optician and call me back. She did so within a few minutes, telling me they were going to fit me in and to come right away.

I was seen very quickly and fortunately, she didn’t find anything untoward. As a part of the aging process, the vitreous humour (the jelly like substance filling your eye) becomes more liquid and can pull away from the retina (made up of cells which capture the light and send information to your brain allowing you to see). As it pulls away, there’s a risk of tearing. Either the retina can be torn away from the back of the eye altogether (meaning you lose sight over whichever area becomes detached) or blood vessels can tear, with potentially the same effect if the cells of the retina die. Fortunately, my flashes were most likely caused by the edge of the retina lifting a little as the vitreous humour separated. Most likely it would stop in a few days, she said, and it seems to have done just that.

There was another unexpected surprise when I went to pay. I was expecting a fee of maybe £100 as she’d spent a lot of time looking at my eyes and used a lot of sophisticated equipment, but apparently the whole examination was covered by the NHS. Many of its services may be broken, but this one worked exactly as it ought to. A reminder then, that sometimes peripheral functions can be provided by the private sector, even if central services really are better served in public hands.

It’s been a good week at work. I inspected chicken farms on Monday and Tuesday and felt I was beginning to provide a useful service as my knowledge is growing over time. Once I have been doing it for a little longer, it would be a useful experience to recap by joining another more experienced vet on a visit, if I am allowed to. When you first visit with someone else, you pick up some knowledge and can grow your own as you work, but sometimes going back and watching someone else once the basic knowledge is in place can mean picking up on the subtler aspects that you maybe missed in the steep learning curve at the beginning. I’ll have to discuss it with my line manager though. One of the problems with being chronically understaffed is that there is little spare time for anything beyond the basic.

On Thursday, I had lunch with Fran, the minister of the church I’ve been attending in Lochmaben. It’s been my intention for a while to ask her whether there is anything I can usefully do in my (admittedly limited) spare time to help in the parish, but instead, we got talking about Shetland, where she worked for a few years, and then writing. It seems that she also writes and was very enthusiastic when I suggested she could come along to the writing club I belong to. I will ask about helping out later, but in the meantime, I seem to have made another friend.


The best things come to those who wait, or so it is said. Over the past years and months, I have had so many things to sort out (moving internationally is incredibly intense) that all kinds of other things have ended up on the back burner. A colleague and I had talked about getting a coffee machine at work, but somehow, I’d never got round to it. I had a lovely meal round at Donna’s last Friday and it came up that she had one, barely used, that she was going to take to a charity shop. I guess I should probably make a donation to charity now to cover what they’ve lost, but she gave it to me instead. It is now installed at work and I will buy pods and try it out next week. I hope my colleague is pleased!

I’ve also been putting off making any decisions about the garden, which needs to be tidied, but is taking a firm second place to the building work in the house. I had a gardener for a while, but he sacked me as I was never home. I had vaguely looked for another, but they aren’t easy to find. David, one of the local authority inspectors I work with, unexpectedly offered me gardening tools that were left in a rental house he part-owns and oversees. So now, without lifting a finger, I have a lawn-mower, a strimmer, a hedge cutter and various hoes and spades. Part of what put me off doing my own gardening was the expense and time it would take to go out and buy everything I need, and now I don’t have to. Though the last few years have been incredibly tough, and there are still struggles I’m going through, there are shafts of sunshine in my life that are beginning to break through the clouds.

Most of the pictures this week were taken on the way back from lunch on Thursday. The cafe was in Lochmaben and the road back to Dumfries tops a hill, then drops steeply away, giving marvellous views over the plain where Dumfries lies. As I drove over, I got glimpses of the sun, which was shining through cloud, creating a wonderfully dramatic sky. The village of Torthorwald is halfway down the hill and I often drive past it and look at the ruined castle, clinging to the hillside. This time, I couldn’t resist. Stopping the car, I got out, climbed over the gate and made my way over the muddy stream to see the ancient stones in their wonderful setting. I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed my wander.

And last, but not least, after the long, Arctic winters, where everything is silent and frozen for months on end, I was amazed to see that, even after the deep chill of last week, there were snowdrops growing in the shelter of the hawthorn hedges in Blackbird Lane. The birds are starting to sing again as well, on still mornings. On Wednesday, blackbirds vied with robins and greenfinch, as well as pink-footed geese and collared doves in a wonderful morning concerto. It was a reminder that spring is not too far away.

Thanks for reading. I hope you have a lovely week.

Belated Puddings and Watery Sunshine

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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.

Autumn Sunrises

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The storm came last Sunday, as forecast. It wailed around the thick walls of my snug little house and wuthered in the chimney. Despite having no doors on the rooms upstairs, my living room stayed warm and cosy. I grew up in houses where the central heating was in minimal use and one room was kept warm with a fire, so it was nothing new. With Triar snuggling on his sheepskin rug beside me, we weathered the storm in comfort.

Triar seems to have recovered well, for which I am enormously thankful. I was out with a colleague from the local authority on Wednesday. He also lives alone with his dog and we discussed how much a dog becomes part of your life when it’s just you and them. My morning walks down Blackbird Lane are shared with Triar and without him, I might never have walked there. More than anything else, those walks help me stay centred and because Triar enjoys exploring all the scents under the hedgerows, we take our time. As he sniffs around, I enjoy the birdsong.

Wednesday was a particularly beautiful morning, calm at sunrise, with mist rising over the fields and the birds were in full song. It’s a while since I used my Merlin App, but the Dawn chorus was so beautiful that I pulled the phone out of my pocket and switched it on. As well as the inevitable blackbirds, sparrows and robin (his sweet little song always lifts my heart) I picked up the song thrush that breaks snails on my patio, a long tailed tit and a goldcrest, among other things.

I took some photos too… of course I did!

Despite knowing I had a potentially difficult day ahead, there was a true moment of peace, there in Blackbird Lane.

I’m not sure whether it’s the time of year, or whether it’s the fact that the other vet that works with me has been seconded to another department, but the welfare referrals have gone crazy in the last two weeks. My lovely line manager has been away, so these were passed on by other managers from another region and I think there were seven of them altogether. Wednesday’s sounded most urgent and there’s at least one that (in my opinion) isn’t an indicator of poor welfare at all, but it is overwhelming.

When I say it might be the time of year, several of them came from slaughterhouses. As winter approaches, the farmers send off their old stock that will struggle through the cold weather, so inevitably those include animals with problems. Part of my job involves reminding farmers that welfare doesn’t end on the farm, but needs to continue until the end of the animal’s life. If it isn’t fit to travel, or perhaps it is, but shouldn’t go far, then they need to work out whether it should be taken to a local abattoir, or culled on the farm without going anywhere.

Too many farmers rely on someone coming to collect their cull cows and “organize all that,” when they should be making the arrangements themselves. Difficult to change the mindset, when that’s what they’ve always done but it’s a discussion I’ll be having a lot. Getting the best price for the meat or taking the most convenient path shouldn’t be the standard. Given the animal has given them the best part of its life, its welfare in death should be given decent consideration. If taking that cow with overgrown hooves to the local abattoir saves them from me and the local authority turning up to inspect all their animals and paperwork, that’s surely a good thing? Even if that’s their only incentive, I try to make it count.

Anyway, it’s almost breakfast time, so I shall wind this up. Triar and I came down to Yorkshire yesterday evening on the train. It’s not too expensive and as winter comes in, it might be more relaxing than driving, so we gave it a try. Luckily, Triar is an old hand on trains now. Here he is, under the table.

Have a good week all. Thanks for reading.

Blackbird Lane

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It’s been a quiet week at work. As a veterinary inspector, I am on a rota four times a year for detached duty. During that time, I can be deployed anywhere in the UK where there is a disease outbreak. I was on the rota for next week, so I was half waiting for a call to come in, and I had kept my calendar clear of visits. I wasn’t sure when I would be told, but I was out inspecting a rendering plant on Tuesday with G, who told me that if I hadn’t heard by now, I could probably assume I wasn’t being sent anywhere.

I must say it came as a relief. Normally, I’m all for travelling to different places for work. I love a bit of variety and the current outbreak work seems to be bluetongue inspections and blood testing (last year’s bird flu – higher risk – not so pleasant) but I was exhausted after moving and the house is still in chaos. Triar was also unsettled so, much as he loves visiting Mum and Dad, it seemed better all round to be staying in our new home for a while. It also meant that I could plan my workload over two weeks instead of rushing through it.

The rendering plant visit was fascinating. I dare say most would find it grim. They deal with animal waste products, so stuff like fallen stock (animals that died on farms) and slaughterhouse waste. The products they process are high risk, so they have to heat them to a high temperature, then separate what’s left out. What impressed me, is that even these waste products are put to good use.

They remove as much fat (tallow) as they can and send it to make biofuels. Their fat is used to drive buses. The remaining meat and bone meal is sent to a power station and burned to produce energy, then the ashes become fertilizer. The plant itself has also recently invested in machinery that recirculates the heat, so that it’s twenty five percent more efficient than it used to be, and if the price of tallow drops, they can even run the unit using that, rather than selling it. Given how much of our household waste goes into landfill, it was good to find out that this waste is being put to much better use.

I was feeling a bit down when I came back from Yorkshire last Sunday. I had flung everything into my new house and then had to go away, so I knew I wasn’t coming back to an oasis of tranquility. Donna had suggested celebrating my arrival with gin, but she had a friend round and there was no way I could leave Triar to go and join them. Practical as ever she immediately suggested that she and Debs could come round, bringing the gin with them.

They arrived with gin, tonic and extra large ice cubes, which apparently are better as they don’t melt so fast and dilute the gin too much! Having allowed Debs to pour (in the knowledge that Debs pours with a very generous hand) they didn’t even get as far as sitting down. Seeing I was overwhelmed with everything, they offered to do what Donna had done when I last moved, and unpack my kitchen.

There wasn’t really any room for me (it’s a little house) so I went and cleaned out the sticky, hairy bathroom drawers, which I confess was helped along by being gin fueled. There’s quite a lot still to be done and cleaned, but having the basics in place makes life much more liveable.

My new street does seem rather lovely. There are three rows of cottages in what was once a village outside Dumfries, but which has now been assimilated. My street doesn’t go anywhere and I am almost at the end of it, so there’s not a lot of passing footfall. I’ve said before, that it seems like something out of Harry Potter and that feeling hasn’t gone away. I’ve been taking a Triar out morning and night and every time I seem to meet someone new. There’s Gary next door and Kay along the way, who has a little dog called Hamish, and apparently there’s a lovely old man across the street, who’s 93. He was born here, I was told, and wants everyone to feel welcome, so I hope to meet him soon. Everyone has been incredibly welcoming and it does feel like I’m living in a friendly village, rather than in a town.

And so the best part of my daily routine at the moment, is walking Triar. At the end of our street, you can take a left turn down a lane. It’s bordered with hawthorn and it’s filled with wild flowers and birdsong. It’s not (so far as I know) called Blackbird Lane, but that’s what I’ve called it in my head, because they are everywhere.

They sit atop the hawthorn, regarding me with their bright eyes, seemingly fearless. The males, with their sleek black plumage and cheerful yellow beaks, compete with one another for the best perches. I caught sight of one of the quieter brown females last night with a worm in her mouth, so perhaps she already has young somewhere.

I see house sparrows too, in the hedges and flitting around, but what I find particularly wonderful is the birdsong. A Norwegian friend from the Arctic posted on Facebook this week “the sound of spring” with film of a newly unfrozen stream, emerging from the ice. A wonderful sound indeed after the winter silence, but here in south west Scotland, spring is filled with birdsong.

Just listening to it fills me with joy, but a while back, I downloaded an app, which records the song and tells me what I am hearing. I remembered it a couple of nights ago and it came up with sparrow, blackbird, wren, great tit and blue tit. Last night’s rendition was even better, though it did miss the wood pigeon that was calling in the distance. Finding out which birds are there makes the whole thing even more wonderful.

So there is a lot to do, but also a lot to look forward to. Today, I have to go and buy a stepstool so I can reach the ceilings. The previous owner smoked in the kitchen and the smell still lingers, along with the yellow stained paint. I’ll need to wash it all down before I can paint it. A colleague recommended a joiner to me and he came round yesterday to assess how much work it would be to put in insulation in the roof.

He suggested that, as we would have to pull the walls down to put the insulation in, if I was considering putting in a bathroom or toilet upstairs, it would be better to do the whole thing at once, and check the wiring too, if that was a viable option, so he might come back today with an electrician and later with a plumber. If he can really organize everything for me, that would be a miracle.

But priorities are priorities and the most important task of the day, apart from my tours down Blackbird lane, is to go out and buy some gin and tonic in the hope of attracting in a friendly neighbour. Said neighbour may have to bring along some extra large ice cubes as my freezer needs defrosting before I can use it. Currently it is scented with six month old cigarette smoke. Obviously I should have defrosted it before I moved in, but lingering ice odours hadn’t crossed my mind! I’m going on holiday soon, so that will be a good opportunity for defrosting, cleaning and airing.

Anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed this little trip down Blackbird lane. I am looking forward to seeing what grows there through the summer and also exploring further as the mud dries up. Have a good week all!