Tag Archives: New job

Poultry Vet

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It’s important to start at the beginning, or maybe the end, so the first triumph of the week, and the last from my old job, was that our team of intrepid APHA vets did manage to escape from the India room at Escape Hunt in Glasgow. We did so with less than four minutes to spare, but this was a deadline we didn’t want to miss. I am going to miss my colleagues enormously, but Josephine agreed that I can continue to be invited to the quarterly Escape Escapades, so that is something to look forward to.

Storm Dave hit while I was traveling home. Donna had kindly taken Triar in for the afternoon and I arrived in their living room so soaked that I couldn’t even stay for a cuppa, which was probably a first for me. I was very happy that she and Will had taken Triar in though. The bus to Glasgow was very late in both directions and it would have been a long day for him on his own.

I went to the dawn communion service at church on Sunday, which was beautiful. When I was younger, Christmas was always a deeply happy occasion, but Easter has a quiet solemnity and depths of pain and joy which suit the older me. I am incredibly grateful to Fran, the minister, for the hard work she puts in to all these occasions, when most of us get to rest. That said, slightly to my shock after years in Norway, most of the shops seemed to be open, even on Easter Sunday. The UK has become a deeply secular country, where Christian rest days and marking the seasons are becoming things of the past and instant gratification is the order of the day. I don’t feel this is a change for the better. In Norway, almost everything bar the emergency services, is shut over Easter and everyone seems to manage.

Triar and I then travelled down to Yorkshire. I suppose, given what I just said about it not being necessary for everything to be open, it’s a bit hypocritical that I stopped off and enjoyed a coffee at Killington Lake services. That said, had it not been open, I would have taken a flask. It was a beautiful day for travel.

I spent the first part of the week with Mum and Dad. We’re making good progress on getting the old house ready for going on the market. As well as box clearing, I did some painting as well, mostly on the ceiling of the room with Dad’s model railway in it, which was stained where there had been a leak in the roof, which is now fixed. So now I know about special paint for covering stains. It’s never too late to learn about DIY. I need to learn about hanging heavy mirrors next, but that’s for another day.

On Thursday, I started my new job. I’m now in the slightly complicated situation where I can’t write too much as I haven’t run the fact that I write a blog past any of them yet. The daughter of the senior partner has told him I’ve written some books. Apparently she’s reading them, which is lovely. I’m still incredibly proud of the work Vicky and I put into writing them.

But everything so far about my new job seems almost uncannily positive. Both partners have outlined their hopes for what I will become and it seems to draw perfectly on all the varied experiences I’ve had through my career. It’s like they looked at my CV and everything I have done is relevant and of use. I feel almost as if I am falling into a place that was almost carved out for me, but they also want me to make the carving out all my own as well. There’s another new vet who has recently started. She is learning all about the lab work and has already begun to teach me. The stains at the top of the page are for identifying bacteria. I haven’t used them since I was at vet school, more than 30 years ago. The other staff have also given me a warm welcome. They all have their own place in the practice and a lot to teach me about poultry and how everything works. I am looking forward to getting to know them better.

But this blog entry will end as it began, with my old APHA colleagues. For all the seeming promise of my new job, I am really going to miss them. Love to all of you.

And to all my readers, regular and new, thanks for reading. I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Happy Easter

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It’s been a pleasant enough week, if rather quiet. Monday was my last day with APHA. A group of us went out for lunch at Dolce Vita Restaurant in Dumfries. They have a wood oven, so I decided to have pizza. I swithered between haggis and red onion or pepperoni, but in the end, I went with pepperoni and didn’t regret it.


I received some lovely gifts. I’d recently bought a flower vase, so I thought I had things covered, but it turned out I didn’t. I don’t think I’ve ever received three bunches of flowers in one day before, but I felt very loved.

I also got two lovely china mugs, one with Highland cows, the other with those teddy-bear sheep with black faces and floofy white pom-pom foreheads. There were also scented candles, chocolate and sweets and a fabulous painted slate from Lauren.

Last, but not least, Scott the local authority inspector gave me his walking stick. He lent me it when we were climbing down a steep bank in the woods back in November and I discovered how useful a sturdy stick can be when you’re fifty six and your balance and ankles are not quite as good as they were when you were in your twenties. I’d asked him where I could buy one, having looked and not found a worthy successor. Instead of telling me, he gave me his own. It’s in the car now, waiting to be used.

At the end of the afternoon, I handed back my computer, my work phone, my door key and all my ID cards. It left me with an odd and empty feeling. My job has been a huge part of who I am for the last two years. It crossed my mind that usually, the last day at work heralds the upheaval of a house move and lots to do with a short deadline. This time, there was work to be done and things to organise, but nothing urgent.

I have done a few things through the week. My mortgage has come up for renewal and my advisor has found me a new provider, so there were lots of documents to send off. I’ve tried to sort out my Norwegian tax, though I will have to chase up the message I sent. The lack of an email acknowledgement suggests it hasn’t been received. Norwegian authorities normally do everything by the book.

My car also got a new (well technically second hand) steering rack yesterday. I hadn’t realised how heavy the steering had got until I drove away from the garage and suddenly found I could steer the car with one finger again. Apparently the steering rack on my car has a computer at each side, which means it is constantly calculating how to help. Thanks very much to Aker’s garage for keeping my much-loved car going for a bit longer.

I’m writing this on Friday night, because tomorrow I’m heading up to Glasgow to meet some almost ex colleagues. I’m about to be locked in an escape room with them, so my new employers had better hope that we get out in time! Technically they’re not quite ex colleagues yet, because my last day is the 9th April. I’m really going to miss them.

So I shall leave you with my best wishes for a lovely Easter. After a sunrise communion service at church on Sunday, I will be heading down for lunch at my parents’. Helen and Corinna are there and we are going to have haggis. Happily, I managed to source a veggie version so everyone can get their fix of Scottish food. Not your typical Easter feast admittedly, but it will be delicious nonetheless. I may have accidentally picked up some Irving’s sultana drop biscuits as well. Irving’s was a great bakery, many years ago when I lived in Castle Douglas and it seems that standards have not dropped!

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

The Beginning of the End

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

Sunrise/sunset: 02:12/23:29 Daylength: 21hr17min

You know, it’s odd. For the past few weeks, it’s been difficult to write this blog because there was something I wasn’t telling you. Starting this is actually hard as well, but it has to be done because this week, I handed in my notice at Mattilsynet. I guess some regular readers will be surprised. As you know, I love my job here, so it has been a difficult decision to make, but I am moving back to Scotland.

This decision has its roots in a number of factors. The main one is that I want to be nearer to Mum and Dad. Last winter, round about Christmas time, my dad was not well. He was having trouble breathing and they rang 111 for advice, only to find that an ambulance had been sent. Dad didn’t go to hospital in the end, but the most difficult thing for me was that I didn’t hear about it until several days afterwards. When I asked my mum why, she told me that they hadn’t wanted to worry me. That was understandable, but frustrating. In Norway, there is a lot of flexibility over time off in emergencies. Had I known, I might have been able to fly home, although it probably wasn’t necessary in this case. But if it had been more serious, I have no doubt my boss would have allowed me to go.

But the not telling threw up all kinds of complications. If I did have to go home without much warning, it could take than twenty four hours to get there. In winter, if the weather was really bad or there were no flights, it could be much longer. And anyway… it also crossed my mind that the not telling wasn’t going only in one direction. A long time ago, in my first years at university, before the age of mobile phones and easy communication, my mum joked that she knew things were going well when she didn’t hear from me. When I was intensely homesick at the start, I called them every day. I spent many hours on that little-known payphone in the basement of the halls of residence. When my social life took off, sometimes there could be days and weeks when she couldn’t get hold of me. But the situation is reversed now. Knowing that my parents are physically out of reach, when things are going badly, I don’t ring them, because I don’t want to worry them. In this age of communication, we are failing to communicate.

But my parents aren’t the only factor. Anyone who has been through the last half year with me on this blog will know that last winter was just too much. And (final straw time) it would all have been bearable if Mr Abusive and Husleietvistutvalget (HTU) hadn’t done their worst. The (to me) incomprehensible decision taken by HTU, to believe him when he was exaggerating and actually lying, even though I pointed out some very obviously fraudulent behaviour, has made me feel differently about how well protected I am in Norway. I always thought that the system here would protect me and it didn’t. There’s no doubt their decision has been significant in the north of Norway losing someone who was performing a useful function.

So what happens now? I have three months notice to work, so I will be here through much of the busy season in the abattoir. And then after that, I have to get some of the contents of the house over to the UK, as well as Triar and myself. It is unexpectedly difficult, importing a dog into the UK. Given that pet passports have made quarantine largely a thing of the past, I thought he and I would just bob on a plane and would go together. But it seems that dogs entering the UK on planes have to go as cargo. You actually have to hand them over to a carrier who puts him on a plane you can’t travel on and they have to be met at the other end by someone else. From here it would be at least two flights and I can’t be at both ends. The idea of Triar, on his own, through two flights, and being met at the end with people he’s never met just seems unbearable. And so he and I will go together to the UK on trains and boats.

And where are we going? I am moving to Dumfries. Back in the nineties, I worked in both Stranraer and Castle Douglas, so the area is quite familiar. I have already been in contact with a friend who lives there and I know I have other friends who are not far away. And I keep looking things up and feeling excited about things that I would have taken for granted before. For example, Dumfries has a hospital and it has an accident and emergency department. It has always concerned me, living here, that the nearest hospital is a two hour drive away. There is a library in Dumfries as well. I mean, there are libraries here, of course, but they are full of books in Norwegian. I read to relax, and despite being fluent in Norwegian, reading anything still requires a fully switched on brain. It’s not the same.

And of course all those laws and instructions I have to read at work and all the reports I have to write… all of it is hard for me. I write in English with a fluency that has allowed me to have books published. I told one of my new colleagues that the very idea of doing it all in English instead is just amazing and she made a face, but she just has no idea. I guess I should add here, that the new job I will be doing is, on paper at least, almost the same job I was doing in Finnsnes when I arrived here. There will be welfare visits on farms and monitoring and dealing with any outbreaks of notifiable diseases. As I said at the start, I love my job. I have long thought I would love it even more if I could only do it in English, so now I’m going to give it a try.

So here I am. The house is being prepared for sale. Selling after only a year isn’t necessarily going to be plain sailing. I bought it for less than the asking price because it wasn’t selling. I had really thought I would be here for years and years and could sort out all kinds of things and grow bushes to hide the sound of the cars passing on the road nearby, but it hasn’t worked out that way.

So now, I am preparing everything, and just hoping someone likes it enough. We’ve done a lot of work in the last year, building a fence, fixing the hole in the roof and so on. The estate agent put me in touch with a plumber, so now that job has been done at least. But other faults have cropped up. We discovered a cracked plank on the edge of the roof a couple of weeks back when the gutters were being checked. I got a quotation, thinking I could fix it, but it’s too expensive. And having done that, I will have to let the surveyor know. If I know about a fault, it’s fraudulent not to declare it. I just have to hope that the surveyor doesn’t hit me too hard. And there are other things that weren’t checked because of the snow. He’s coming out on Wednesday, so once he’s been, I will have a better idea of the value of the house.

So a large chunk of this weekend will probably be taken up painting the garage. I have also bought mouse brushes to put in the gap underneath the wood on the sides of the house. I will try to take pictures to explain that for next week. The day after I put everything in motion, I had to finish painting the ceiling in the hall. We took down a wooden partition and it had left a mess and I had been putting it off for weeks, but now it’s done and it looks great. I don’t know if you have watched Dexter, but I really felt like I was in Dexter territory once I had the hallway prepared!

And after the garage is painted and the mouse brushes are in place, there’s just the front steps and the veranda to clean and stain. At least, if I buy a house in Scotland, I know how to do a lot more DIY than I used to!

Outdoors, it’s still very beautiful. Here are some photos from the last week.

And finally, for the foodies amongst you, John was on holiday in Paris for a few days. Obviously he’s becoming a chip off the old block, because the only photo he’s sent, as evidence that he was having a good time, was of some pastries from a lovely bakery they found for breakfast. So here you go fellow foodies. Feast your eyes on this.

See you next week!

Piece of Cake

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*Sunrise/sunset: 04:27 / 21:10. Daylength: 16hr 43min.

It’s always an advantage in a new job to make a good first impression and so I arrived on my first day determined to do just that. I am working for Mattilsynet, which is the Norwegian Food Safety Authority. Mattilsynet has a wide remit. As well as working to ensure Norwegian food and drinking water are safe, Mattilsynet oversees all aspects of food production from farm or fjord right to the point of eating. People in Norway will be familiar with Mattilsynet’s Smiley Faces that indicate that the kitchen in the restaurant you’re about to eat in is clean.

My new boss, Hilde, welcomed me into the office at 8am, and introduced me to some of the other staff. Everyone seemed very friendly and the day began with coffee – which took me back years to working in large animal practice in Scotland. The surroundings were much brighter and more modern though, which will be important in winter. As well as the friendly critter at the top of the page, the office has a massage chair, attractive pictures of local scenes and on that Wednesday, in honour of my beginning, there was a large chocolate cake!

There is always a lot to remember when you start a new job and this one was no exception. I was soon knee deep in complicated Norwegian words about how national and local government works, but Hilde had put together a very comprehensive introductory programme to work through, which was reassuring.

The start of day two was marginally embarrassing. I had been given an electronic key fob thing to get in the door… and I had forgotten it. One of my new colleagues let me in with a smile and it was quickly pushed aside. More complicated Norwegian and a lesson in how to book one of the office cars followed and I made up my mind that on day three, all would go to plan and nothing would go wrong.

Met this little family as I walked home from work.

I had decided to walk in on the third day. One of my aims is to get out and about more and it seemed like a good way to start the morning. I set out at seven to walk down and arrived about half an hour later, feeling pleased with myself. I had remembered everything today – the little electronic fob was in my pocket and the sun was almost shining.

It was dark inside when I opened the office door. I was slightly surprised as I hadn’t expected to be the first there quite so soon. Still, I remembered that Hilde had explained that I shouldn’t turn on the main lights if I arrived first as some of my colleagues liked to have a nice peaceful start to the day. I knew there was an alarm system, but it hadn’t gone off, so I assumed there was someone around. I took a step further into the building and realised my mistake as the bleep, bleep of the alarm system kicked in.

Despite not knowing the code, I still felt very calm. Hilde had sent me a message about getting in the day before I started work, so I put my coat and bag down on the floor, pulled my phone out of my pocket and scrolled quickly up. But though there was a message about getting in, it was about accessing the computer system, not the door.

My heart was beating a little faster now, but I reminded myself it could all be sorted out. All I had to do was call Hilde, but the bleeping was accelerating and within moments, it was wailing loudly enough to deter even the most determined of thieves.

Though I couldn’t remember any code, one thing I did remember was Hilde telling me that if there was an accident with the alarm, there was a phone number on the keypad and in order to stop any further action (I presume it may be linked to the police, or some kind of security firm) I had to speak to someone. Taking a deep breath, I typed the number into my phone. I could call Hilde afterwards, I thought. Better that than having someone rush out and then charging a fee. I put the phone to my ear and could hear nothing due to the screech of the alarm. I would just step outside the door, I thought. Then I could have a conversation. I could remember what I had to say. I could sort all this out and still be sitting at my desk by the time Hilde came.

To my relief, the call was answered quickly and I explained what had happened. The noisy alarm went off and with a sigh of relief, I ended the call and returned to the door… which of course had locked itself behind me. I reached into my pocket… only to realise that I had put down my jacket and bag and everything I was holding on the floor. The little electronic fob was now inside the building and I wasn’t.

Walking back out into the open air, I leaned against the wall and pulled out my phone. There was nothing left to do but wait. 

So much for good first impressions! Only day three, and so far, I hadn’t managed to get into the building without assistance. Fortunately Hilde arrived first, and if she thought I was an idiot, she didn’t let on.

And despite all that, my new job shows every sign of being every bit as interesting as I hoped when I first read the advertisement. One of the tasks in my comprehensive introductory programme was to look through my colleague’s calendars, see what they are doing, and perhaps ask if I can go along with them to find out more about what they do. The most interesting item I found was tantalisingly entitled Status Bjørn, so I decided I would ask about it next time we had coffee.

Despite the interesting title, I was half expecting Status Bjørn might be a boring exercise, or similar, but I listened in amazement as Hilde explained that there was a bear in the region, which unfortunately has got a taste for eating the local sheep. Moreover, she is a mother bear with two large cubs. Shooting her is not an option and so the only possibility is to sedate both her and her young and move them to another area where there aren’t any farms for her to raid. This is, however, a very complicated exercise, and one that Mattilsynet, in the shape of Hilde and Thomas (another colleague) are involved in to ensure animal welfare is prioritised.

So there you go. It’s only my opinion I know, but I don’t think veterinary work gets much more exciting than that. Next week I will be doing some work in the slaughterhouse, which is less romantic, but equally essential. Making sure an animal is treated well is just as important at the end of its life as it is at the beginning. And so here I am, aged 51… and on the cusp of what is looking like an interesting and challenging new career.

Wish me luck!

*I thought I should add in sunrise/sunset times and day length at the start of each post. It’s already changing fast and I want to give a sense of that.