Tag Archives: Scotland

Unexpected Snow

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

When I booked this year’s Norwegian holiday in December, it didn’t cross my mind that I would see snow in Scotland before I went. Living in Dumfries for the last two winters, I’ve not seen more than a heavyish frost, so I joyfully booked a pre-Christmas week in the Arctic to boost my chances. Not that there is invariably snow there in December, but the odds of it (and Aurora) are much greater. Perhaps I should have been prepared for it. After all, last time I went there (May last year) Donna sent pictures of spectacular northern lights over my house. Life is sometimes topsy-turvy after all.

I guess in North Norwegian terms, this barely counts as snow, but it was beautiful anyway. A white world under a cloudless blue sky. My favourite kind of day.

This was my second day in the area, working with a team that was trying to ensure the last of the maurauding pigs were gone. Most had been removed the week before by my colleague from the local authority in a trailer. These were the stragglers: those which were no longer domesticated enough to come back to their field for food. Knowing this might happen, I had asked for, and received, permission to invite a wildlife firearms team to come up.

I guess some might criticize that decision, but these were pigs living in close proximity to a nasty bend in an A road. We’d already dealt with one that had been hit by a lorry. Someone asked if I would be traumatized, but my thinking is that these are healthy animals being shot from a distance in an environment where they are comfortable. There are much worse ways to go. I was there as welfare vet though in truth, the two members of the team who came were so professional that my presence was barely needed. There were very few pigs, though there was a young pair, probably brother and sister, who would have bred if left.

As well as taking me up the hill where we had great views of the snow, my local authority colleague took me to see the weaned piglets from the members of the herd he’d taken away the week before. Instead of being outside in the cold, they were inside in a comfortable pen, with plenty of food. This hasn’t been a perfect operation, but it’s a good end to a welfare case that held the prospect of getting completely out of hand.

I’ve been out to a couple of cafes this week. The first was a trip to my local garden centre, where I have a card that lets me have two coffees each month. Mostly my intention is only to have coffee, but on my previous visit, I had seen a gingerbread cake that I decided was worth going back for when I was hungry. This then, was last week’s belated breakfast after waiting for the plasterer. It was worth the wait: the cake had a warm and spicy flavour that was nicely offset by the coolness of the icing. If I was being pernickety about it, I was slightly disappointed that the litttle gingerbread man and the biscuit crumbs on the cake wer soft and not crunchy but, complemented by the smooth bitterness of the coffee, it was a delicious start to the day.

The second was a revelation. On a dreich day at work, I went with a colleague to a cafe in Sanquhar called A’ the Airts. As Scots readers can possibly predict, this venue had lots of paintings on the walls. There was a gorgeous acrylic of a cat on a black background and a glorious golden painting of a stag with antlers. I may go back to buy a painting when the work in my house is finished, but I will definitely be going back before that for more food.

In addition to the normal menu of toasted sandwiches and soup, there were two Christmas offerings. Having been out in the rain all morning (I saw myself in a mirror and bedraggled would have been a good description) I was keen to order, so decided quickly on the second choice, which involved pigs in blankets, gravy and Yorkshire puddings. It was only after the order was in that I read the description properly: “Two Yorkshire Puddings stuffed with Cranberry, Pigs in Blankets & Honey Topped Baked Brie served with gravy & festive slaw”

I guess there is nothing wrong with a cheese and Yorkshire Pudding combination, but I confess I was surprised. Still, bedraggled and hungry as I was, I was delighted when it appeared.

It wasn’t easy to photograph. I’m not sure how enticing it looks, but reader it was delicious! Cranberry and Brie is a common combination. I’m usually wary of adding in bacon. For me that is gilding the lily because the sharpness cranberry offsets the creaminess of the Brie so well. But this time, with the honey accentuating the salty and crunchy bacon, alongside that heavenly Brie and cranberry combination… well it was divine. I’m not sure I detected any gravy (I love gravy) but for a hot meal on a wet November day, it was perfect. And if you want to know what was festive about the slaw? That had cranberries in it too. Not sure they added much, other than it being an odd colour, but it’s a forgivable experiment! All in all, this was a wonderful meal.

And now I am down in Yorkshire. Not the snowy part, but the past two days were beautiful with frost. It’s been a lovely start to a long weekend.

Thanks for reading and have a lovely week.

Return of the Rampaging Pigs

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Disclaimer: the pig picture above belongs to a friend and is not part of my case.

Looking back at this post from last year it’s kind of odd to see how little has changed in terms of my workplace, workload and colleagues. The reason I was reading it was because this week, on top of my TB case, the aftermath of Thursday’s report case, big welfare in transport investigation and a couple of routine inspections done or due, the marauding pigs have made a return. It’s been posted on Facebook and the local news, so I guess I can say that these pigs are now causing a significant hazard on the A76. Last year, it appeared the situation was back under control but (as with many other welfare situations) it has spiraled again.

It’s not that surprising. During my three years in Norway, it became obvious that most farmers are doing a great job and that almost all the problems we have to deal with stem from a few people, a few of whom are genuinely bad or ignorant, but most of whom are struggling with life, one way or another. Lots of people have a dream where they run a successful business, keeping animals. The reality is that doing so involves a huge amount of hard graft and a steely mind that can cope when catastrophe hits. Farming is a tough business. To quote James Herriot, ‘I was beginning to learn about the farmers and what I found I liked. They had a toughness and a philosophical attitude which was new to me. Misfortunes which would make the city dweller want to bang his head against a wall were shrugged off with “Aye, well, these things happen.”‘

Anyway, Tuesday was a bit sad as one of the poor pigs was hit by a lorry. The end of the week was filled with meetings and multi-agency planning to find a solution that will last. Otherwise, we’re going to be dealing with ongoing problems for years to come.

A lot of what we do involves fighting against the system. These welfare issues are typical – we have to make sure we give people the chance to rectify problems themselves, when the reality is they are only in that place because they aren’t coping. There’s little we can offer in terms of support and neither advice nor penalties really help. After almost two years though, I have a reasonable grasp on many of the tasks I’m handling and what I can actually do. I have a network of contacts, both local and national, who can be relied on to get things done, which makes all the difference.

In other good news, after waiting since May for a non-appearing plumber, I contacted a different plumber from my street, who came the same evening and started work the next day. I now have a functioning shower and toilet upstairs and the rusty and unusable shower over the bath downstairs has now been replaced. So now, after more than a year without a shower, I have two. Still plastering and decorating to go, but it feels like the end is now in sight for my room-in-roof insulation project.

On Thursday, we had the first frost of the year. Less spectacular than the Arctic frosts that could go on for weeks, building huge ice-crystals, frost here still adds a new layer of beauty to the small things. I do love proper winter weather.

I’m tired after a busy couple of weeks at work, but there’s not much I need to do this weekend. I have a shoebox from the church that I need to fill with Christmas gifts for (I think) refugees somewhere, so I shall take a wander to the shops this morning to get that filled. I may stop for a coffee and a slice of gingerbread cake at the garden centre. Other than that, it looks a bit stormy outside, so I intend to spend some time in front of the TV. It’s almost time to start my Harry Potter Christmas marathon, so that might be on the agenda. In the meantime, I will leave you with some photographs I took last weekend, over towards Wigtown. It’s a beautiful part of the country. Thanks for reading and hope you have a great week.

Report the Second

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Firstly, a disclaimer. The sheep in the photo at the top of the page are random Norwegian sheep and are in no way related to any invest

Last week’s blog was a week late because I received a phone call as I was writing it. Two weeks ago, I was on call for the weekend and hoping to rest. Most on-call weekends are a matter of keeping your phone near you, maybe dealing with a request by a private vet for a case number so they can go out to test a cow that’s dropped dead to check it wasn’t anthrax or a similar request for itchy sheep that might have scab.

This time, to my surprise, I found my line-manager on the phone. “How would you feel about another report case?” he asked.
Well how I felt was broadly irrelevant. I was the ready-to-go vet, so unless I was seriously unwell, it was my task to be handled, whatever it was. “Another AI?” I ventured.

”Um… no.” He paused. “We’ve been sent photos of lesions from some sheep’s tongues. They’re trying to decide whether to treat it as a bluetongue enquiry, or foot and mouth. This isn’t your official call, just a prewarning so you can start to prepare.”

Once the official call comes in, you are expected to be on the road within 30 minutes. In theory, everything should be in your car and you should be able to get in and go. In reality, there are things you might need for sampling that have to stay in the fridge in the lab at work. The buffer solution used for foot and mouth sampling is one of these, so I was glad for the heads up.

I admit, I did feel slightly breathless. Those living in the UK who are old enough to remember 2001 will recall the horrors unleashed on the country as whole farms and regions were forced to cull their livestock and burn them in the fields on horrific pyres of death. The recent, sporadic outbreaks in Europe mean we are on high alert. That the photographs sent in had the high heidyins in a nine am meeting discussing whether they dared risking treating it as “only” blue tongue felt quite significant.

I dressed and went into the office and started to gather paperwork. In theory, I should have paperwork for every eventually in my car, but having the appropriate papers to hand for setting up restrictions is useful. To my mild consternation, I found the main printer wasn’t working. Thanking my lucky stars that I wasn’t a newbie and knew how to work the secondary printer in the lab, I printed out what I thought I’d need.

I also threw a load of blood sampling equipment into my car. Better to have too many tubes than to create the necessity for someone else to come out and onto a farm with possible foot and mouth because you weren’t well enough prepared.

It was quite a long drive out to the farm. As I neared the farm, I slowed down to cast an eye over animals in the nearby fields. None were drooling or looking sick. A good start.


It had been confirmed that I was to treat it, for now, as bluetongue, but that foot and mouth was still there as a possibility. To explain the difference in requirements, because bluetongue is spread by midges, tramping on and off the farm with dirty boots and tyres isn’t so much of a worry. Not that I do that, but if I did, it’s not a disaster.

The restrictions served on the farmer are different too. Bluetongue restrictions only stop animals coming and going. Foot and mouth suspicions, like avian influenza suspicions, mean that every person and vehicle going on and off the farm has to have an individual license and any and all incursions are strictly limited to absolute necessities.

I arrived at the farm , put on paper suit and gloves and served the restrictions. It’s always the first thing to be done and having signed the form, I read out all the clauses that explained in full what was required. Next was history taking.

This is not like taking a history for a normal vet case, where you mostly want to know what has happened to the animal. For a notifiable disease investigation, by the time you are finished, you should have details of every movement on and off the farm within the last twenty one days. You have to assess whether there are any high risk factors. Are there rights of way and picnic sites where people might have fed the animals? Has anyone from the farm recently been on holiday to a different country? Are there stagnant ponds in the vicinity that might encourage midges? The factors, like everything else, vary with the disease suspected.

Having taken a careful history of the animals and the risk factors, I donned more layers of PPE and prepared to look at the animals. I knew, both by being told and by observation, that there were fields nearby that held another farmer’s cattle. I decided to walk up to look at them first. If it was something highly infectious, they might be showing signs too. Again the picture was reassuring. They were young stock from a dairy farm and could not have looked more healthy. They were eating as we approached, then lifted their heads to look at us. Not a nose lesion among them. Nolameness, no drooling. Bright eyes and shiny coats.

I was already, mentally, beginning to think foot and mouth was less likely. Obviously there were still the sheep to look at, but clinical signs in sheep can be subtle, cattle less so. These animals had been in relatively close contact, so by the time the mature mouth lesions were spotted in the sheep (with the caveat that it might have been caught early) I would expect to have seen some spread.

There were two groups of sheep – adults and lambs. The lesions in the photographs, nasty red eroded areas on the tongues, had both been from lambs. We therefore looked at the adult sheep first, partly to prevent any possible cross-infection, but also because a complete absence of problems there would go further towards ruling out foot and mouth. No reason why young sheep would be more severely affected than the old in a disease where neither group would have immunity.

What struck me again was that I was looking at a broadly healthy group of animals. There were 43 ewes and as I scanned their mouths, feet and udders (where possible) I saw nothing. Only bright, uncrusted eyes and alert ears. There were two that the farmer had noted had been getting thin for a while. We selected them out and I examined them more closely. Not a lesion in sight. Normal breathing, normal temperature. One was a bit dirty on her backside, but nothing to suggest foot and mouth or bluetongue.

We moved onto the lambs. This time, I decided we should examine all of them. There were thirty two in the group and the farmer caught each one and held them while their mouths and feet were inspected. In the end, there were four with tongue lesions, four with lesions around their lips and one with a sore area above its foot. None of the lambs with lesions was running a fever. I was strongly beginning to think that what we were dealing with was a severe case of orf – a pox virus that affects sheep and can infect humans who come in contact. It would be unusual to have tongue lesions, but not impossible.

Having taken history and examined the animals, it was time to decide where we were going to go with this. At one extreme, if I thought foot and mouth was still in the picture as a possibility, we would have to issue new restrictions as well as taking samples. I might well have to stay on the farm until it was ruled in or out. I’m still a bit sketchy on the details, though I had arranged for Triar to be looked after, just in case.

If I thought everything was ruled out, I would leave the farm with no tests done and hope I’d got it right. To do that, I’d need to be very certain. My gut feeling was that this was orf, based on the fact that it was only affecting the lambs. Orf is common and spreads in flocks to the new crop of animals born each year. Older animals can carry it, but usually have enough immunity that there are no clinical signs.

So on the grounds that only the lambs were affected and the adult ewes and neighbouring cattle were perfectly healthy, along with the fact that all the lesions were quite mature and I would have expected to see more early stage lesions (we have lectures about aging foot and mouth lesions) I felt confident enough to rule out foot and mouth (phew!). But could I rule out bluetongue too? I decided I couldn’t . After all, midges might well have selectively bitten the lambs with their thinner wool pelt. And orf might exist alongside bluetongue. The lip lesions could be orf and the tongue lesions something else.

And so, armed with my evidence, I called VENDU (the veterinary exotic notifiable disease unit) to tell them what samples I wanted to take. I have never been asked so many times and in so many different ways if I was sure, 100% certain, absolutely confident that I could rule out vesicular diseases like foot and mouth. At the start of the conversation I was using words like probably, but by the end, I was telling the, firmly that no, it was not foot and mouth.

So we tested the nine lambs for bluetongue: the four with mouth lesions, the four with lip lesions and the one with the foot. To cut a long story short, the test was negative, but most of Sunday was still spent on paperwork. I strongly suspect all the lesions were caused by orf: an unusual and interesting case all round and a good learning experience for me.

Lots of text so far and not many pictures, so I shall rectify that. Last weekend, I went to Drumlanrig Castle and met Sue (who used to locum with APHA) for a walk and for lunch. The gardens were beautiful.

Have a good week! Thanks for reading.

Sunbeams and Sticky Willies

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

I missed posting last week as I wasn’t feeling great. Happily I’m feeling better, but I was asked to go out yesterday afternoon to a report case (suspicion of notifiable disease). I couldn’t rule out disease, so we have sent off samples to be tested. Today, I will likely have to work again – there’s a lot of history to be taken about movements of animals/birds, people, vehicles, feed sources and so on, to be ready for if it comes back positive. So I’m going to post a few lovely pictures, mostly from Blackbird Lane. I hope you enjoy them.

Where are the sticky willies, you ask (or perhaps what)? They’re those little round seeds that have been sticking themselves into Triar’s coat for weeks now. They’re rife this year.

Hoping my samples come back negative! Have a good week all.

Do Not Attend

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I am finally inspired to work on my story based on the Norwegian song/poem Tir n’a Noir again. I have decided it shall be a short story – different from what I usually write. I have also signed up for a scriptwriting course and am waiting for that to begin. I think it will benefit me trying out different formats. A novel takes so much time and concentration and I am in short supply of both those things. My day job takes too much energy.

That said, I’ve had a good week at work. On Monday I was out with Lauren, one of our animal health officers, training her to blood sample sheep. With only minor instruction from me, she quickly got the hang of it and took blood from twenty sheep in no time. I enjoy teaching people how to do things I’ve spent half a lifetime learning.

On Tuesday, I was learning myself. I was up at Prestwick Airport again, checking two beautiful horses that had flown in from the US. It was a broodmare and her foal and they were blue blood in the racing world. Absolutely stunning. Another colleague recommended I took the Castle Douglas road on the way back and I did. The normal Ayr road is rather boring, so I was delighted to find myself driving through some gorgeous Galloway scenery. There are mostly rolling hills here, rather than mountains, but I passed through spiky fir forests and by lochans and burns.

As you can see, the sky became quite spectacular and shortly afterwards, it began to pour. I was reminded of a summer long ago, when we holidayed in New Galloway and went walking every morning, but made sure we were back in the cottage in the afternoon as the rain started each day at about 3pm.

On Wednesday, I recorded the training on the Disease Report Form that I had given in front of an audience the week before. To do this, I was told to set up a Teams meeting with my mentor, Josephine. “Mark it, ‘Do not attend’” she told me, so I gave it that title and then began. I muffed it a couple of times and I wasn’t sure how to delete, so I decided to quit that meeting and set up another. This time, I thought I would give her a giggle and gave it a rather tongue in cheek name.

That time, the recording went well and I laid down a perfectly respectable piece of training. What I hadn’t realized was that when anyone accesses the presentation, what they would come to was a video with the title of the meeting it was recorded on in broad letters at the bottom of the page. And so, you guessed it, I have created a piece of training on a serious topic, with the title that will be there in perpetuity – Do Not Attend Again – The Director’s Cut.

I don’t have any real plans for this weekend so far. Last weekend I went for a walk with Belle, who is one of the women who will be teaching me about scriptwriting. Her dog George is very laid back, and he and Triar seeem to get on fine. Triar did shame me slightly by disappearing into a massive field, filled with long grass and rabbits, and failing entirely to return when I called him. Belle and George were fortunately very laid back about the whole thing and Belle even suggested that, as Triar enjoyed it so much, we could come back another day, but bring a picnic instead of aiming to go to a pub for a drink. Sounds good to me!

Have a good week all and thanks for reading.

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.

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.

Snow and Frost

Scotland, The Vet Who Came In from the Cold, Travel, Vet, Yorkshire Dales, , , , , , , , ,

It feels like ages since I was down in Yorkshire, listening to the Met Office warnings about snow, but when I look back at this week’s pictures, I can see the snowfall was only last Sunday, which coincidentally was my birthday. I know the situation was unpredictable and that snow in the UK causes more disruption because the country is not set up for it, but the relentless warnings felt like they were over the top, not least because it was predicted the whole thing was only likely to last a day. It seems to me that an appropriate response, when the snow is going to melt within 24-48 hours, would be to remind everyone to avoid unnecessary travel on those days, then sit back and enjoy the scenery.

I woke at three in the morning and saw a thin layer of snow and assumed that might be it and went back to sleep. I’d left the curtains and blinds open so I could see and I confess I was amazed to wake again at six to see the entire window was obscured with snow, lying on the windowsill and sticking to the glass. Realistically this meant the snow was warm and sticky. When it’s snowing at minus 8, the flakes are usually tiny and don’t stick to anything, but drift at the slightest air movement. However, it did mean that it had snowed properly and wasn’t just a dusting!

I wondered last winter, our first back in the UK, whether Triar missed the snow, so knowing there was a good covering, I got out of bed to take him outside. It was a wonderful start to my birthday, watching him doing zoomies on the lawn and burying his face up to his ears.

Later, I went for a walk, but it was cold and windy and the sky was grey. I took a few photos, but didn’t linger long as I hadn’t dressed for the windchill, which wasn’t apparent among the houses, but only on venturing out into the fields.

I headed north on Monday and the roads were fine, though I travelled with blankets, warm soup and plenty of food. The rest of the week has been dominated, both at home and at work, by low temperatures.

At work, low temperatures are often significant as freezing conditions can affect the welfare of animals on the farm. For example, if the water in all the troughs freezes solid, it can be difficult to ensure all the animals have enough to drink. A cow drinks a lot of water. Part of my week has been spent making decisions about whether sales at markets can go ahead when their water has frozen and they can’t cleanse and disinfect. I haven’t personally been out blood sampling, but for colleagues who have, cold fingers are not the only challenge. If your sample freezes before you get it into the insulated, warmed box, it will be defunct. Repeat testing is expensive, so careful judgement is needed on whether to go ahead.

At home, it hasn’t been the best. Though the upstairs rooms in my house are now insulated, they still don’t have doors or radiators. The radiator in my hall has been going full pelt all week, but the passage is still too chilly for comfort. Quite unexpectedly though, the electrician/handyman who is running the project on my house, arrived to do some work downstairs on Tuesday. Back when the initial plan was hatched, it was suggested the ceiling in the downstairs bathroom would be lowered, partly to allow for various waste pipes and fan ducts to be hidden. I wasn’t sure if this was still going ahead, but I came back on Tuesday evening to find that not only was the bathroom ceiling being lowered, with added insulation, but he was doing the hallway in the back part of the house as well. That part is an extension with thinner walls and a flat roof and it was only with the onset of winter that I realised how cold that part of the house would be. All very well insulating the upstairs in the main, older part of the house, when the kitchen and bathroom and all the water pipes were out there and unprotected.

The kitchen is now the only bit that isn’t insulated overhead and that part of the house is already noticeably less chilly than the front hallway. There’s still more to do, but in time, I may not have to watch the smart meter ratcheting up a huge figure daily as I’ve chosen to keep the heating running day and night to prevent frozen pipes!

I shall leave you with some frosty pictures, mostly from Blackbird Lane. There is hoar frost collecting in the places where the low, winter sun doesn’t reach and it’s very beautiful. I’ve tried my best to capture it as well as the golden light against that wide, blue sky.

Thanks for reading. Have a good week!

The Shetland Files

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I had a wonderful week in Shetland. It’s the first time I have visited. Years ago, I might have been daunted by the idea of an overnight ferry, but having travelled on two with Triar, almost a year ago, I was looking forward to it. I had booked a cabin as I wanted a good night’s sleep at the start of my holiday. I retreated there early and spent a comfortable night cocooned in a warm bed as the boat carried me north.

I walked to Lindsay’s house in the morning, where she had cooked me a wonderful breakfast. The house is lovely, warm and welcoming like Lindsay herself, and with an amazing view over the sea. It was at Lindsay’s suggestion that I had decided to go to the Wool Week festival, though my plans had evolved as I had contacted an old friend, who had invited me to stay on her croft on Whalsay. So Melanie joined us, just as Lindsay and I were about to eat and we left together soon afterwards, having arranged to meet Lindsay and the friends who were coming to stay with her, on Wednesday.

The last time I saw Melanie was in 1986. We attended a huge comprehensive school together and mostly met up in the music room and singing in choirs at Christmas concerts. What a strange feeling it was to meet someone at 55 that I hadn’t seen since we were 17, but wonderful all the same. Soon we were catching up on ancient history and all the years in between and it was a great start to my holiday.

She drove me to Jarlshof – an ancient dwelling place, where people had lived from about 5-6,000 years ago, right up until the 1600s. Ancient brochs were superseded by Norse longhouses when the Vikings arrived. Later there was a laird’s house, parts of which were still standing. It would take years to begin to understand the site, but it was fascinating to walk round, trying to imagine those primitive lives, huddling through the long dark winters, before the arrival of glass windows, central heating and electric lights.

We then went to the ruined St Ninian’s Church on St Ninian’s Isle – almost an island, but connected to the mainland by a “sand tombolo” – which is a sandy beach with sea on both sides.

As we headed towards the Whalsay Ferry, it started to rain and a rainbow formed over the landscape, which felt like an omen for a good week to come.

I expected to enjoy writing this entry – and I am as I had a wonderful week – but it struck me as. I paused to make coffee, that back when I left school in 1986, it was stupendously unlikely that I would have caught up with Melanie again. I liked her very much, but we had never been close “at each other’s houses” friends.

Back then, unless you kept up with someone’s address or landline, there was no way to keep in contact. I moved, because my parents moved, and then I went to university. I kept in touch with one friend – Sharon Dickson. We shared a flat for a year at uni. But other than that, it was unlikely I’d catch up with anyone else. If you moved, life moved on. You met new people, only keeping in touch with the closest of friends by phone or letter.

Though the internet is officially understood to have been created in 1983, that’s not something we would have heard of. When I was at school, most of the upper classes (there were 14 classes, each with 30 pupils in my year, so we were streamed) would not have taken “secretarial studies”. Ironic to look back at how that subject was viewed as secondary, as learning to type would have been tremendously useful.

After the internet became more widespread in the early 2000s, I had contact from two “early adopters” who got in touch through Friends Reunited, but until Facebook came along in 2004 (eighteen years after I left school) it was stupendously unlikely I would have accidentally bumped in to Melanie. We both left the town we grew up in far behind. So I guess I have Mark Zuckerberg and co to thank for the way things have turned out.

Having lived in various northern and remote places, I was interested to see what Shetland life was like. As I mentioned before, Melanie lives in a croft on Whalsay, one of the islands that is connected to the Shetland mainland by a ferry. Every time we crossed to the mainland, life was punctuated by that half hour journey.

The time we got up was related to which ferry we would catch. If you didn’t book the ferry, there might not be space and you might have to wait for the next. I was incredibly glad I was being driven around by someone who knew exactly how the whole thing worked, but that punctuation of life – ruled by the comings and goings of a boat – is very different from anywhere I’ve lived.

The croft itself was beautiful: a lovely warm home in that austere landscape, where trees don’t grow, but the sea is all around and the yellowing autumn grass was bounded by drystone walls. There were animals too: otters and seals in the sea, ponies, sheep and goats on the land.

As befits a croft, Melanie and her husband own about twenty sheep. Her husband has part ownership of a sophisticated fishing boat too, and as the week went by, I was privileged to share some traditional food, including a kind of stew of mutton chops, eaten with bannocks – scones cooked on a griddle, rather than in the oven, and also some of the fish caught from the boat. The mutton is served on the island at weddings and it was delicious. Melanie’s husband is a very good cook.

I took some photos of the changing light as the days passed and it was impossible not to fall in love with the place where Melanie has built her life.

Melanie, I and her friend Claire, went out to a few of the classes that made up Wool Week. There were so many of them, and I can’t knit or crochet, but Melanie booked three for us, the first stitching with wool, the second, felting and the third was called Weaving the Landscape.

I haven’t finished the stitching project. It was impossible to do so in the afternoon lesson. I brought back wool though and, if I can borrow an embroidery ring and needles from my mum, I may be able to finish it. The felting class was fabulous. We made otters, and though mine is not anatomically perfect, I was very pleased with my efforts.

Weaving the landscape was also utterly engrossing. It took me all day to create a tiny two inch cloth, but hopefully you can see how inspired I was by the sunset photos of rising mist over the lochan beside the croft.

We met up with Lindsay at the mart on Wednesday , where the sale of Shetland ponies was under way. After that, Melanie and I had lunch with Lindsay and her friends. It was a lovely relaxed occasion. Who could have imagined what 4,000 guineas worth of tiny horse looked like?

All too soon though, the week was over. The weather changed on the last day. I don’t know if you have watched the series, Shetland, but there is a shot in the opening titles, I think, where a small piece of plastic, caught on barbed wire, flutters frantically in the wind, This is my version of that shot! I think the sheets might have dried quickly, even though the temperature had dropped.

The boat was due to leave at five thirty in the afternoon, so I spent a last day with Melanie touring parts of the island. I bought souvenirs and ate the most enormous plate of cod and chips in a cafe in Lerwick.

All too soon, it was time to get back on the boat. I took a few, precious last shots as we sailed away from Lerwick, but my abiding memories are of the warmth of my welcome to the islands and my desire is to go back next year, and do it all again. Thank you Lindsay, for encouraging me to go to Shetland, and most importantly, thank you Melanie for a wonderful week.

Criffel, Scone, Dunsinane and Castlerigg

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

This post is filled with photos and is more than a week late. I have been away on holiday in Shetland and didn’t manage to post this a week ago on Friday or Saturday because there wasn’t great internet where Inwas staying on Friday night and I was travelling all of the next day. I’m home now, so will do my best to fill in a bit of information between the pictures I had already downloaded.

The first pictures are of Criffel, which I walked up with Triar. At 569m, starting near sea level, it was on the ambitious side for me. Indeed when I saw the above view, I felt I had bitten off more than I could chew, but I decided to give it a go. After all, I could always stop half way up…

Reader, I could not stop! There were good views over the Solway, though it was too cloudy/misty to see over to the Lake District. Perhaps I will try it again sometime on a clearer day.

I thought going down would be easier and, at first, it was. By the time 8 was three quarters of the way down, I was wondering if I was going to make it. My legs were so tired they were beginning to malfunction and there was a very real possibility of falling on my face, but I made it there and back without doing that, and of that I am very pleased.

After that there was another trip to Perth to learn about veterinary risk assessments. I met Sue again and this time, we went for a scone at Scone.

Triar thought he’d try his paw at being King of Scotland, but this is only a replica Stone of Scone, and anyway, I didn’t have a crown, so for now, we’re stuck with King Charles.

Despite being autumnal, there were some very pleasing parts of the gardens at Scone Palace.

On Tuesday, now on historical Scottish kings, Sue suggested we should climb Dunsinane Hill, to visit Macbeth, so we did. Again, it wasn’t the best weather, but it was an interesting hilltop with a flat peak where you could see there had been walls and structures in the past, though there wasn’t a great deal left. The views were wonderful though and it must have been a great lookout post.

Wednesday saw me driving back to Dumfries, where I had a day and a half of whirlwind work, trying to ensure I had everything vital done before heading off on holiday.

On Friday, I drove down to Yorkshire to drop off Triar at Mum and Dad’s. We wandered into the Lake District on the way down, to visit Castlerigg Stone Circle, which was lovely, but relatively busy for a non-weekend in late September. I guess to find it really quiet, I may have to try at dawn on a chilly Tuesday in February.

Anyway, that’s it for now. I shall post about my Shetland trip next week. I did so much that it will take some time to write the post. Suffice it to say, I had a wonderful week, catching up with old friends and making some new ones, while learning a whole load the crofting life in Shetland and making some interesting things out of wool.

Have a good week all!