To all those who disapprove of dogs on the bed, please avert your eyes! Triar was not only on mine this morning, but IN it, as you can see. It’s not as cold now as it was in midwinter, but he’s still much better than a hot water bottle in the depths of the night.
I am finally moving on from the horrors of the Farm of Doom. It has taken me all week to do the paperwork, but I sent the last lot in late yesterday afternoon and felt lighter for it. I will likely get it back for amendments (my new Veterinary Advisor is lovely, but the opposite of slapdash) but the hardest work is over. I have sorted out all the photos into different folders for different dates.
I think it will go to court, so I will have to prepare a statement, but I can face those images now, even if some still pain me to the point of tears. There’s always a great big Why? in my head as I contemplate these things. How did it come to that point? But I guess that’s also something I hope never to know, because I hope I would never reach the point where I could neglect a living animal without reaching out for help or ensuring someone else steps in, but surely everyone normal thinks the same?
On Wednesday, I was tired. Good sleep is still intermittent, but I went to a church meeting in the evening with the possibility of writing group afterwards. At the end of the church meeting, I decided I would drive home while it was still light. I was rewarded with a beautiful sunset as I drove back down the hill near Torthorwald and I stopped to take photos.
There was, I noticed (bottom right in the top photo) an old road sign, telling the distances to Dumfries and “Lockerby” so I took a picture of that too. It happens quite often when I stop to admire something beautiful, that I notice something else to enjoy, that I would otherwise have missed.
I was unexpectedly rewarded, last thing on Friday, with an early, negative test result (work related) which means that a large body of work I thought I was going to have to tackle next week is no longer necessary. There is still routine work booked in (another welfare follow up, but I know it won’t be harrowing) and evidence shuffling from the Farm of Doom. However, I will now (hopefully) have time to tackle a task I will enjoy much more – building towards a training module for an aspect of TB case handling.
Not sure if I’m odd, but I love writing Standard Operating Procedures or instructions that are clear to follow. It seems intuitive to me to explain things, step by step, in easy to understand language.
I had the experience in Norway of taking many courses and doing a lot of training. There are few things more frustrating than having to go back and listen to three minutes of semi-comprehensible speil attached to a PowerPoint slide, over and over to catch the last few phrases that were quickly slurred and not written on the screen. It means that training that should take twenty minutes, takes an hour. Working in a language that is not your mother tongue has many unconsidered complications.
As we have many new starting vets who have (as I did) done slaughterhouse work until their language skills improved enough to do something a bit more challenging, I think understanding that will be very useful.
Anyway, I suppose I should get up and do some painting. The new bedrooms are not going to paint themselves and work has stopped until I do them. Hopefully this weekend should see that particular job completed. I’ll leave you with a couple of shots from Blackbird Lane. Have a lovely week all.
So Christmas day has come and gone. The butcher in Settle created a decent enough ribbe (pork roast joint, traditional in Norway) even if he cut the crackling into cross-hatched diamonds instead of squares. There were roast potatoes and pigs in blankets and Triar barked so much at the first cracker that we gave up with only one cracked. Odd that he can withstand fireworks outside without blinking an eye, but inside the house, it’s a definite no.
His harness is also significantly tighter than it was when we came down five days ago. I know he had his usual pig in blanket Christmas dinner, but in addition, I suspect he’s been a useful receptacle for leftovers in a house where throwing away food is anathema and that was before he pinched an entire packet of Scottish tablet that he found in one of the bedrooms. That was only yesterday. By some miracle, we have made it through the night, undisturbed. I was expecting explosions at one end or the other, but it seems his digestive system is robust enough to withstand 600 calories of sugar and butter. We’re going to have to do a whole lots of walking when we get home to get it all back off again. As for him, no worries about explosions, he’s still hoping for more.
Christmas highlights included Triar opening his present. This year’s annual Kong teddy is a festive red effort. I also had a lovely laugh during a Zoom Christmas Eve church service I attended. I have started going to church in Scotland and wanted to go on Christmas day, but it was complicated by the fact that I was chief cook.
I know when I was a child, we used all to go to Church on Christmas morning. Grandma must have left the turkey cooking and we likely ate late, but I didn’t think that would work, and so I began to consider remote attendance. Geoff, one of my friends from the writing group I attend – also Donna’s father-in-law – is responsible for the video link in his church up in Lockerbie and so I asked him, and very conveniently, their Christmas service was on Christmas Eve.
It was a nice enough service and the filming was excellent, but the pièce de résistance came during the final carol – Oh Come All Ye Faithful. A small child had been called up to light the Christmas candle and he remained near the microphone in the aftermath. O Come, All Ye Faithful had quite a lot of verses and I spent the first couple smiling at the man who was unable to resist singing the first Oh come, let us adore him, despite the instruction that only the women should sing, but as the verses went on, the small child began at first, humming the chorus, as if to alleviate the boredom, and as the hymn went on, he was getting more and more into it. By the last chorus, he was belting the O comes out, wonderfully tunelessly. For Geoff, it highlighted a technical problem with the microphone, but I loved the raucous singing as that little boy found some entertainment. It’s also a reminder to me of the lack of children in the church I have joined. If the church is to survive, we need to embrace its children and smile at whatever they bring.
On Boxing Day, John, Yoana and I braved the fog on the tops and drove over to Malham for a walk to Janet’s Foss at Malham. Everyone else seems to have had the same idea, but we found a parking space and had a lovely walk.
Towards the end, the sun almost broke through and for a moment, there was blue sky.
But the mist met us again as we drove back up the hill and it’s been grey and damp in Settle every day since. I worked yesterday. I had received permission to work in Yorkshire for a day, though had something urgent come in, I would have had to rush back. My emergency kit is in the car. But now I am on holiday until the 7th of January, so I can now hopefully relax and maybe get a bit of writing in.
Anyway, wherever you are, I hope you have found some joy in this Christmas time. Thank you for reading and I will see you all in the new year.
I don’t have many photos this week. Though I was out and about a couple of days, the weather has mostly been grey and uninspiring. Now we are in the midst of Storm Darragh (though where I am, in Yorkshire, it doesn’t seem to be windy) so I’m not likely to rush out and get many pictures. As you can see from the picture at the top of the page, I have made myself an advent crown and have actually bought the proper purple candles that are common in Norway.
I am enjoying the advent calendars from Jacquie Lawson I was given last year and the year before. The Sussex one is particularly lovely. One thing I didn’t notice the first year was that the snow in the pictures gets gradually deeper as the days go by. I only realized when it reset last year, because it happened gradually. I took a couple of screenshots for comparison.
I’ve also just realised that I took the pictures at different times of day as well. It actually gets dark at night in the calendars. They really are beautifully detailed and I love looking at them in the lead up to Christmas.
There are Christmas programmes starting to appear on TV as well. Last night, we watched Susan Calman take a Christmas trip on Hurtigruten (boats that travel up and down Norway taking goods and passengers as well as tourists). She stopped off at the North Cape and at Finnsnes to visit Senja and it brought back so many wonderful memories. Though winter was very long, it was stunningly beautiful. I was rarely short of photos to share with you.
I am often asked if I regret coming back and it’s a difficult thing to answer. There were things over there that I loved. I enjoyed working for Mattilsynet more than I enjoy working for APHA, though the barriers thrown up by my imperfect grasp of the Norwegian language were always an impediment. I miss the magical feeling when the aurora lit up the night sky in its slow, endless dance. I miss my friends. I contacted Trude a few days ago when I was investigating a welfare referral from the slaughterhouse and just that small act brought me joy, as do the messages and photos from Shirley.
I feel incredibly blessed in the friends department though, as since returning to Scotland, I’ve also reconnected with many wonderful people, as well as meeting new ones. I guess the answer to whether I regret coming back is, mostly no. The reasons I returned are still there and I have some incredible memories to look back on. I guess my main wish would be that I could travel more and spend time in both countries.
I entered a Christmas card competition at work. They asked for winter pictures, which I have plenty of. The one I sent in was taken on a wonderful walk on Senja with John and Triar. It was taken in 2020, our first year there and our first Polar night. An icy cold day in December, with the sun, just below the horizon, casting amazing golden light through the bare branches of the trees. I expect the competition will be stiff, but hopefully they will enjoy my entry.
I don’t know if I mentioned it, but I’ve already booked another holiday in Shetland for next year. That’s in May, so something to look forward to. I’ve booked a pet friendly cabin, so Triar will be able to explore Shetland with me this time. I mentioned it last night and Mum asked me last night when I would be going to Norway, which is a difficult question. Not because I’m not intending to go, but because I’m finding it hard to know what time of year I should visit. I’m very tempted to go up North during Polar night, but that won’t be this winter. I feel like a holiday hoarder, saving up the days and calculating how many I can spare for all the places I want to go!
Anyway, the rain is hammering against the window and it feels like time to go and make a nice hot coffee. Today is probably going to be a day for huddling inside. I hope that, wherever you are, that you stay safe. Have a good week all!
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.
There were two beautiful mornings in Blackbird Lane the week before last that I want to share with you. I took the photo at the top of the page and the one below on Monday the 7th.
Mist hung above the fields, but the light was beautiful, catching the wonderful clarity of the raindrops, left there by a shower.
Four days later, it was frosty and again, I couldn’t resist taking photographs in the sparkling morning light.
I was taken out for a driver training course on the Thursday. The instructor asked why I was there. I must have triggered something when I answered some questions at work about my driving, but the only one I can think of was that I said I drive when I’m tired. If anyone working in field services (as I do) said they never drive when tired, they are not being entirely truthful. After a long day on a physical job on a farm, we all have to get home. That’s just how it is. Anyway I drove the instructor to Tebay service station and had a coffee and a pie, then drove her back. She says I’m a good driver, so no complaints about that one!
Last Sunday, I met an old friend from university and had a meal with him in Lockerbie. We then decided to go and look at a section of the west side of Hadrian’s wall, as it wasn’t too far away. It’s an impressive sight, even now: well constructed and taller than I am, so I couldn’t see over it. It was originally four metres high when it was built almost 2000 years ago. It must have been very commanding and Hadrian must have been very alarmed by all the evil Scots!
This week has been a real mixed bag. I was meant to be heading off to Bury St Edmunds today, to do some bluetongue surveillance, but on Tuesday, I was told that there was tracing work to be done here in Scotland and I couldn’t be spared. I was a bit frustrated as I was looking forward to getting away and doing some outbreak work.
The high point of my week was on Tuesday, when I visited a vet practice for a routine inspection over Wigtown way. It went well and I decided to spend lunchtime in a cafe in Wigtown called ReadingLasses. They had run out of soup and were only serving coffee and cake, so I chose a coffee and martini cake, which really was as delicious as it looks. Wigtown is also Scotland’s book town, as I’ve mentioned before, and as you can see in the photo below, and maybe guessed from its name, ReadingLasses was filled with books by and about women. I read the first two chapters of a book about crofting life with my cake and will definitely return for the following two next time I’m over that way.
Thursday wasn’t so good. I woke up and found that Triar’s breathing was not right. He was obviously struggling a bit, needing more effort to breathe out than was normal. I had woken at six and the vet didn’t open until 8:30 – he wasn’t bad enough to warrant an out of hours call – so I had a frightening couple of hours, during which my lovely friend Lara called me and calmed me down, talking through what to do.
By some miracle, the vet Triar knows had an appointment at 8:45, so I rushed Triar there. I think he has some kind of inflammation in his lungs, or pneumonia, but don’t know what’s causing it. He’s had a steroid injection and is doing a bit better, but for now, I’m waiting and monitoring and hoping he goes in the right direction. Lung problems in dogs can be difficult to diagnose and treat. This is the one time I wish I was working in practice, as I would do way more tests, though of course that can also cause more problems. Patience is very hard though and the realization of how precious he is to me was brought home by the wave of emotion. I was no use for work on Thursday morning and fortunately, my manager was very understanding.
So after all, I am very grateful to not be heading off to Bury St Edmunds today. Triar and I will have a quiet weekend together. The weather warnings say there’s a storm on the way, so we will shelter together here and hope for better things next week.
Last weekend, I made it to Torhouse Stone circle. I read somewhere, maybe at the site itself, that it consisted of a circle of “dumpy stones” but I see that Wikipedia calls them granite boulders, which sounds much better, so I’ll stick with that! There are nineteen stones in the circumference of the circle and three in the centre, and here, for the avoidance of doubt, is the Druid dog himself, who decided he would look very dashing, with his lovely silky ears getting all windswept and interesting.
As you can see, there were cows and a beautiful view, so I shall post a picture of that, without a dog in the way.
The age of the circle is not completely clear. They have yet to be excavated, but Historic Environment Scotland estimates that it is 4,000 years old which, if correct, would make it a bit younger than Cairn Holy (I posted about that here) and Stonehenge. On my online searches, I also discovered there is a particularly stunning looking stone circle in the Lake District, but I think that one will have to wait for the winter months, when all the tourists have departed.
From Torhouse, I drove on to Wigtown, hoping for coffee in ReadingLasses, but the centre of town was so busy with parked cars that I decided that too, could wait for another day. I drove on, down towards the harbour and saw a sign pointing to “Martyrs’ Stake”. The path looked enticing, so putting Triar on his lead, I decided to follow it.
A multitude of dragonflies flitted across the path at the beginning and later, there were brambles, filled with fruit. This little guy caught my ear with its drowsy summer buzz, so I took its photo, then carried on.
The stake itself was modern, which I confess disappointed me. I had been hoping for another standing stone, which technically this is, but it’s a newly placed monument, not an ancient artifact. Two women, Margaret Maclauchlan and Margaret Wilson were executed here on 11 May, 1685 for refusing to swear an oath declaring James VII of Scotland as head of the church. They were tied to stakes on the town’s mudflats, apparently, and allowed to drown with the rising tide. I’m not going to attempt to explain the Covenanters, or Scottish history in this post, but it was certainly a particularly cruel fate for those two poor women.
We stopped on the way home at Carsluith Castle. Like several other Historic Environment Scotland sites, it is closed to assess whether it’s safe, but there was a pleasant cafe in what would once have been its yard, where I had a very civilized cup of tea. There was also a delicatessen shop, which I will have to explore another day. It was too hot to leave Triar in the car, so he joined me outside, once I had ordered my drink.
It was good to get home to my nice, cool house. The walls are so thick that, even on warm summer days, it stays cool inside, and Donna assures me that it will stay easily warm in winter. Hopefully once I get the insulation put in the roof, that will be even more true.
A little later, I received a text from Donna, which said “If you’re home and at a loose end there’s a bottle of wine open and the chiminea is on. Making the most of the only day of summer 😂”. Well who could resist an offer like that? I decided on tea, instead of wine, but sat in Donna’s garden until the sun had gone down and it was properly dusk.
And now, a week later, I’m back at Valerie’s. I am attending a church meeting with her and her husband Charles, with a shared meal, for which Valerie prepared some delicious looking, traditional South African milk tarts last night. Tomorrow I’m going to a mini writing retreat with a group of writers I belong to. We meet in Lockerbie twice a month, and the mini-retreat is a little extra treat, which I am very much looking forward to.
It’s been a good week in various ways, but Triar has been telling me for the past few minutes that it’s time to get up, so I’d better go. I’ll leave you with a little gift the spiders in Blackbird Lane wove for me. Isn’t it beautiful?
No trip down Watery Lane this week, but after a colourful sunrise on Saturday morning, Dad, Triar and I took a walk along the bank of the river Ribble. It was another frosty afternoon and Triar enjoyed frisking among the trees and then chomping down on a few flavoursome, frozen cow pats!
I worked from home (in Yorkshire) on Monday, then headed up the road to stay with Donna. She has made me feel very welcome all week. She told me on the first evening that she would be starting a Pilates class on Tuesday. As I was still feeling quite couch potatoish after all those long spells lounging around on trains and boats, I asked if I could join her. I’m admittedly more chewed apple core than core of steel, but we’ve booked again for next week and will probably book up a few new years classes so as to get in there before the amateurs, who will only realise on New Year’s Day that it’s time to tone up.
A few weeks back, Donna put up a winter menu for Carlo’s Italian restaurant in Castle Douglas, which sounded both delicious and very reasonable at £15 for two courses. She was meeting a friend, but added me into that as well. This was the mushroom crostini, which was rich with garlic and cream and easily as delicious as it looked.
I won’t add an image of my main course as it also involved mushrooms and looked quite similar, but we were all full enough to decide not to order dessert. I did have a liquor coffee though, which came with a mince pie and a chocolate mint. Being back in Scotland definitely suits me!
The wading through of the title doesn’t refer to water or mud. Rather it is in honour of my first full week at work, which was bogged down in IT issues and induction. I was introduced to many other members of the team in various online meetings and in a short blurb I wrote about myself, which boss K sent round in an e-mail.
Wanting to seem keen and enthusiastic, I carefully avoided using any hint of implication that the work I was doing felt like slogging through a treacle infested swamp, but on Thursday K herself used the phrase when she asked me how I was getting on. Still, I’m quite good at wading so I’ve already got through courses on Equality and Diversity, Health and Safety, Civil Service Expectations, Counter Fraud Bribery and Corruption and Security and Data Protection.
Having done the last of those courses, I was reminded that I should ask K whether it was okay to continue with this blog. After all, the course had told me, as a newly minted member of the civil service I was ripe for criminals to attempt an attack. Presumably if the farmers pay me enough, they will get through their TB tests with flying colours and I will turn a blind eye to their incipient blue tongue or bird flu outbreaks. The rules did seem quite strict though, and I was concerned that K would ban me from mentioning anything about my new role online, but having read last week’s entry, she thought it would be fine to continue so it looks like you’re all stuck with me for a bit longer!
Yesterday, I met R, my veterinary counterpart from Stranraer and LM, my Veterinary Advisor, who will be guiding me through my first cases. I asked whether I might be able to go to Stranraer to shadow R in some cases and LM suggested I might be able to go for a few days, which would be lovely, both in terms of getting to know other parts of the team better, and seeing a bit more of Stranraer. The most criminal behaviour I came across over there was a farmer, who told me on a date that he didn’t think I could calve a cow if he couldn’t manage it. Perhaps he was more skilled than the average farmer* but as I was only ever called out when they couldn’t manage and had experienced few problems, I wasn’t impressed with his first date contemplations. Funnily enough, we didn’t make it to a second date. Still, you know I’m now old, free and single. There’s always the chance of a second crack of the whip. Bring it on, I say!
On Saturday afternoon last week, Anna, Triar and I were due to board the ferry that would take us from Amsterdam to Newcastle. Having quit the AirBnB at ten, it felt like a long day as we waited in Amsterdam central station. Originally we had planned to return to Cafe Luxembourg to try more croquettes, but we were back to carrying our cross-Europe luggage in the rain and the idea of getting somewhere under cover, close to where we had to catch the bus that would take us to the ferry was quite appealing. We spent a good while sitting in Dunkin’ Donuts, stretching out cups of coffee before we moved to a gourmet burger place, which had the added advantage of having its own toilet. Given how many shops there are, as well as trains and buses, the general toilet provision in Amsterdam Centraal is entirely inadequate. Fortunately the burger was also delicious!
The view outside was also worth looking at, especially as an incoming rain shower spread a rainbow across the skyline.
At three thirty, we boarded the bus and by four thirty, we were in our dog friendly cabin on the boat. On the Stavanger – Hirtshals ferry, I think we might have been the only passengers with a dog, but now we definitely had company. The dog next door was crying and there was periodic barking along the corridor, probably in response to the racket of car alarms wailing away on the nearby car deck, but Triar was an old hand at boat travel by now and within a few minutes, he was curled up on a bunk bed, peacefully sleeping.
I had been concerned about coming through customs with a dog to declare when we arrived the following morning, but in the event, after a quick passport check, we were waved on through. A short bus ride into Newcastle took us to the station and before long, we were on the last leg of our journey. We had a rather chilly stop on Carlisle station, but I got to use the lovely sitting mat I received from my friends and colleagues at the abattoir for the first time. I can confirm that it works well!
It didn’t take Triar long to settle in at Mum and Dad’s. Though I had assured Mum that she didn’t need to buy him any food, he was soon chomping down on a packet of bacon treats and his usual dry rations have been partially replaced with some tasty looking Pedigree sachets with jelly. I guess any visit to Grandma and Grandad’s will always result in being spoiled, at least a bit.
Having been incredibly fortunate with the weather for both our ferry crossings, a storm hit on the Tuesday that blew down a tree on the railway line, delaying Anna’s homeward travel, and shut off the electricity for a few hours. I arrived back from dropping Anna off in Skipton to find the house in near darkness. Much as I love candlelight, I prefer to have other options, so I was very glad when the lights came back on, just after ten.
As for the start of my new life in Scotland, things are gradually falling into place. I have rented a house, which I haven’t seen yet, but which will give me a bit more time to find somewhere to buy. I’ve looked at cars, but because new taxation is being brought in that punishes those with older cars if they need to drive into cities, I am going to have to save up to get a newer car than a direct replacement for my beloved, ten year old BMW. In the meantime, Dad will let me use his car. We’ll see how that goes. My intention is to come down most weekends for now, but if Mum and Dad need it back, I may have to come up with a different solution.
I’ve got a UK phone now, though as yet, I haven’t used it at all. And I’ve ordered a refurbished laptop from a shop in Skipton. Writing this block or e-mails is possible on my iPad, but everything else has to be done on paper right now.
Anyway, after days of rain, yesterday morning I woke up to one of those beautiful golden mornings, when the sunrise is softened by low lying mist and the tops of the black winter trees stand graceful in the morning light.
Today the rain is hurling itself against the window again, but it’s cosy inside. Mum and I started making the Christmas pudding on Thursday. The mixture is in the fridge and should be maturing nicely. We’ll cook it tomorrow. I’ve also sent off for some candles for an advent crown and they’re winging towards me as I write. Next week, I’ll be back in Dumfries and I’ll see the house that will be my home for the next few months. I’m feeling optimistic about what’s coming next. See you next week.
It was wonderful to catch up with a few people when I was in the Stavanger area again. I missed seeing my friend Lynn when I was down in at the end of August and we met up for coffee in Sandnes. Then my ex-boss Guro got in touch, so we went for a short walk together and ate delicious pumpkin soup that she brought. Guro also works for Mattilsynet in animal welfare and health, so it was interesting to compare notes about the tiny office in Finnsnes, compared to the much larger scale operation in Sandnes where she works.
We also celebrated Charlie’s birthday, on the 6th November, with food and cake.
It was lovely to catch up with people and also to eat cake, but most of this blog is going to be about our journey, and in particular about Triar. Back when he was younger, we worked hard trying to get him used to doing different things. We took him to the Christmas Marker in Egersund to get him used to crowds and into Stavanger on the train to dog-friendly coffee houses, where he learned to lie under the table while we ate.
But for the past three years, he’s lived a much more isolated life. Occasionally he went into eateries with us, but he never really settled and it was too inconvenient and expensive to be worth pursuing. The nearest train was a two hour drive away in Narvik and somehow, we never got round to taking him on the fast boat to Tromsø.
So I was interested to see how he would cope when he was thrown in at the deep end. The first leg of our journey was on the Fjord Line ferry that goes from Stavanger to Hirtshals in Denmark. We had a dog-friendly cabin, which was very comfortable. Fortunately, the weather could not have been much better and within minutes of boarding, Triar was feeling very relaxed.
Though I woke up a few times to find the boat gently rocking, Triar slept right through the night and seemed very cheery as we arrived in Denmark.
We had booked a taxi for 08:30 to take us from the dock to the railway station, but when I called the taxi firm, they said they had the booking marked for 09:00 and couldn’t get there sooner. Fortunately, there was a bus available, which we managed to hail, just as it was about to leave. We asked the driver whether we could bring the dog on board and he said of course we could.
Triar was such a good boy on the bus that the driver climbed out as he dropped us off to meet him properly. Triar can be a bit stand-offish with new people, but when the driver got down to his level and held out his hand, Triar did go up to him.
Soon we were on the train on the way to Hamburg, changing at Lindholm and Fredericia. We had a ticket for Triar, but the rules said that he had to stay on the floor. We had brought along some of his favourite toys and a chewy stick that Charlie had bought him. I was delighted to see how quickly he settled in.
Between Lindholm and Fredericia, he spent a good long spell chewing:
The Danish trains were very comfortable. On the last (and longest) leg of our journey, he was showing some signs of restlessness, but by the time we arrived in Hamburg, I was feeling very proud of how well he was coping.
The last leg was in a taxi, where he behaved impeccably, sitting at Anna’s feet on the floor. Indeed, he was much calmer than the taxi driver who, as well as making good use of his horn, ended the journey shouting at a woman who complained because he was blocking the cycle path outside the hotel.
Fortunately, the next leg of our train journey was a little shorter. I was thrown for a moment in the morning when I received an email with the words “Journey is cancelled” in large letters across the top. Fortunately it was only from Deutsche Bahn to say that the second train of the day, between Osnabrück Hbf and Amsterdam Centraal was not running. I had panicked for a moment, thinking it might have been the ferry crossing. Here Anna demonstrated the level headedness that had made me so glad when she accepted my invitation to come on this trip. Within moments, she had found information about alternative trains and we arrived in Amsterdam only half an hour later than originally planned.
Triar was mostly a star on the train. A lady with a toddler asked whether it would be okay for her daughter to be introduced to him. He has always been good with children, having spent his earliest days as a puppy with Wivek’s youngest daughter, Tiril, loving and hugging him regularly. Anna carefully controlled the situation, making sure Triar was sitting quietly and offering him food as the tiny girl stroked him quietly and gurgled with pleasure. Her mum made very sure her daughter was gentle and the whole thing went off very well. Triar seemed to enjoy it too.
Unfortunately, he did slightly blot his copybook a little later. Up until this point, he had remained perfectly calm, not moving a muscle, even when various guards came and stood right next to his head in their shiny black boots to inspect our tickets. But a woman came and stood right in front of him, and unlike the guards, she stared straight down at him. For the first and only time on our long journey, he stood up and lunged towards her, letting out a loud bark. Unsurprisingly, she quickly scurried away. I felt frustrated that we hadn’t controlled the situation better, but he had been so good up to this point that I hadn’t been expecting it. To my surprise, the woman with the baby girl still left her on the floor quite close to him and though we kept him on a fairly short lead, he settled back down and was well behaved for the remainder of the journey.
The last leg out to the AirBnB we had booked was on a jam-packed tram. Anna lifted him onto her knee and despite the crush of noisy people all around him, he lay in her arms and went to sleep.
All in all, the trip has gone very well so far. Though Triar looks incredibly sweet – so many people smile when they see him – he has a fairly typical Kooiker nature in that he can be wary of people he doesn’t know. We’ve been very isolated in our little snow-bound house and I’m going to contact a local trainer as soon as we get to Settle because we need to work again on his socialisation, both with people and with other dogs.
Most people probably saw a wonderfully calm, well behaved dog. I know I would have been impressed if I’d seen him as a stranger’s pet. I’m always impressed to see a relaxed dog on public transport. But that single moment with the lunge and the bark was a reminder of how quickly things could potentially go wrong. He’s never bitten anyone, but barking and lunging is alarming, particularly to anyone who’s scared of dogs.
We spent yesterday walking around Amsterdam in the rain, stopping in a cafe to eat some traditional Dutch kroketter. I asked the restaurant owner if we could bring a dog in and he smiled and said that if it was a cute cuddly dog, it was welcome to come in.
Here he is, under the table. I think he probably qualified, though fortunately none of the waiters put his cuddliness credentials to the test. He loves family cuddles, but there are limits!
I would love to come back to Amsterdam for a longer holiday. It’s a very attractive city with its canals and distinctive town houses.
We also completed an essential task yesterday. Triar had to go to the veterinary clinic and take a worming tablet before he enters the UK. I think the vet was impressed with our organisational skills as we arrived with a lump of pâté wrapped in cheese and the tablet was very quickly dispatched. I was also relieved his microchip was still working. It was unlikely it would fail, just at this crucial moment, but if it did, it would be potentially disastrous. We’ve travelled from Norway, through Denmark and Germany to the Netherlands without any kind of passport check, but if Triar isn’t allowed into the UK, we couldn’t take him back to Norway either as the same, stricter rules apply in both places..
This evening we will set off on the last leg of our long journey. An overnight ferry will take us to Newcastle and so tomorrow, assuming all goes well with the UK customs, Triar and I will be starting our new life in the UK. I hope you’ll join us on our new adventure.
Another emotional week, this week. If you’ve been following for a while, you will understand why I was nervous of handing over the house, more specifically the cleaning. Shirley, knowing all that history, volunteered to come and help me and was absolutely wonderful.
As a retired nurse, I thought that if there were any problems, she’d be a great witness. She is also an absolute whirlwind with a mop. I think she cleaned three rooms in the time it took me to get the bathroom sorted out. She also brought along a kettle and delicious biscuits and we sat and drank coffee, gazing out of the kitchen window at the snowy bulk of Fagerfjell (Mountain) that rises up behind the house. It was lovely to have some pleasant last memories after the furniture removal debacle!
My last two days at work were lovely. I was on the early shift, checking the live animals both days. I had quite forgotten that Tuesday was Halloween, so I was especially delighted to come back from the lairage to find that Trude had made our office really cosy with Halloween themed decorations, sweets, and a cake.
A few last memories of the lairage: there were wooly pigs there on my last day. Like many of the pigs, they were fast asleep when I arrived to look at them, so I took a photo. Actually, I think the black one facing me in the middle might have clocked me, but it’s a typically peaceful scene from the pig pens, albeit with extra wool!
There are a couple of bits of grafitti that have amused me over the years. Someone with a dark sense of humour has added a direction marker for any poor sheep in the «cold lairage». Fortunately, with all the sheep being Norwegian, they won’t have understood it if they saw it.
And there is a cheerier message on the back of one of the gates we stand behind when the animals come in. There’s not too much danger from a flock of sheep, even if they do run straight over you, but there are also big bulls brought in on a regular basis, and then this i very relevant.
Translated, it says, «You are safe here, Amen». A very reassuring message.
We had pizza together at lunch time and I spent the rest of the day showing Ingrid how to do a few last things. I also hugged almost everyone, which was lovely, given the restraints of Covid that were in place for so much of my first couple of years. I was also given some gifts, including a lovely pair of Målselv socks, which I can confirm are deliciously warm as well as very pleasing to look at.
The sale of the car to Kaj and later of the house, went through without a hitch. Both had originally been planned for 1st November, but as the house was ready before that, I handed over both sets of keys on the 31st and then drove to Tromsø with John. I had two nights in the lovely flat he and Yoana have rented. They’ve made it really cosy. I bought them a Nespresso machine as a housewarming present. Hopefully they’ll get a lot of use from it.
On Thursday morning, I walked through the snow to catch the bus that would take me to the airport. It was a beautiful day and I managed to capture a last photo of Tromsø as the plane took off.
It was a lot greener in Stavanger when I landed.
And of course, this lovely boy was waiting for me at the airport. It was wonderful to be reunited.
So now I am in Stavanger for a few days. Andrew came round on Thursday evening and yesterday and tonight Anna will be joining us. She will be coming with me on the next leg of my journey. We will take a boat from Stavanger to Hirtshals in Denmark on Tuesday evening.
And for regular readers, I have been asked to continue blogging by so many people that I will continue when I get to Scotland, so I hope you will all join me as I begin the next stage of my life as «The Vet Who Came In From The Cold».
A Vet’s Life 