I had a wonderful weekend last week, with Valerie. Back when the children were young, I met Valerie outside a classroom door. Her youngest, Stacey, was in the same class as John. We were both newcomers to the area and she quickly became one of my favourite people. She looked after Andrew when he was a baby and none of the child minders in the village had space for him. We both worked nights, but when we had time, we used to go for lunch at Jimmy Chung’s – a Chinese restaurant that did a fantastic buffet.

Meeting up made me feel I had gone back in time. With some friends, even when you haven’t seen them for years, you can pick it up where you left off and it was like that. Effortless and joyful. There were some new things. Valerie has a hot tub and evenings in the water with a glass of red wine (thoughtfully bought by her husband, Charles) were a wonderful new addition.

We also visited the Kelpies, which are not far from where I used to live. I’ve seen them in photos before, so it was lovely to see them, and that also fitted in to the daily walks I am now taking.

Valerie still looks amazing, despite all those Jimmy Chung’s meals and a bout of long Covid, caused by working in the NHS, in the front line, with no PPE. I had more protective gear as a technician in a chicken slaughterhouse in Norway. The chronic underfunding of public services in the UK has been going on for many years now. I hope it changes. Treating hard-working staff badly is not a recipe for a happy and healthy workforce.

I was in Ayr this week, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. My colleague (Pilar) was duty vet and I was shadowing her. While I was there to learn, it was an instructive lesson. Monday was fortunately quiet, but the two queries that took longest to deal with were about primates and alpacas. She also was put under pressure by a very grumpy vet, who probably knew he’d done something wrong and was taking it out on our staff. It didn’t inspire confidence in me that the role of duty vet is going to get any easier.

I did have time to wander around Ayr though, which was interesting. It’s on the coast and there’s a tidal river running through the town centre. It no longer seems deep enough for ships: perhaps years ago it was dredged and deeper, but there are many signs that it was once a thriving dock.

On the town centre side of the river, over the old bridge, which is now used as a foot bridge, there are some new buildings, such as Marks and Spencer.

But on the north side of the river, there are older buildings that speak of sailors and ships and a different life for the town. These is the old bath house.

The seaman’s mission:

And while the oldest bar in Ayr still looks to be in use, the oldest restaurant seems to be falling into a sad state of disrepair.

I can be difficult finding good food in new places, but I happened upon The Stravaig while wandering in search of inspiration on Tuesday evening. They served me a wonderful beetroot and goats cheese salad, with pickled walnuts. It was properly delicious and I will definitely be going back.

I have been doing the Second Nature program, primarily to lose weight (I’ve lost 5kg/11lb so far) but the program encourages better habits and lifestyle changes, rather than concentrating exclusively on food and calories. There are articles each day and a theme each week. So far we’ve had Prepare for the Program, Reset Your Lifestyle, Nutrition – Focus on Meal Planning, Mindset – Develop a Positive Mindset, Exercise – Increase Your Steps and this week’s Stress – Start Deep Breathing.

While I think it is a good program, and hope I can stick with it, it has struck me this week that an awful lot of it is about managing stress. The obesity epidemic undoubtedly has a lot of causes, from too much sugar, high availability of fast food and so on, but as I have embraced trying to sleep better and get into different routines, it did strike me as rather sad that my life is indeed filled with stress that I have to manage, and always has been. I’m sure it’s true of a lot of people and perhaps the reasons for that should be explored. Working hours in the UK are much longer than those in Norway, for example. After three in the afternoon, I’ve already worked out I’m not good in front of a computer. Out in the field, I can keep going, but I don’t achieve more by staying those extra hours.

Living in Norway opened my eyes to the horrible work situation in the UK. I remember sitting in a hotel at breakfast, listening to some southern businessman pontificating to his friend about how he knew who to promote as it would be the person who stayed late and really put in the hours. Perhaps he should have looked a bit harder at those who managed to finish their work within the allocated hours and prioritized their home life over crawling up the boss’s backside.

I felt a bit smug sitting there, having escaped all that. Nobody in Norway thinks that way. And now I’m back and it hasn’t changed, but I am thinking hard about what I can personally do so as not to slide back into those attitudes. I’m not going to be able to change the civil service, but in time, I may be able to change my own pattern of working. Deep breathing is all very well, but it should be an add on in a healthy lifestyle, not a lifeline to cling onto to survive.

I will finish with some photos from Blackbird Lane. The hedgerow is filled with flowers and weeds and twined with different plants. I was struck yesterday by the bindweed, which is both pretty and efficient, though it achieves its height by strangling others. It isn’t just climbing through the hawthorn, but even engulfed a dead nettle and other flimsy plants. Anyway, they are all climbing towards the light and though it’s not been a warm summer, I still find new things there daily. The bees at the top of the page were there too.

Have a good week all!