Tag Archives: Winter

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.

The Nights are (Fair) Drawing In

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

It’s starting to feel quite wintery outside, though really it’s still late autumn. I’m in Yorkshire again and there are still a few leaves clinging to the trees, though there are more on the ground.

While that leaf reminded me of flames (next project must be to get some kind of cosy fire in my house) most are shades of brown. Triar has started a new game where instead of pooing on grass, he’s choosing piles of leaves. As anyone who’s ever tried to spot doggy doo among a pile of leaves will testify, it’s quite a challenging game!

While I am trying to keep up my 7,500 steps a day (thank you WalkFit) the darkening evenings and wet weather are making it tougher. There’s mud now down Blackbird Lane and anyway, it’s too dark down there at night for it to be enjoyable, so though we still go there in the mornings, evening finds us walking the damp streets, admiring the foggy drizzle as we walk through pools of light from the street lights. Soon, of course, there will be Christmas lights to offer more colour in the darkness, but despite the best efforts of the shops, the Christmas spirit hasn’t quite descended yet.

That said, I did watch Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone last weekend. It’s one of my annual Christmas pilgrimages and it takes time to watch all seven films. I’m also in a mood to get the last seven chapters of my novel finished. It’s set in the lead up to Christmas and definitely easier to write when the evenings are long and the mood is upon me. I’ve been writing it for years and have considered abandoning it, but I’m so far through that it seems daft not to complete it. Then maybe I can put it behind me and start something else.

It feels odd to me that Bonfire Night has been and gone, leaving barely a mark. I did hear fireworks now and then. There was a spent rocket in Blackbird Lane the other morning, but it was always such a big part of my childhood that it seems very muted now. I guess I was lucky growing up. My dad loved bonfires and fireworks weren’t frowned upon as they seem to be now. But with the build up to Christmas getting earlier, it does feel like the autumn celebrations of Halloween and Guy Fawkes now feel like they are merging into some kind of early winter celebration. Instead of seeing notices for a local fireworks display around 5th November, then Christmas lights being switched on in early December, I’m seeing mid-November dates for the lights.

Maybe I’m just getting old. The neighbour’s children certainly went out Trick or Treating. I took them some sweets round and was rewarded by the neighbour clipping the top of my too-tall to reach hedge from the roof of his shed. I have no idea if those things were related, but it felt like it to me.

Project garden is moving slowly. The top part now looks neatish, with the exception of a flowerbed that is still choked with ground elder. I’ve planted most of the bulbs I bought with Valerie and have filled my brown bin each fortnight with hedge clippings. The bin service stops through the winter so there’s only one more to go this year. Next weekend, I’ll try to get more hedges cut. At least the growth is slowing down, so anything I do will be easy to keep under control until spring.

For now though, I’d better get up and take Triar out. Those 7,500 steps are not going to walk themselves. I will leave you with some photos taken last Sunday, driving back to Dumfries from Lochmaben. Amazing how the light changes, depending on the weather and the direction of the sunlight.

Hope you have a good week and thanks for reading.

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!

Missing Norway

Blog, Christmas, Life in Norway, The Vet Who Came In from the Cold, Travel, , , , , , , ,

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!

Wading Through

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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!

*He wasn’t.

Looking Forward, Looking Back

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

Sunrise/sunset: 09:43/14:19 Daylength: 4hr36min

It’s almost the end of January and it’s pouring with rain. Not that the snow is going anywhere fast; there’s too much of it and anyway, the forecast says the rain will turn to snow again shortly. I’m not wishing the time away as I’m enjoying work at the moment, but I am looking forward to lighter days and the loosening of winter’s grip. John and I made a second attempt to see the sun last weekend. We drove up to the ski slope at Fjellandsby last weekend, but this was the nearest we came.

There was quite a lot of fresh snow before the rain arrived and John worked hard to get the driveway as clear as possible so that we weren’t knee deep in slush.

Ann and Stejn came round last weekend and, very generously, gave us a load of wood as we were running low. I’ve commented before that this year’s winter was complicated as it was the first in our new house. There have been other factors as well; it’s been a very long winter with lots of snow early on. John was also home a lot when he hurt his ankle and it was so cold that he had the wood stove burning all day. However it’s clear that next year, we will have to buy a lot more wood.

I was looking back through some old photos this week and came across one that triggered a lot of memories. Here it is:

Aesthetically, I like it. It’s a picture of a sunrise, taken in February of 2020. There’s nothing spectacular about it, but it did provoke a lot of reflection. John was still living in England then, with no real thought of returning, and Andrew and I were still in South West Norway. This was John’s first visit to Norway in a while, and we took a short break in a cottage in Flekkefjord.

There are some very specific memories of the weekend itself. The cottage was an old farm house, up a long track. It was cosy, but very old-fashioned. We found the key and opened the door, and as we walked in, we heard voices. There was nobody there, but the radio in the kitchen was switched on. It felt very eerie, like the beginning of a horror movie. We went out for Chinese food in Flekkefjord and lit the fire in the cottage and watched creepy films. It was all very pleasant and unremarkable and I can remember thinking we would come back and do the whole thing again sometime.

Within weeks of our return, Covid hit and everything changed forever. England began to feel very unstable and John and Anna returned to Norway, clutching print outs of their residency passes, going through checks where airport staff asked for their personal numbers to check if they were entitled to get in. They both made it just before the borders closed and almost all flights ceased. Six months later, when John and I drove up here, we camped out on the first night on the track up to that old farmhouse (Almost Arctic).

So now, here we are. Things are less chaotic and unpredictable than they were back then, but there are a lot of changes still to come. Andrew will likely move out in summer this year. We need to look at folk high schools for him as he doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life yet. Folk high schools, for those who don’t know, are almost like a structured gap year, though with some fun education thrown in, which means you can get a student loan to cover it. He wants to do something artistic, probably to do with film, so he will try to find a course related to that. Anna went to Torshus Folkehøgskole and had a wonderful, uncomplicatedly happy year where she studied computer graphics creation in between taking a trip on a tall ship between Bergen and Shetland and getting a team silver medal in Norway’s national fencing championships.

John might move out at some point too, and then my life will become more complicated. There is a lot of physically hard work here, that I would have tackled when I was twenty five, but which looks way more daunting at fifty four.

But for now, I am looking forward to March, when I have booked a holiday in the UK. Andrew and I will fly over to see Anna and her girlfriend Lauren in Winchester and then we will all travel up to the Peak District to meet Mum and Dad. Then Andrew, Anna, Lauren and I will spend a few days near Cheltenham, where we will probably see Helen.

Other than that, who knows what’s just around the corner? I write about Scotland, which still, in many ways, feels like my spiritual home, but will I ever go back there to live? People have asked me now and then whether living in the Arctic is a lifelong choice or a temporary adventure and the answer is that I don’t know. There are advantages to living here and I like my job, and past experience has taught me that is important. But the winters are so long and so physically challenging that I will need to find ways of living with them, if I am to stay here permanently. Still, the good thing is that at the moment, I don’t need to decide. Though changes are coming, for now my life is relatively stable, which is something I never felt when I was living in a rented flat. I always knew would be temporary and the unsettled feeling that gave me is gone.

But for now, it’s time to get up and get breakfast with John. Time with family is one of those small pleasures that keep me going. The light is returning and soon the sun will come out from behind the clouds. Have a good week and thanks for reading.

The Last Sunlight

Arctic Advent, Blog, Christmas, In Darkness and In Light, Life in Norway, Writing, , , , , , ,

Sunrise/sunset: 10:35/12:34 Daylength: 1hr58min

I took the picture at the top of the page on Thursday 17th November without really thinking much about it, and its sister photograph was in last weeks blog, but it didn’t cross my mind at the time that it would probably be the last I saw of direct sunlight in 2022. Although technically the sun will rise above the horizon for almost two hours today, there aren’t many places where the horizon is visible, surrounded by mountains as we are. The upper slopes of the snow covered peaks have still been lit up for parts of the day until very recently. They looked so beautiful when I arrived home from work, all glowing with a pink tinged light, but even that is now going. Polar night is one of my favourite times because it can be so beautiful. When the weather is clear, the southern sky becomes golden and it reflects on the frosty ground with the magical warm glow you sometimes see on Christmas cards. To the north, the horizon turns a dusky pink colour that I had never seen before I moved up here. Here’s a photo that looks so surreal, even to me, that it’s hard to believe the colours haven’t been enhanced, but I haven’t made any adjustments at all.

Trees and a snow capped mountain under the pink glow of the northern horizon when the sun is just below the horizon in the south.

I took a few photos as I was driving around this week. There is still no snow, but the world is white anyway, with thick frost and ice. The ice crystals have formed slowly. I have shown photos before of hoar frost, but seems a little different as the crystals are large and flat.

We had a celebratory lunch this week at the abattoir. Ernestas and Vaidotas will be going back to Lithuania at the end of next week, and Øivind was missing waffles and the party spirit, so we decided to have a meal together, where we would bring something from our homeland. I brought an apple crumble, which went down well. Vaidotas brought honey and garlic roasted chicken wings, Oivind brought some Thai style chicken (his wife is from Thailand and is a wonderful cook). Konstantin brought a traditional Latvian bread soup, which tasted of cinnamon and raisins and Trude brought some amazing wraps, some with smoked trout and goats cheese, the others with smoked grouse that she had hunted and smoked herself. Everything was delicious and it was really very cosy.

Thai chicken and wraps

If you look in the back of the photo above, there is a blue box containing Roses chocolates, which was Ernestas’ contribution. That was another treat for me. When I was young, we didn’t get a lot of chocolate at home, but an exception was made at Christmas, when there was always a large tin of Roses chocolates. Though the packaging has changed, many of the sweets were still the same, so although it wasn’t very Lithuanian (though for all I know, maybe they’re made there) I really enjoyed the nostalgic taste of Christmas past.

And with the mention of Christmas, I can’t ignore the fact that tomorrow will be the first Sunday in advent. I’ve already bought candles for my advent crown and the first candle will be lit tomorrow. Last year, I looked around on the internet for some kind of advent calendar app as I love advent and hoped for something that wasn’t chocolate based, as most advent calendars are nowadays. I didn’t manage to find anything particularly special, and it crossed my mind that perhaps I could make one myself. So from Thursday 1st December until Christmas, I will post an image each day. I can’t promise they’ll all be from this year. I may include some of my particular favourites from the past two winters, but hopefully I will be able to capture my Arctic Advent for you.

Roses chocolates – the packaging has changed since I was a child, but many of the fillings are the same

End of Season and Emergency Plumbers

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

Sunrise/sunset: 08:28/14:33 Daylength: 6hr04min

Yesterday was officially the last day of the season at the abattoir. It’s rather sad to think that the vast majority of the lambs that were born in the spring time are now processed and ready to be eaten, but that is the end result for almost all animals that are bred for food. My job, as ever, is to ensure that the animal welfare during that process is as high as it can possibly be, and also to check that the quality and cleanliness of the meat produced is up to scratch.

Though the season officially ended yesterday, lots of the season workers flew home (including twelve who had decided to desert early in order to get cheaper flights). A quick change of plan meant that instead of being on the sheep production line, as I had expected, I was suddenly free to make a start on all the work that’s been building up while I’ve been busy. Every year, the season overshadows all the other work we do and I guess it’s the busiest time of the year.

It felt good to be making a start on the backlog. Hilde has given me some new tasks at the abattoir as I will eventually be moving there on a permanent basis. As with any other business, there’s a lot of paperwork to do behind the scenes and with my predecessor having left a year ago, and the other permanent vet (Ann) on sick leave, I am in the sink or swim phase of a new job, where things are thrown at me and I have to work out how they are done before a (fortunately mostly reasonable) deadline. That sort of thing can be somewhat stressful, but I can remember, all those years ago as a brand new vet, being thrown into a consulting room with clients when my knowledge of how to do the job was sadly lacking, and that was way worse! Ultimately, I will swim. I always do. Life experience is a wonderful thing.

John’s Triar fence isn’t quite finished. He and I had measured before we began and had estimated we needed 100m of lamb netting, but it seems we were out by a few metres and will need to buy some more lamb netting. I was amazed by John’s expertise though. One of the beautiful things about having adult children is that they learn to do things you never expected them to. Before I married, I was always impressed with the young farmers I had to work with, who were so wonderfully practical and seemed to be able to turn their hands to anything. I can do lots of things, if taught to do them, but often fear messing up (though obviously, reading my own words higher up the page, that doesn’t apply to things that are thrown at me at work!). John reminds me of those young farmers. He has no fear of taking things apart and putting them back together, or building a fence and sorting out any problems that come up. I am immensely proud of the young man he’s turned into.

Here he is wielding a mallet to put the posts in place, banging them down with a post knocker, sawing a notch for the stay (posts that go in at an angle to stabilise the corner posts) hammering in a stay and finally, tightening up the lamb netting (wider holes at the top, smaller gaps lower down). As you can see, he did it all with snow on the ground. That snow is mostly gone again for now, but winter is definitely here.

After we had been working on the fence, John went inside to have a warm shower, while I did some washing up. The washing machine was also on. While I was standing at the sink, I got something of a shock when I found my feet were suddenly wet. We have a dishwasher, but it isn’t plumbed in yet (it needs a new pipe and, you guessed it, it’s on John’s list of things to tackle). This means that there is an uncovered hole in one of the pipes under the sink. Up until now, the water has drained away normally despite this, but now it wasn’t. John also came out of the shower to say there was water all over the bathroom floor. It’s a wet room, so that wasn’t a disaster, but it certainly wasn’t normal either.

Norwegian insurance companies are great. In the UK, most seem to spend their time trying to get out of paying out, but here in Norway, I phoned mine (Gjensidige) immediately, and within a couple of hours there was a plumbing expert, who ran a self propelling hose up the pipes from the septic tank, then put in a camera to see what was wrong. It seems a previous occupier has thrown a load of solid fat down the drains, which has attached to the pipes and not only blocked them, but has done significant damage. For now they are unblocked, but will need to be replaced.

I’m not sure yet whether this is going to involve digging up huge sections of the garden (there might be a quicker fix under the house as the pipe from the toilet is large and still intact) but either way it’s a big job. It may be that it will have to wait for next year, as when the snow comes and the ground freezes, it will become impossible to dig, or indeed to access the “creep cellar” under the house, which is accessed from outside and will shortly be under a metre of snow. Still, for now it’s all working okay and it will be sorted out eventually. I’m just glad we found it early. The person that sold me the house also bought insurance for unexpected things happening after she’d moved out, so I will, if at all possible, shift the claim from my own insurance onto hers, but either way, I feel confident that this will all be sorted out.

Anyway, I have to go. My car has a major fault which is going to take three days to fix (something called the wire harness has a fault) and there’s nobody nearer than Tromsø with the expertise to fix it. I’ll take it today and collect it next weekend. One thing I can certainly say is that life here is rarely boring!

Don’t Try This at Home

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

Sunrise/sunset: 07:28/17:40 Daylength: 10hr11min

A lot has happened this week. I’m starting to feel that life couldn’t be much more up and down if I was strapped into a roller coaster beside a demented grizzly bear.

Last weekend was mostly good:

John and I drove down to Narvik on Sunday to buy a snøfres or snow blower. I can see, when I look at the estate agent pictures of my house from last winter, that it obviously gets a lot of snow, so working out how to clear it is important. I like snow, which is just as well, and at least I now have a garage – no more getting up at 4a.m to clear one car, then a second ten minutes later. But I will still have to clear the driveway, which is longer than the old one. John found the snow blower on Finn – a Norwegian website that has everything from second hand stuffed otters to holiday booking and jobs.

The bloke selling it laughed at us when we arrived with my car and no trailer. I seem to have been beset by arsehole men of late (not sure why – I wouldn’t have said it was typical here) but happily John had brought his tool kit. He very quickly removed the wheels and the funnel that directs the snow, and we soon had it in the boot to drive home. Here’s John checking it out when we got back.

Sturdy, orange snow blower

In addition to the snow blower, I have also invested in a Roborock Vacuum cleaner. This must surely be the best invention ever for those of us who don’t like housework. In order for it to work, the floor must be clear, so that was a good start and gave us the final push to put away the last few things that were still lying around after moving. The first time I set it going, I discovered that you can watch its progress on the Roborock app. This was oddly fascinating and I sat and watched the lines building up as it cleaned the floor in sections. I actually watched this for about 40 minutes as it wove in and out of the hall and kitchen! A couple of days later, I showed John and he was equally mesmerised. And all that comes with the added benefit that the floor is unprecedentedly clean.

The highlight of the weekend was a visit to Trude’s to see the puppies. We had a puppy cuddling session and then coffee and I even came home with some plants for the house.

Puppys at the milk bar

Monday wasn’t a bad day until the evening. I was checking my online bank when I noticed there was very little left in my current account. This does sometimes happen, but I wasn’t expecting it, right at the start of the month. When I checked the outgoings I realised, to my horror, that an automatic rent payment had been paid out to my ex-landlord. I went and checked, with shaking hands, and realised that the monthly payment, which I had stopped, had restarted.

The bank helpline was still open, so I called them. They told me it was my responsibility, that the stop button was only for a month, and that it was now on me to try to get the money back. I was reeling. It was a lot of money as I was paying 14,500kr per month rent (well over a thousand pound or US dollars).

John was frantically searching online – a difficult task as all the information was in Norwegian – and he told me I had to contact the person I had sent the money to, to establish that it had been sent in error and that I wanted it back. My first instinct was to message the wife of Mr Abusive, so I did so, but then thought afterwards that I should tell him as well, given it was his bank account. I’m glad I contacted her as well as him as, though neither of them responded, I can see from her messenger (and thus can prove) that she read it, which might turn out to be quite important.

My bank have not been particularly helpful. I will be making a complaint, as if I click on a button that says “Stop transfer” and a button pops up that says “Start transfer” I assume that the process is stopped until I start it again. When I looked again, I can see there was also an option to delete. It was a while ago, so I’m not sure why I didn’t take that option, but with a word like “transfer” which can refer to an individual transaction, or the monthly transfer of funds, that the bank should have made it absolutely clear that the stop was only temporary and would restart the next month.

Of course, Mr Abusive has not sent the money back. I presume that he thinks he will keep it as a kind of “deposit” against the 40,000kr he thinks I will have to pay him. Taking a deposit in your own bank account is illegal in Norway though, so I hope that the rent disputes tribunal will take a very dim view.

In the meantime, I have contacted his bank – apparently they are obliged to take “reasonable steps” towards getting my money back. My own bank told me I should contact the police, if he doesn’t pay it back. I think they might be referring to a particular branch of the Norwegian police force, who work in debt collection, rather than him being arrested, but that is all still to come.

In the first instance, I have been able to obtain legal assistance from Jusshjelpa i Nord Norge, a group run by the university in Tromsø, where law students assist people with legal issues. I have also informed the rent disputes tribunal and they have extended my response deadline so that I can find out whether he pays me back or not. If he doesn’t, I will be adding it to that case, which will be legally binding, if they decide in my favour. Given Mr Abusive’s ongoing behaviour, I think it’s becoming increasingly clear who isn’t being honest and reasonable here. Legally, he should send the money back and wait for the tribunal result, but it’s looking unlikely that he will do so.

Anyway, having picked myself up from that debacle, I was feeling tired, but pretty happy towards the end of the week. The house and my life in general are still giving me a good feeling of happiness and stability. So I was looking forward to the weekend yesterday, when I was on the sheep line at work. We use sterilisers for our knives, which are filled with water that is usually simmering. My knife fell into the water. I was wearing a latex glove with a cotton glove underneath, so I put my hand in to retrieve the knife, as I had often done before. Unfortunately, this time there was a hole in the glove. It took a moment for the pain to hit, but I had to rush off the line, ripping the gloves off and leaving Vaidotas alone.

It was one of those horrible moments. I was wearing loads of protective clothing and it was becoming increasingly clear that I couldn’t continue without running my finger under cold water, so I had to throw off all the gear as quickly as possible and rush to the Mattilsynet room, where fortunately Ernestas was sitting at the table. I asked him to go in for me, and went to run my finger under the tap. Having looked at the NHS website last night, I can see that the first aid advice for burns has changed from ten minutes under cool water to twenty, but having stopped after ten minutes, I was still in so much pain that I had to ask Trude to take me to the doctors’. Another change of clothes was required. I guess, in an out and out emergency, they’d take you in your white “clean area” clothes, but a scalded finger didn’t really qualify. I was in enough pain that I had been sitting with my finger under another tap at the surgery for fifteen minutes, before I noticed I hadn’t actually done my trousers up.

So now I have a bandaged middle finger on my right hand. Second degree burns, apparently. There’s a blister encompassing a good section of my finger tip and another at the top of the nail. The pain seems to be under control for now, but typing is definitely not as easy as it usually is. Fortunately, I will be inspecting live animals on Monday, which will only require me to wield a pen, rather than a knife, so that should hopefully be okay.

Sunset taken on a walk with Triar near the house

And now I need to go shopping, partly for food, and hopefully also to buy an outfit for Anna’s graduation, assuming I feel up to it. She and I are also planning a trip to Stonehenge when I go over. We share a love of the ancient, so that definitely qualifies.

And I’ll leave you with a photo of a snow capped mountain. It’s rather distant and therefore difficult to photograph, but beautiful nonetheless. Have a good week all!

Snow capped mountain scene, taken from my veranda

Parties and Preparation

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

Sunrise/sunset: 08:01/ 17:03. Daylength: 9hr02min

I had a pleasant day yesterday, and indeed an enjoyable week altogether. Friday is often the best day of the week anyway, but I had a good start to mine when Vaidotas told me he thought he, Konstantin and I make a great team. Yesterday was my only day at the abattoir this week. I’ve been there a good deal less this year than last, so it was very pleasant to hear I’m appreciated, even though I’m slightly bemused as to which part of my performance he thinks is most useful.

As a quick update, on any day in the season, there is a team of three on the sheep line. We work in a rota of one hour on, thirty minutes off, so when the line is running, there are two of us working at any time. Vaidotas and Konstantin are there daily, and different people make up the number on different days. You’d think it was all about teamwork. Beyond our smaller team, we’re also part of a much bigger team on the line, with perhaps a hundred people, each doing one or two small tasks. However, despite that teamwork, there’s also a feeling of being on your own. The line is noisy, so headphones (attached to a helmet) are the order of the day. There’s not much chance for chat and the work doesn’t require much thought, so there are times when I retreat into my own head, sometimes quite a distance.

Indeed yesterday, with Vaidotas’ happy praise in my head, I started thinking about what I would tell you about it. As I was wondering what he liked about my performance, it crossed my mind that I spend at least some of my time daydreaming, which can’t be all that helpful. I glanced out of the window for a moment as I considered how I would describe that, and thought perhaps I could say I must spend some time staring into the middle distance like some badly written heroine of romance. I was weaving through a mental maze about whether I could compare myself to Jane Eyre, or Eliza Bennet (not that either of those are badly written and neither are particularly prone to the middle distance gaze) when it struck me that even the worst romance writer would not set her (or his) story in an abattoir.

Modern romance novels often take a particular form, so I began to wander through a few possible titles, Canteen Cakes in the Little Slaughter Kitchen maybe or Snowflakes in Nortura Skies, I found myself grinning, and indeed I did smile at everyone around me because I was feeling rather cheery. So perhaps the reason Vaidotas enjoys working with me is because I stand around all day giggling to myself at the silly thoughts in my head. After all, it is unlikely to be my other habit that he finds praiseworthy, as my other habit is peering quizzically at something unusual on a side of lamb that might be nasty (or maybe not) and pointing it out to him to see what he thinks, at which point he invariably reaches for his knife and cuts it off, while I watch and think that next time, I must remember to be decisive and do that myself. Anyway, regardless of the reasons why, I was very pleased.

The rest of the week has been enjoyable too. I didn’t have too much work pending and I had quite a lot of flexitime, so I’ve been working shorter days than usual. Though we don’t have to be back in the office, and can still work from home, it’s no longer the rule that we ought to do so. For most of the year I’ve been here, social events have largely been on hold. However, with the restrictions lifting, and a few people sitting around the table for coffee first thing in the morning, talk somehow turned to the idea of a party. So on November 12th, everyone is going to get together in the office after work. It might seem a little odd, just how exciting that seems to me, but as I said, I’ve mostly been here during lockdown and my contact with other adult human beings has been very minimal. I need to get out perhaps, and expand my network outside of work colleagues, but for now, getting to know them better sounds great.

There was, of course, discussion about food. I believe there may be some budget for socialising, but like everything in the pubic sector, it’s limited. So I piped up and said I would be happy to bring some traditional UK/Scottish food. Though it’s difficult to get some ingredients, I like making sausage rolls, for example, as you can’t buy them here. And pies and savoury pastries aren’t really a thing in the shops. There is frozen puff pastry, but I’ve no idea what they do with it as savoury pies really don’t seem to be a thing. So if I have time, I might make chicken and mushroom pasties. The recipe is here, and rather unexpectedly, that page is the most popular on my website, so I’m guessing it must be relatively reliable! I will probably also bake some shortbread biscuits. Funny that things that are basic in the UK are really quite exotic here, but I’m hoping other people will bring dishes local to them as well. I love trying different things.

I arrived at the office on Thursday morning to a very beautiful dawn. I had already taken a photo of Senja from the garden before I set out. Looking away from the sun, the blue, polar, pre-dawn light is already kicking in and it’s wonderfully clear. The photo at the top of the page shows a snow cloud over Senja from a few days earlier.

Snow covered mountains on Senja

But as I arrived at the office, the sun was just below the horizon. It was painting the clouds the most wonderful colours and then a group of crows seemed to be enjoying it too, as they performed acrobatics over the fjord. It was too intense to ignore, so I spent a few minutes outside taking photographs before I went in.

And lastly, my preparations for winter are well underway. Until recently, it was quite warm, but the temperatures have suddenly dropped, especially at night. It’s forecast to reach minus ten overnight on Wednesday. So I have thrown the extending shovel back in the car and I’ve bought an extra long implement for clearing snow off the roof of the car, which I didn’t get round to last year. The guinea pigs, after a few nights with a blanket over their outdoor cage, have now moved inside into their winter quarters. They seem very cheery about it all, and indeed have quickly remembered that the sound of the fridge opening sometimes leads to salad if you squeak loudly enough!

Susie and Brownie in their indoor quarters.

The only thing I have failed to do in time, is to change the winter wheels onto the car. They are stored in a local “Tyre hotel” as I don’t have a lot of storage space. When I went in on Monday, they told me I’d missed my slot. It transpired they had sent me an appointment for the change back in September, but as they had the wrong phone number, someone else must have received a random message that their wheel change was due. Anyway, I have a time slot on Monday, and in the meantime, I will just have to drive very carefully, if and when I go out.

Anyway, I will leave you with a photo of Triar, who seems to be enjoying the cosiness created by new blankets on the sofas, along with the return of the warmth from the heated floor. Thanks for reading and have a good week.

Upside-down Triar