Tag Archives: Writing

…Must Come to an End

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Another photo of Paisley Abbey to lead this entry. It looked so beautiful this morning as I was walking Triar along the riverside. He then led me straight to the Square Café Bistro, clearly reading my Saturday morning intention and thoroughly approving. It was a different lady this morning though, so he almost didn’t get his sausage and I had to order it. Fine by me, though it’s not a habit we are going to get into routinely!

Yesterday was my last day at the PDSA. I suspect there may have been another last – the last time I do surgery. I may be wrong, of course. Who knows what’s round the corner? But when I left Tu Dyreklinikk in Norway in 2016, that wasn’t a thought that crossed my mind. I finished what was possibly my last stint in small animal practice with a very odd case. A dog came in with a very unusual wound or sore on its hind end. I admitted it for sedation, but even once it was cleaned, it still looked strange. It might have been due to urine scalding, exacerbated by the fact the dog was wearing a nappy, but I’d never seen anything like it before and nor had the nurses or the other vets who had a look. It just goes to show that, as a vet, there’s always something you haven’t seen before, even after years and years in the job.

I was very touched to get a gift of a notebook with, “Paws for Thought,” on the front, as well as some hand cream and a small bar of chocolate. These were from Liv, the senior vet, who hoped the notebook would help inspiration strike (her wife is also an author), that the hand cream would sooth my skin after all the scrubbing up I’ve done and that the chocolate would give me a lift when I’m missing them.
There was also a card, with messages from the staff, which were genuinely touching. The nurses I’ve worked most closely with said they enjoyed working with me and Lauryn said, “You’ve taken the stress off the team,” and if that is true, then I’m really happy. They’re a lovely group of people and there is a huge amount of work to do. If I’ve helped to reduce a big neutering backlog, that seems like a worthwhile achievement.

So what next is the question and the answer is, I don’t know. There are other small animal practices needing locums, but I really want to get back to APHA to help with the bluetongue effort. On top of that, there was a BSE case reported recently which was also in my region. I went into the Dumfries office on Thursday and found there were two vets working there from Inverness and one of the new team members from Kilwinning was there too. It’s not like I wouldn’t be useful, if only they could get me back on board.

In the meantime, APHA England told my agent that they were reluctant to take me on as a locum, lest I got too used to it and didn’t want to return to a permanent contract. I’ve offered to locum in Dumfries until my permanent job is confirmed (there’s no good reason to turn me down, but it’s not a done deal until the paperwork is signed) but that’s not happening either. The member of staff to whom I made the offer said, “oh but you’d have to be signed up with one of the companies that supply locums,” at which point, I must confess, I felt very frustrated, because everything is set up and ready to go on my side. I know they must be up to their eyes in report cases, but it’s just crazy that I’m here, with plenty of relevant experience, and raring to go, but nobody will take me on. The agent reapplied to APHA England on Friday as they’ve already been let down by some of the people they took on. Hopefully I should find out in the next week or two.

Anyway, here I am, still in Paisley and wondering what to do now. There’s nothing to keep me here, but nothing pressing to do at home either. Usually there’s somewhere I need to be, but now there isn’t. If I’d loads of money in the bank, I’d probably go away for a couple of nights, but due to some first-time locum fumbling, I’m not going to get paid for the last six week’s work until mid September. The mortgage and other payments are covered, but additional hotel fees, not so much.

When I arrived here in Paisley, it was not long past midsummer and it was light until eleven at night, but the days are getting shorter. The sun is just rising as I take Triar for his six am walk, but it’s dark now by nine thirty, when we go out in the evening. It feels a bit sad that I won’t see autumn here, but I look at the stone pavements and think how slippery they will be on icy winter days. If I was years younger, I think I would be tempted by city life and a permanent job at the PDSA, but the slower pace of Dumfries is calling. Anyway, I will leave you with some photos I took last night. If anything, the darkness enhances the old world feel of some of our haunts.

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

Unwanted and Underwhelming Events

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One of my bitch spays bled on Monday. I had operated on her in the morning and was consulting when she was checked with ultrasound and taken back into theatre. Obviously these things are terrifying for the owner, but they are awful for the vet too. Which part of what I did went wrong? Will they find work so bad that they won’t feel safe with me working here? Will the poor animal die? It’s all my fault…

The realization that she was bleeding internally was also so late in the day, that I had to go home without knowing the outcome. Thankfully, the lovely vet who did the second surgery let me know just before 9pm that the bitch had been transferred to the overnight vets, so she had obviously survived the operation and was fit to be transferred, but I still didn’t sleep well.

I guess this is a particular peril of returning to something I haven’t done for a long time, but I have received incredible support from all the PDSA staff, as well as a vet friend. It was a very large dog and a breed which, so my vet friend tells me, are very prone to bleeding. To understand more, when vets do a spay operation, it’s necessary to tie off the fairly large blood vessels that supply the ovaries at one end of the uterus as well as the ones that supply the cervix and the uterus itself, at the other end.

Tying off the ovaries can be difficult because they are tied to the body wall by ligaments that attach high up near the spine and kidneys. These ligaments mean that you cannot easily get the ovary up to where you’ve made the incision, near the navel. They can be stretched a bit, but that carries its own risks. Anyway you can probably imagine, it’s easy to tie a knot round something when it’s clear of all obstacles. It’s much harder when bits of fat and other abdominal contents are all trying to get in on the act. You can’t afford for any of them to be caught in your knot. Your knot also has to be far enough away from where you eventually sever the artery, and tied tightly enough, that it can’t slide off.

But from what I understand, the main bleeding was from the other end of the uterus, down at the cervix. My ligature was still in place. I had stitched it in. She just bled past it or round it somehow. She was also bleeding a lot from other places, such as the layer under the skin. Some times, that’s just how it is.

Fortunately (to my huge relief) she lived. I am very grateful to the vet and nurse team that recognized there was a problem and fixed it, but it has shaken my confidence. I did two spays yesterday. The first went perfectly, I tied everything off without problems and the abdomen was dry with not a trace of blood. The second, which I had expected to be easier, was actually more difficult and the operation took a lot longer. I have modified my ligature technique and have learned to tie a self-tightening Miller’s knot. Even with that, I still stitched up that second spay with trepidation, but she went home fine, at the end of the day.

With time, it will all fade, but I can still remember, with horrible clarity, back in 1992 when a bitch I was spaying because she had pyometra (infection in the womb) bled out on the table. That one was my fault. I didn’t have enough experience back then and should have made sure someone was assisting me. I did learn a lot that day and my record from then till now has been good, partly because I’ve been careful and partly down to luck. This time round, it was a combination of things, but mostly just unfortunate. I will learn and move on, but this is one of the things that makes being a vet hard.

I haven’t done much this week, outside of work. Looking back through my photos, I see I took one of Triar last weekend. It’s not one of my usual shots of his shaggy, smiling face. It’s a shot of the back of his head and neck after he decided to explore a bush in my garden. I didn’t know there was Galium aparine under there, but I do now!

I guess if you’re reading this in a distant part of the world, you won’t have experienced the eclipse on Thursday. Not that it was worth noting in Paisley! It matched my memories of the one in (I think) 1999, which was another partial eclipse where I was. I’m sure seeing the real thing, where the sun is completely obscured, would be amazing, but on both occasions I’ve experienced, all that happened was that the light went a weird, dull grey colour for a while and that was that. Polar night is much more interesting, though I can see, as with the aurora, why our ancestors might have marveled or been afraid.

I’m thinking of visiting Crookston Castle today, after breakfast out, probably at Harry’s Fuel Bar. Hopefully next week at work will go smoothly, though as I said before, the staff could not have been more supportive and I am incredibly grateful for that. I will leave you with a few more photos from Paisley, taken as I wandered at different times of day. The picture at the top of the page is a lion from the 2016 exhibition, “Pride of Paisley”. I see it every time we walk to the grass in the morning.

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

Exploration

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I’m back in Dumfries today, because I’m going to another “mini writing retreat,” with A Novel Approach, the writing group from Lockerbie. Not that I have done much writing recently, outside of this blog. Life has just been too full-on for me to find the mind space.

It’s been another great week at the PDSA. As well as neutering, I’ve started to do some consultations. I’m not very confident yet, partly because the PDSA provides care that is, by necessity, somewhat more limited than private vets might offer. It’s also more than twenty five years since I was in general practice in the UK. I did emergency work after that, and also worked in a small animal practice in Norway, but all those things were different, so I’m feeling my way back in. Happily, I’m getting plenty of help from all the staff, from the animal care auxiliaries, nurse and vets.

On Saturday, following a recommendation from Martin in the comments last week, Triar and I visited Barshaw Park. My original intention was to go in the afternoon, when the miniature train might have been running, but I wasn’t hungry first thing, and felt at a loose end, so decided to go in the morning, with a view to going back later. As it was a half hour walk, and I wanted to save energy for when I got there, I decided to go on the bus. It was easy enough to find where to get on, but when I told the driver I wanted to go to Barshaw Park, she didn’t know where it was. On the spur of the moment, having seen an all day ticket advertised, I decided to go for that. So Triar and I went on the bus to Barshaw Park.

It was a nice park, though we didn’t explore too much of it. I saw the track for the little railway as well as a boating pond with lots of birds and an adventurous looking play park. There were a lot of dogs though and as Triar tends to get excited when that happens, it was not the most relaxing visit. Still, we enjoyed our walk around the pond and then took the bus back to Paisley centre.

As I was now hungry, we went to Harry’s Fuel Bar, where I decided to get the pancakes again. I continue to be amused by the sign on the wall beside the counter. The pancakes were just as delicious and filling as they were the first time.

On leaving Harry’s Fuel Bar, I noticed the bus stop outside, which said the bus went to Clydebank, so on a whim, given I had bought an all day ticket, I decided that we would go there and see what Clydebank had to offer. With Triar in tow, rather than walking round the town centre, I decided to go find what used to be the docks. Clydebank was once a huge shipbuilding hub. There are few signs of that history left, other than seeing the sturdy bollards along the river bank, where the ships used to tie up, and standing alone, the massive Titan crane. At 150 feet tall, it dominates the landscape. It was open to the public for a while, but the maintenance costs are so high that it was closed in 2018 and now its future is uncertain. For now though, it stands as a reminder of Scotland and the Clyde’s shipbuilding past.

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Triar and I continued our walk along the river bank, then back round into the town, to catch the bus again, back to our temporary home in Paisley.

I had a day off on Wednesday and decided to go and explore Paisley Abbey. It’s now the Church of Scotland’s parish church, but was originally established as a priory, back in 1163. The current church is a mosaic of buildings, created at different times. The oldest part is from the 12th century – a Romanesque door through which visitors now enter. Parts of the building have fallen down, been sacked and burned, rebuilt and restored until as recently as 2012, though most of the rebuild was completed in the 1920s. There is beautiful stained glass, old and new. Perhaps the most striking is a window near the organ, designed by John K Clark, dedicated to James Davidson Drewette Shaw and representing light and music.

Then, for contrast, I visited a much more humble offering: Sma’ Shot Cottages, which were originally a weaver’s cottage from the 18th century and a slightly later house that belonged to the foreman of a nearby mill in the mid-19th century. It’s always a salutary lesson in how fortunate we are now in how we live in the western world. Whole families used to eat and sleep in one small room, cooking over a coal fire that would have had to have been lit, summer and winter, to make food and boil water. The (restored and working) looms were in a room next door. They didn’t have to travel far to go to work!

If, like me, you are wondering what a small shot is, there’s an explanation here:

Anyway, I had better go now. My writing retreat starts at 10, so I’d better get organized. Thank you to all of you who’ve read this far. I hope you have a lovely week.

This was the only photo I took from the mill manager’s house – a beautiful writing set.

Further Adventures in Paisley

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Well it’s a dreich morning here in Paisley. For the first time since I’ve been here, the streets are wet. Nonetheless, they are setting up market stalls in the square outside the flat and Triar and I will go explore those later. We will also be going out for breakfast at Harry’s Fuel Bar, a café just the other side of Gilmore Street railway station. We went there last Saturday before heading to Dumfries and had the protein pancakes and possibly the most daringly overfilled (but not spilled) latte, both of which which were delicious!

I took the photo at the top of the page last night, mostly because one of the most outstanding features I’ve noticed as I’ve been walking around Paisley is the number of churches. In addition to the cathedral, there’s an abbey, and seemingly churches of all denominations and none. Some of the buildings have been repurposed – like the PACE Youth Theatre at the top of School Wynd, but there are a lot of beautiful buildings, which I will probably try to capture at some point. In the photo above , you can see the top of the PACE building on the right and there are spires of two other churches also visible, just in one small area.

Although I mention Paisley in the title, I actually spent more time this week in Dumfries. I didn’t get the chest of drawers put together, but I did mow the lawn and get the bedroom partially cleared. I’ve been living with hundreds of boxes and a floor-drobe for most of the past two years, so it’s taken some sorting. Next time I go down, I will find the energy to complete the job.

On the way down, I got stuck in a country traffic jam, which looked like this.

It was a lovely contrast between the city life and the countryside I spend more time in. I had three whole days down there and I wanted to make the most of the time off as well as trying to keep up the number of daily steps I have been doing with walking Triar from a top floor apartment and walking to work. I didn’t quite make it, but we did get out for some lovely strolls.

The first was an old favourite – the path that leads through the woods beside Castle Loch in Lochmaben. I think I’ve shown some of the wood carvings from the forest before, but this heron carving looked particularly serene among the greenery.

It was cool and shady among the trees, but sun baked whenever we emerged, and filled with summer flowers.

On Tuesday we walked down Blackbird Lane and around in a circuit nestled in some scrubby fields near home. There were flowers there too and it was overgrown with summer.

Wednesday saw us going a bit further afield, towards Dalbeattie, where we stopped at a little car park beside Flycatcher Trail. This was another lovely wander through woodland and up a hill, from where we caught a brief glimpse of a lovely view.

After our walk, I checked Google for dog friendly cafés. It came up with Brambles just outside Dalbeattie, so we made our way there. The gardens were amazing and we sat in a courtyard surrounded by flowers.

I’m trying to eat low carb, which was unfortunate as they had lots of delicious sounding sandwiches and paninis, but I went for the 5 breakfast items of your choice, which was very well cooked and filled with thick cut bacon, tasty sausages and a perfectly fried egg. I will go back though, to try something else. They were incredibly welcoming towards Triar, which is always lovely.

The past two days at the PDSA have been very enjoyable. The staff have all made me feel very welcome and they have a lot of laughs in between the hard work. Again, I was neutering lots of animals. For those who don’t know, the PDSA (People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals) is a charity that provides veterinary care for those on benefits. They do a great job caring for animals that otherwise might not get treatment.

And now, Harry’s Fuel Bar should be open, so I am going to head down, see what they are selling in the market and then over for some breakfast. I will leave you with another view from last night’s walk. Thank you for reading and I hope you have a lovely week.

Triar and the Bull

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This morning, I’m listening to the sobbing of gulls outside the window, but I’m not at the seaside. I’m in the heart of Paisley, which is a few miles west of Glasgow, though there’s no longer really any gap between the two. My friend Lara has kindly lent me a bedroom in her flat there while I’m working in Glasgow.

City life is certainly very different. To get to work in the morning, I take the train into Glasgow Central, then walk twenty minutes or so to Shamrock Street. The work is also very different from what I’ve been doing. It’s odd because I had occasionally (and rather regretfully) thought I would probably never do surgery again as I was unlikely to return to practice, but here I am, doing surgery all day from nine in the morning until five in the evening. It’s very intense. On Thursday, I did four cat castrations, three dog castrations, two cat spays (one midline) and a bitch spay. I’d have done the same yesterday, but two of the cats didn’t turn up, so my day was marginally easier.

There are benefits however. I only worked three days this week: Monday, Thursday and Friday. So Tuesday and Wednesday were all my own. I started both days with a walk with Triar to It’s Noe Coffee, where I bought a latte and drank it on a bench. The second day, the bench was near Paisley Abbey, which is when I took the photo at the top of the page. There are lots of fascinating old buildings scattered around the town centre. It’s obviously been a very rich place in the not too distant past. This enormous building is the town hall, though (criminally) I managed to miss the top of the clock tower out of the picture.

There are oases of green, even in the centre of the town. This little patch of parkland, with its carefully laid out flowerbeds and palm trees is where I take Triar in the early morning before I go out to work.

Triar seems to be universally loved wherever we go, which gives me huge pleasure. Lots of people stop to say hello to him. He has also adjusted incredibly fast to city life, though sometimes he’s so distracted by all the smells and stains that he almost forgets to pee and poo. The little patch of parkland in the photo is covered in pigeons in the early morning (Merlin tells me they’re Rock Doves) and Triar loves to send them flapping into the air with a lunge and bark combo. I think the locals have been trying to protect Queen Victoria from them (or maybe were just getting into the spirit of the World Cup) because she is wearing a traffic cone, though not one of the traditional orange and white design.

There’s another little passageway called Meeting House Lane that intrigues me. It’s quite steep, hemmed in by buildings on one side and a wall and trees on the other, and cobbled all the way down. It’s nice and shady, which is good right now as it’s been very hot.

Anyway, I’m going to be staying here, on and off, for the best part of a month and a half and it feels like the beginning of an adventure. There’s so much mor to explore. I want to go into the cathedral and look round. It’s Noe has some amazing looking feta pastries (as well as spinach, potato, leek and tomato and onion filled versions) so one day, I’ll have to try those.

White Cart Water (a major tributary of the Clyde) runs through the centre of town and there are some bridges and banks to explore, though this photo, on the surface, makes it look more upmarket than it really is nowadays. On closer inspection, the buildings on the left are boarded up and one of the beautiful old houses has trees growing from its windows and graffiti downstairs.


Yesterday evening, after a long day and 13,000 steps, I decided to go and enjoy a beer in one of the local hostelries. The Bull got a good write up for being dog friendly, so we stopped in there on our evening walk. Triar enjoyed greeting the locals and was given a bowl of water and two treats. He repaid the poor barman by spilling his water all over the floor. I think he quite enjoyed the whole experience though.

Anyway, back on Tuesday, mindful of home, I went to IKEA and bought a chest of drawers. Much as Paisley is drawing me in, today I’m going back to Dumfries to restart the clearing of my bedroom and hopefully put the new drawers together, so I suppose I’d better get organized. I’m not working again until Thursday, so I have a few days of much needed rest. I will leave you with a photo of one of the painted Scottie Dog statues that I walked past on the way to work. Like Queen Victoria, he was wearing a cone, though his was at a very jaunty angle.

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

The Last Fat Friday

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Just like that, the Inchcolm adventure is over. It started with promise, but turned out to be my shortest ever stint in a practice. Remarkably, we parted amicably. Though it was uncomfortable, I was able to explain my reasons and be heard. Despite having flowers and cake, as well as a Fat portion of loaded fries, yesterday was mostly sad. As I drove away, It Must Have Been Love played on the radio, offering an appropriate level of melancholy.

I’m now back in Dumfries, returning too late to really do very much, other than go to bed. The future is wide open and I haven’t had confirmation of any if the possible jobs that might be lined up, but I have a week in Yorkshire to look forward to and I have faith that all will be resolved soon.

The house is a mess and the garden overgrown. Looking at it, the idea of going away yet again, and spending six weeks or more in another practice is rather frustrating. Before I left, it was finally starting to take shape. Still, the mortgage has to be paid, so I will do what I need to do and sort out the rest later.

Anyway, I have some lovely memories, both of the last two and a half months, and of the last week. Highlights of the last months include the daily commute from Airth to Dunfermline. Crossing the Forth every morning, driving through green and rolling fields, with Scotland as a backdrop was magical. I’m going to miss all the central Scotland radio stations. As I rolled down the hill around Abington, Smooth Radio died. Dumfries is an absolute dead space when it comes to FM stations and my 15 year old car can’t do anything more up to date.

I met some lovely people and I hope we’ll stay in touch. I promised to pop in if I was passing, which isn’t that unlikely, especially if I return to APHA.

It’s also been incredible living with Valerie and Charles. They’ve been wonderful company and I haven’t once felt that I was in the way or that they wanted their spare room back. Through them, I was baptised as a Christadelphian. I’ll be inviting myself back for next year’s Eurovision party. Kyle and Candice’s ceilidh is in September. I need to get into shape for dancing, so that’s my next project, whatever else comes along.

Val and I enjoyed the warm weather this week, heading out on Monday night to the Pineapple and on Wednesday to Fallin Bing.

As usual, the gardens at the Pineapple were beautiful. Everything is in full bloom at the moment.

Wednesday evening’s walk on Fallin Bing was a surprise. For those who don’t know, a bing is a slag heap, leftover waste from mining. I was half aware that Fallin had been a mining village, where Airth was a fishing village in past times. The mine closed in 1987, along with so many others in Scotland, which closed around the same time. I grew up near Bilston Glen Colliery and remember the miner’s strikes. Now both are long gone.

But the bing is beautiful. Once it would have been a black desert. Now it’s an oasis of Oxeye Daisies and silver birch trees.

I had better finish off. Before I went away, Donna invited me to a Mumma Mia Party, with dancing and singing, and bring your own bottle fun. I won’t say I’m properly introverted, but I am feeling some trepidation at the prospect. It’s generally worth pushing outside your comfort zone though. You never know what you’ll find out there. So I need to walk Triar and buy a bottle of something or other, before heading round to Donna’s just before twelve.

Thanks for reading. I hope you have a lovely weekend.

The Book of Ruth and Clarkson’s Farm

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I handed in my notice at Inchcolm yesterday. It hasn’t been an easy decision. There are times when I can see that I could love this job, but before I began, the agreement was that I would be working from Dumfries, with a day in Dunfermline once a week. After two and a half months, I’m still living at Valerie’s, working full time away from home, and I don’t feel the communication and trust are there for me to work remotely. I could push for it, but I don’t think it would be easy. At two and a half months in, I feel this should be the honeymoon phase, when I have begun to find my feet, understand what I am aiming for and built up some rapport and understanding with everyone.

It’s wonderful how things work out sometimes. Just at the time when I decided I was going to leave, John called to say that he was buying tickets to come over. I’m still in probation, so I only have one week’s notice. John has ten days over here, so I will have the flexibility to spend time with him, whatever his plans are.

I don’t have a new job lined up, but there seem to be many possibilities opening up and I am looking forward, either to returning to something I’ve done before, or trying out something new. I’ve been in discussion with Dean at APHA. I’ve had a chat with Kelly, who runs a recruitment agency and is looking for locum positions for me, and next week, I will be speaking to someone from Hallmark, who fill temporary government positions at short notice. I feel that the future is wide open.

I’m not sure whether I have mentioned my new phase of Bible reading. Last year, I read the whole Bible for the first time. I was using an app that gives three different portions of the Bible each day, two Old Testament and one New Testament. While it was an interesting exercise, my mind found it difficult to keep track as I moved between the portions, so this year, I am reading the first of the three portions daily and reading around it, so that I can follow better and understand more. Until yesterday, I was reading Judges, which describes a turbulent period in Israel’s history.

At the lowest point, in Judges 19, a man is travelling with his concubine (a kind of secondary wife) and stays overnight in a stranger’s house. A bunch of marauding men demand that the man comes out to have sex with them, and rather than defending the household, he throws his concubine out to them. The marauders rape and kill her and leave her on the doorstep.

I opened the app this morning, expecting more horrible tales and found instead, that I have moved onto the book of Ruth, which is already one of my favourite stories in the Old Testament. When I came to it the first time round, last year, I found the source of the wonderful, “Intreat me not to leave thee,” passage that I had known from reading My Friend Flicka as a child. This time round, I can see the comfort Ruth found in following God. I’m almost afraid to write that I am also finding comfort in following and trusting in God, as professing faith is uncomfortable to me, and frankly, I’m afraid to lose friends, but here I am, doing it anyway.

Moving on to an easier topic, I have been watching the latest series of Clarkson’s Farm with Valerie. If you haven’t seen it and don’t want spoilers, you probably shouldn’t read this part.

I haven’t watched all the series religiously, but have seen enough to think that Clarkson’s Farm speaks wonderfully for farmers. He shows the hardships of farming, the ups and downs, and the sheer resilience farmers need in current times as they navigate a world of rules and red tape, of low prices , conglomerates and cheap foreign imports.

The end of the series was desperately sad though, as one of his cows was tested for tuberculosis and came back twice as an inconclusive reactor. This meant that she was taken for slaughter, despite being in calf with twins. When she was taken to the abattoir, they didn’t find anything, so sent back a report saying, “no visible lesions.”

I was slightly frustrated at that part. I’m not sure what support Jeremy and his crew received from their APHA vet, but they misunderstood that report to mean that the cow didn’t have TB, which isn’t actually the case. I’m not sure how it works in England as the rules are slightly different in the various parts of the UK, but in Scotland, there would still be further testing, to see whether they could grow the bacteria that cause TB, despite finding no lesions.

And that is because, “no visible lesions,” doesn’t mean the cow didn’t have TB. It means that she did not have TB that was advanced enough for them to find lesions, which can take a long time to form, even when the bacteria are there. The fact that they had a number of other cattle with borderline results suggests to me that, even if none of the animals are actively infected, it’s likely there has been some contact with TB infection, because the skin test they did is an indicator of an immune response.

Valerie asked the same question that Jeremy Clarkson asked, which was why couldn’t they wait until she’d calved. If she had no TB lesions in her udder (those form very late, and would mean the cow would be very infectious) she wouldn’t be that likely to pass TB on to her calves, if they were removed quite quickly. However the cow is meant to be kept in strict isolation (which is already hard on her as cattle are herd animals) and they had already shown a film of her escaping. If she was indeed infected, the longer she is there, the more likely it is that she will spread the bacteria into the environment and on to other animals, including wildlife.

The reality is that, despite finding no visible lesions, that the cow might have been infected. The skin test is not very reliable in that it can sometimes miss infected animals. However, where the test is positive, it’s very highly likely there is some level of infection, even if they didn’t find anything to confirm it. In that way, it’s actually a very accurate test, when done right. If anything, vets are likely to err on the side of not sending away cattle unless it’s a definite reactor, which might be one of the reasons TB is rife in England and Wales.

And that is the reason why, after a reactor is found and culled, all the other animals in the herd will need to be tested again after 60 days. That will give them a much better idea of where they stand. TB can be in a herd for years without showing up on tests, and that is another reason it is so difficult to eradicate.

Jeremy also asked the very reasonable question, why are they not able to vaccinate. That one is also easy to answer, in technical terms, if not ethical and personal. It’s about international trade. Various diseases are classed as Notifiable Diseases and that designation is not a UK thing, it is agreed internationally. Notifiable Diseases present a risk, either to human life, to animal welfare, or economically. TB can spread between animals and people. Bird flu can too, but it is so nasty that the birds really suffer. Foot and mouth is another Notifiable Disease and that one doesn’t spread to people, but it is incredibly infectious and causes huge suffering to the animals. It has an economic impact as suffering animals don’t eat, and thus don’t grow or produce much milk.

So back to the vaccination question. The fact is that the skin test, which is the international standard test that is used, cannot tell between a cow that is vaccinated and a cow that is infected. If the UK decided unilaterally to vaccinate, it would prevent a huge amount of international trade, that would cost farmers and the country billions. They are trying to develop tests, but it is taking years and the scientific proof would need to be good enough to convince the groups that make the international rules. If you are interested in this topic, there’s a lot of good information here: TB Hub

So much as I love Clarkson’s Farm and think it does a lot to highlight how tough farming is, Irish someone had explained the TB situation to him more thoroughly. I have had to deal with farmers with TB outbreaks and I know how devastating it is, but the implication that the process is entirely unreliable and unreasonable is unfair. It’s a complex and nuanced problem and I’m not sure that the UK’s approach is working, but it’s being done with the intention to improve the situation. It’s far from perfect, but it wasn’t (in my opinion) unreasonable to remove the cow, even though I’m sure that was painful.

Anyway, this turned out to be quite long and I haven’t even touched on last weekend, when Valerie’s son Kyle came up with his lovely fiancée Candice. It was amazing to see Kyle. The last time I saw him, he was a teenager. We spend Saturday exploring the area where he and Candice are having a ceilidh in September (I’ve been invited!!!) and looking at campsites where guests might stay. We ended up on the banks of Loch Lomond, which was beautiful. Val and Kyle decided to take a paddle.

Anyway, I am very honoured to be invited to the celebration and I wish Kyle and Candice all the best.

I took a few more photos of Loch Lomond while I was there, so I shall leave you with those. Thanks for reading and have a good week all!

Miscalculation and an Aberrant Foxglove

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I shall begin with the aberrant foxglove. There are lots of gorgeous foxgloves in Valerie’s garden and I was reminded of something odd I’d seen in my own garden, last time I was home. I talked to her about it. Basically, my one, lonely foxglove has all the normal bell-shaped flowers on the lower part of its stem. At the top though, where there should be tapering buds, instead mine has a veritable flamenco dancer of a bloom. She wondered whether it was a different flower altogether, but I had taken a photo and when I showed her, she agreed that it almost certainly was a foxglove. “It’s very beautiful,” she commented. So here it is. My aberrant (but beautiful) probable foxglove. Feel free to comment if you can shed light on it!

The miscalculation related to where my call was on Monday. The farm was near Kelso, which is in the Scottish Borders, south of Edinburgh. I was in North Yorkshire and mentally calculated that (as I said last week) there was no point driving north to Airth, only to go south again. Equally to go to Dumfries would be an hour’s unnecessary driving as it’s also not on the route between where I was and where I needed to be. I’m now driving the practice van, so I’m very much aware of the mileages and not using it for personal use.

Anyway, in my mind, Kelso was in the Scottish Borders and Dumfries is near the border with England, so I was imagining that traveling to Kelso, then on to Airth (or Dunfermline) would be a similar journey to traveling to Dumfries, then on to Airth (or Dunfermline). The first leg of the journey (I thought) would be shorter than the second. What I had not taken into consideration was that Scotland’s border with England isn’t a nice, level line from West to East. It’s actually more at a 45 degree angle – much further north in the east than in the west. In addition, I think Eleanor said the farm was in Jedburgh, which is actually south of Kelso. I’ve made a map image to show where Kelso is (the red marker) in comparison with Dumfries and Airth, which is near Stirling.

The bright yellow road running up the west side of the country should also have been included in that calculation. It’s the M6/M74 which connects with all the motorways in the central belt of Scotland. It’s also nearly a straight line from Dumfries to Stirling. Driving up through the Borders takes way longer and is a massive detour.

Anyway, having got up and set off early, in order to get to Kelso by the allotted time of 11am, I found that, in the van, on these windy roads, the journey took even longer than expected. I couldn’t find the farm when I got there either. The postcode I’d been given took me to a small housing estate on the edge of a village. Sometimes when that happens, you discover there are chicken sheds hidden by some trees, but not this time. By the time I finally found the farm, it had taken me four hours to get there and I was also thirsty, as I hadn’t had time to stop for coffee along the way.

The visit itself went well. Some lovely, free range hens, very healthy and well looked after. It was only when I got back in the van and put Airth as my destination into the app, that I found I was only an hour and forty five minutes away. Worse still, I had to skirt round Edinburgh, which meant that Dunfermline was marginally closer.

So by now I was thinking that the boss would be wondering how I had taken quite so long on a call that was less than two hours from home. It was also around two in the afternoon. It’s a half hour drive from Dunfermline to Airth so (for me anyway) it made more sense to go to Airth and work from home for a couple of hours. I had enough to write up, after all. Technically, from the practice’s point of view, I had actually done the least amount of miles and the lowest number of hours worked. My conscience remains clear, but I am finding the expectations of private practice quite tough. At APHA, I had a lot of freedom. My boss trusted that I would plan my days effectively. He and I would have laughed together at my miscalculation. Nor would he have expected me to travel the three hours back to Airth (I was in Yorkshire for work) in my own time, knowing I would still have to put in a full day’s work on Monday.

From all of this navel gazing, you might have worked out that all is not entirely well in my new job. I chose to go back to Airth anyway, knowing it might not be popular, but unwilling to enter into a lengthy discussion over what had happened. Where there is no trust, I find it hard to function and (frankly) I’m too old for mind games.

For what it’s worth, I had a lovely weekend in Yorkshire, staying with mum and dad. I had a lovely walk on Saturday, in between rain showers, so I will end on a positive note, with some photos. Thank you for reading. Hopefully next week’s post will be more cheery. Have a good week all.

Foxes and Hens

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I went to my first ever Eurovision party last weekend. Coincidentally, it was Lissie’s birthday. Lissie had children at the same time as Valerie and me and she’s also Christadelphian. I remember her children as toddlers, so it was lovely to meet them now they’re young adults. Val and I (well mostly Val) made a birthday cake. I definitely need to get some icing/piping equipment so I can do this again!

Eurovision was as mad as it usually is. We had Prosecco and strawberries along with pizza and other munchies, but the highlight was Valerie doing the Bangaranga dance around the living room with Lissie’s son, Jonathan.

I came to Yorkshire on Tuesday night. Mum and I had dentist appointments on Wednesday, so I now have lovely, clean teeth and no fillings, which is always a relief. Ben was on holiday, so he had passed an APHA pre movement blood test and flock inspection on to me for Friday. That was in Penrith, so rather than going back to Dunfermline on Thursday (a crazy amount of driving) I asked whether I could have some visits in Cumbria for Thursday. He gave me two more visits to do, so I had a pleasant couple of days, meeting new clients and looking at their chickens and hens.

My knowledge is still patchy, but what I do have is a new set of eyes and an interest in problem solving, so I hope that I will be able to bring something new to the farmers in my region. I also just like talking to people, and farmers are some of the best. Ben had told me one of the farm managers talked to her hens. My immediate reaction was that she and I would get on well and meeting her didn’t change that opinion. I have promised to take her some chicken pens next time I go, so I’d better put some aside before they all disappear.

Yesterday was a beautiful warm day. It really felt like summer for the first time this year. Driving through the Dales was just an added benefit.

Today, I walked Triar around Settle. As always, at this time of year, it is filled with flowers. Mum, Dad, Triar and I then walked to The Folly for coffee and cake. I had an almond croissant. Very nice, though the coffee was so hot, I didn’t even try to drink it until I’d finished the croissant. I know some people prefer their coffee piping hot, but I prefer mine to be drinkable as soon as I get it.

Anyway, I shall leave you with some photos from my morning dog walk. Hope you have a good week and thanks for reading.

A Trip to Armagh

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I’m writing this from a narrow bed in the drawing room of Lara Wilson’s home in Armagh. Around a year ago, Lara invited me over and, so busy are our respective lives, that it’s taken all that time to get round to it, but here I am. From what I’ve seen so far, it’s a fascinating old house, built in more gracious times, back when convenient plumbing was actually having a WC indoors, that actually flushed. The sink is in a more modern looking bathroom next door.

I imagine Lara knows more about the history of the house, including how long she and her family have owned it, but we arrived after midnight, having spent yesterday evening at the AVSPNI dinner in the Europa Hotel in Belfast. Until yesterday, I’d never heard of AVSPNI, but it stands for (having to look this up as I’m writing – hope you appreciate the effort!) Association of Veterinary Surgeons Practising in Northern Ireland.

It was part of a conference that we didn’t attend and Lara hadn’t mentioned it was black tie (apparently with the theme “sparkle”) so Lara and I were slightly underdressed for the occasion, but it didn’t seem to matter. We were there because Lara is standing for a position on the RCVS council (you probably know that one, but it stands for Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons) and wanted to speak to the great and the good in NI, hopefully to gather more votes.

I will say that the Europa Hotel certainly puts on a good bash. The food at these big events can sometimes be less than excellent, but the meal was fabulous and served seamlessly, so all the tables were catered for with admirable efficiency. Obviously I’ll have to share the menu with you!

The starter was Glenarm Smoked Salmon Roulade with dill pickle, tarragon crème fraiche and water cress. I was fortunate enough to have two of these. There was a spare seat beside me and my neighbour, two seats to the right had put her handbag on the seat between us. This apparently fooled the waiting staff into believing someone was sitting there, which happily continued throughout the meal. The roulade was delicious enough that I enjoyed my double portion.

24 Hour Braised Beef followed. We were in Ireland, so I was pleased to see there were two different types of potato on the plate. Can’t beat a good Irish potato! I’m no longer able to eat double my weight in food, so this course was passed round the table, but the meat was so tender that you could cut it with the proverbial spoon.

And to finish there was a dark chocolate torte. Very nice indeed, rich and full of bitter chocolate tones.

All in all it was a good meal. There was a band to follow, who played an eclectic mix of songs. The move from Suspicious Minds to Galway Girl was achieved via Abba and Erasure and Lara ran off to dance, while I danced more lazily in my chair. She did try an introduction circuit for me, but the band was loud enough to make introductions complicated, and she was better able to persuade people to her cause without having to shout who I was in people’s ears. I’m sufficiently self contained these days that I was happy to people watch while doing a tap-footing seated dance in happy comfort.

Travelling here yesterday was quite an experience too. Lara had booked tickets with RyanAir and I had carefully packed my bag with the assumption that its size might be interrogated to within an inch of its life. What I hadn’t thought to check was whether my Norwegian driving licence was adequate photo ID. I was in the office yesterday morning, looking forward to getting a Fat Friday carry out lunch, when it crossed my mind I ought to double check. That was when I discovered that RyanAir only accept passports and national identity cards, even on domestic trips. I was north of the Forth Estuary and my passport was two hours away in Dumfries, so I had to call my brand new boss and ask for permission to leave with immediate effect. Fortunately the traffic gods smiles on me and I arrived at Edinburgh Airport to see Lara getting onto the car park bus.

Security was interesting, not because of any fuss about my bag dimensions, but because Lara was carrying some work equipment that showed up on the X-ray. She often carries the doggy equivalent of those CPR models that are used to teach CPR, but this time, she went one better and had some faje dog skulls that are to be used teaching people how to take good radiographs. Obviously this caused some confusion and she had to unpack her bag. An interesting diversion on what was otherwise a smooth trip through the airport.

It’s been a good week at work. I still haven’t mentioned blogging to my new colleagues, so I won’t say too much, but I am impressed so far with their knowledge and professionalism. I’m also picking up useful tips on how to detect flickering lights that might upset chickens (use the slow -mo on your phone apparently) and I know which technician to refer the farmers to if they’re not sure how to get rid of rats or if their hens won’t take their medicine!

And now, I have to go. Somewhere, outside in the multi-storey hallway, a voice announced that breakfast will be at nine, so I’d better get dressed.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this whistle stop tour of my Northern Irish adventure, which is only just beginning. Thanks for reading and I hope you have a good week!