Tag Archives: Writing

Lights in the Darkness

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It’s nice to start the weekend with something amusing. Last night, I sent a selfie to Yoana, my son John’s partner. Last Christmas, she gave me a headband that she had knitted herself. I was touched. Homemade gifts are precious. It’s been a while since the weather has been suitable for a knitted headband, but one frosty morning last week, I put it on to keep my ears warm when I was walking Triar. I don’t normally take selfies. Too old perhaps, and anyway I’ve always been curiously preoccupied with photographing scenery rather than people. Anyway, I took a photo of me in the headband and sent it to Yoana with the caption, “Warm ears on a chilly day!”.

I woke this morning to a message, “Thank you. Wish the same for you.” I was slightly surprised. It wasn’t quite the response I was expecting, but having lived in Norway for a long time, I’m used to conversations which didn’t quite go where they would have with a fellow native Brit. I was happy just to hear from her.

A couple of hours later, a new message arrived. “Just showed it to John and he mentioned the headband which I didn’t notice!” A laugh emoji followed. I found myself picturing the scene: Yoana maybe unsure of my original message. An odd sentiment about warm ears? Rather a strange thing to mention? I’ll check with John.

And maybe John… my mum sent a selfie? Odd!

Then of course, the revelation that it wasn’t a selfie per se, rather a thank you for an appreciated gift, and it all makes sense. She and I were both amused. It was a good start to the morning. I took photos other than my selfie. It was a gorgeous sunrise over the frosty ground.

More than a morning, more than a weekend, this is the start of a two week holiday. I’m here until Tuesday, then I’m off for a week of Polar Night. Sometimes there’s a dull warm period up there at the start of December. I’m hoping for snow on the ground, sub zero temperatures and clear skies (with some Northern Lights as a massive bonus) but even if it’s wet, I get to spend time with friends. My friend Shirley was concerned it might not be good weather, but when I suggest we could stay inside, bake and cook all week, watch TV and maybe write, she agreed this was a wonderful plan. Really, I’m going to see her Nothern Norway is just the world’s best bonus!

The photo at the top of the page is of the Nith as it runs under the Devorgilla Bridge in the centre of Dumfries. I was out last night for a low-alcohol beer with a friend and was struck by how lovely the water was, with the lights shining out in the darkness. It felt like a good start to a winter holiday. Tomorrow I’m joining some colleagues in Glasgow. A group of female APHA vets, we’re going to an escape room as our Christmas Day out. There are no trains to Glasgow on a Sunday morning, either from Dumfries or Lockerbie, so I’m about to find out what the bus service is like. Hopefully on time, as well as relatively cheap!

I have a decorator coming this evening to look at my building project. Hopefully he’s going to tackle the complications of partially removed lining paper on (probably) lath and plaster on my stairwell. He’s unlikely to do the work before Christmas, but I am eyeing up carpets and thinking I might be able to get the bedrooms finally in order. There are buried clothes in my bedroom which I haven’t seen now for over a year. Getting them out (and putting them away in actual drawers) will be a novelty after a year where my clean clothes are piled on a table and there are four beds, a pile of boxes and no other useful furniture in the room where I sleep.

Anyway, December is almost here. For anyone who hasn’t seen my photo Arctic Advent calendar, you can find it here: Arctic Advent

As for me, I’m off there shortly to make some new Arctic memories. I shall leave you with more frosty morning pictures. Have a good week all and thanks for reading.

Waiting for Workmen

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I’m short of photos for this week’s entry. In addition to a photo drought, I’ve also been struggling for steps. To my amazement, following the unexpected plumber completion after months of waiting, I’ve hit the jackpot because James the plasterer arrived on Tuesday morning, all ready to go. He was here yesterday and said he’d be back this morning.

So with all that in mind, I had hatched a cunning plan to get more photos and steps before I started to write. James told me he’d be here at eight (even checking if it was okay with me to come so early). So, I thought I could go out when he arrived, take Triar for a sunrise walk (steps!) somewhere pretty (photos!) then as a bonus, I could go for coffee and cake at the garden centre and maybe write this there.

I was rather looking forward to all of that, but my plans fell through when eight a.m. came and went, with no sign of James. This isn’t unexpected. James is a lovely man, singing cheerily as he does a fabulous plastering job, but as I discovered last year, he’s also a bit unreliable. I don’t honestly mind. The job he does is great and he seems to prioritize getting my work done (all his kit is in my house, I don’t think he’s off doing work elsewhere) but planning ahead based on when he’s said he’ll come is a pointless exercise.

Still, I’m incredibly happy that the work in my house is finally moving forward again. Once the plaster has dried, I need some decorating done and a couple of electrical installations completing before I can thinking about frivolities like carpets and curtains. It’s probably not going to quite be finished for Christmas, but I had been starting to wonder whether I was going to have to find a whole new team and priming them to take over the project, so for it to suddenly be moving forward again is fantastic.

In equally good news, my car went in for its MOT and service on Wednesday and passed with no problems. Last year, it cost me £2,000 for things that should really have been fixed before I bought it, so I was nervous about finding myself in similarly expensive hot water, but I heaved a sigh of relief when I was told it was all okay. A month before Christmas isn’t the best time for big bills.

Work has been frenetic. When is it ever anything else? If you’re in the UK, you might know already that the bird flu season has started in earnest in England. Well this week, there has also been a case in southern Scotland. It’s not in my area, but it’s had a knock on effect on everything. All the vets in that area are now going flat out. I had to take over as duty vet on Thursday, and all the higher up staff, who usually act as advisors when anything complicated comes up, are embroiled in managing the situation. All the birds will be culled and, in the meantime, animals and birds within a ten km radius are under lockdown, so any movements on or off their farms have to be assessed and licenced.

In the meantime, with that as background, two of my long-term welfare cases are being wound up. By the end of next week, one more farmer will have gone out of business and the marauding pigs will (hopefully) have been removed. From an animal welfare and future work point of view, this is a good thing, but even as I have been putting the work in that will allow these things to happen, it’s been a sad experience. As I looked into various health implications of moving animals off the farm, I could see that in times past (and not so long ago) this has been a good farm, with high standards. How did we end up here, I wondered? Still, for both of the animal owners involved, I hope that as we help to wind up their dreams-turned-nightmares, that we can work as gently as possible and that it will bring relief and not further sorrow.

Only two more weeks at work and I will be on holiday. I need a break. Yesterday, for the first time in months, my FND twitches came back. Not that surprising. Duty vet on Thursday was exhausting with two calls about possible bird flu cases (fortunately negated during the calls, without having to trigger a full report case investigation) and various other tasks, all hitting at the same time. I’m intending to take it easy this weekend, but as a minimum I want to trim the hedge at the bottom of the garden, at least enough to fill the brown bin for its last emptying of the year. But that’s a task for later. James has arrived, so it’s time to head out for that walk and coffee.

Have a good week all! Thanks for reading.


Stories and Mist

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As I opened my iPad to write this, I noticed an email had come in from one of the short story competitions I entered. I was excited to enter as I was very pleased with what I had written. The competition was called Aurora and my story was set under Arctic skies. Having read the previous year’s winner and looked over a couple more, I felt less confident mine would go anywhere as they were so unlike my style, but I gave it a go anyway. Sadly, my feeling was correct and I didn’t even make the shortlist of 25.

I suspect as well, as with all writing, if I really want to win anything, I would have to do a lot more research to find a competition that suits my style (if such a thing exists). My time is limited, as is my patience for doing that. To me, good writing is good writing, but I know from past attempts to read Booker Prize winners, there are times when pretentious writing is rewarded over good. Maybe I’m just not cut out for this writing thing, but I shall plod on, because I like what I write. I really want to share my story here, but until the three competitions I’ve entered are over, I can’t.

The early part of the week was sunny, with misty mornings. I took some photos from Blackbird Lane as I love the effect, with white haze hanging over the dewy grass and shining drops glistening in the low-slung sun.

Triar and I were out early that morning as I spent the day over in Stranraer, carrying out a disease risk assessment in a new TB breakdown. In a couple of weeks time, I will be over there again, when all the animals are tested so we can find out how many other animals may be affected. It can be devastating for farmers and at this stage, we don’t know what’s coming, but I am hoping we can get it sorted out without too many losses.

The middle of the week was a bit stressful. My big investigative case and the attempts to finally complete my witness statement for the awful welfare case had to take a back seat to the two TB cases and also to training in imports of live animals. There are more horses coming into Prestwick on Tuesday and the VA in border controls was supposed to be overseeing me as I processed them. I asked her a question and she directed me to the Ops Manual, so I wasted a good two or three hours trawling through that, without finding an answer.

I discussed this phenomenon with another colleague and we both agreed, the Ops Manual on almost any given topic is so complex and sprawling, that finding anything in it, when you’re not sure which section to check, is nigh on impossible. After a year doing TB cases, I can now usually find the part I need, but with imports, I’m just setting out. In my opinion, while the Ops Manual can be great to check when you are doing a task where you know your way round, but haven’t done for six months, it’s worse than useless as a training tool.

I did eventually beg the VA to link the actual documents I should read. I really don’t have time for trawling. The most useful document she sent was actually not in the Ops Manual at all, but in a much clearer document, specifically about procedures at Prestwick, written by the previous Border Controls VA. Having read that, I felt much more confident.

But on Thursday evening, Mum rang. Dad wasn’t particularly well and had seen a consultant about his heart. She was worried he might need to go to hospital to get some fluid drained, presumably from his chest. Whether that would be needed depended on a new prescription he’d been given and whether that worked. This all sounded worrying, so on Friday morning, I spoke to my line manager who said I should come down to help. Working for the civil service isn’t particularly well paid at the moment and there are a lot of problems, but they are still great about giving time to carers when it’s needed.

So I won’t be going to Prestwick after all as I will work down here in Yorkshire until I go on holiday, next Wednesday. Dad’s prescription seems to be helping, which is a relief, but there’s a lot of get sorted out, so I am very relieved to be here. I can work from here and have permission to do that, but can do other things in between. While I am building a great life in Dumfries, I do sometimes wish I had got the job in Skipton I originally applied for.

Autumn is fast setting in with storms and rain, but Blackbird Lane was lovely this week, so I will end with a couple of pictures from yesterday morning, when I was trying to work out what to do and took to send to my parents while I did. Next weekend, all being well, I shall be in Brighton,so I’m not sure how the Wi-Fi will be. This website doesn’t function well for writing and uploading photos when it’s limited, but I will update when I can. Thank you for reading and have a lovely weekend.

Hot Drinks and Spiders’ Webs

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I had a wonderful weekend in Central Scotland. The forecast rain warning had moved south by Saturday morning, so rather than huddling indoors, Valerie and I went shopping. I have been looking at my hedges for some time, knowing I have to trim them, but in recent weeks (since bird nesting was definitely past) they have been so wet that the idea of tackling them with a plugged-in electrical hedge trimmer seemed risky. Having finally got myself a garden waste bin, I wanted to fill it, before the service stops for winter, so with that in mind, I bought a battery powered trimmer. I had been hoping for a long-handled version (tall hedges, shortish human being) but didn’t find any, so I opted for a normal one and thought I’d figure out the height issue later.

Valerie was looking for a garden box to store cushions, so we were in a number of garden centres. The end result was that, as well as the hedge trimmer, I came home with multiple packs of bulbs and a trowel as well. A dog bowl for Triar was next on my non-existent shopping list. A lovely friend from church has offered to take Triar and my current method (sprinkling food across the floor) probably isn’t very civilized. So now he has a new bowl.

Next on the list of things I didn’t really need was a scented candle advent calendar. Given that I have booked a holiday in the Arctic Wastes of Sørreisa for the first week of December. I may end up with a scented candle glut on my return, but it was only £5.99, which seemed a small price to pay. Finally, we went to a café, where I had a latte and Val had a spectacular hot chocolate, I found a Christmas present for a friend, so I bought that too. For someone who didn’t intend to buy anything, it was a great morning!

The café (and gift shop) were on a farm set against the backdrop of the Ochil Hills. The picture at the top of the page was the view from the car park. This is the view from the covered terrace where we sat.

The food sounded great too, but we’d had a massive breakfast, so we didn’t indulge. There are far too many cafés I’d really like to try in Scotland, and not enough time! Perhaps I should have pursued a life as a restaurant critic, but at 16, James Herriot’s lifestyle called me more. The fact that those days were already past, even as I set out to train, wasn’t something I had the life experience to understand.

Since I’ve come back, I have started to tidy up the garden. Different people have inspired me to try, the most obvious being Sue, whose garden I visited a few weeks back, and whose love of gardening shines through so clearly. Another, unexpectedly, is Scott with whom I do a lot of welfare work. As well as fun discussions about food, he has told me now a couple of times that he loves cutting the lawn as he enjoys the smell of freshly cut grass so much. I had always viewed it as rather boring labour, but now my lawn is (mostly) cut, I’ve realised that the answer is probably to do it often, because then it really will only take a few minutes. It’s hard labour this year because I procrastinated over doing it. Next year, I hope to make different choices. That said, I’m about to plant a load of crocuses and daffodils there, so there will be hard decisions to make about those patches!

My job is going well and that’s something I didn’t think I would ever be able to say. My line manager has acknowledged our team is in crisis, due to understaffing and has started to withhold work that he feels would be too much. I’ve no idea whether he will successfully campaign for enough staff. In the end, I think it’s pay that is the real stumbling block, alongside our district having the most animals and most of the (non-existent in Scotland) TB breakdowns. People tend to join to our team, then head off to somewhere there’s less work as soon as the opportunity arises. I’m so glad someone is fighting for us. Sickness over the summer was like watching dominoes fall.

The big case I’m handling is fascinating. I’m looking at animals that should not have been transported for reasons of health and welfare and I am liaising with useful people all over that I didn’t know existed. I have dug through ancient files and scrolled through reports and investigations and became so engrossed in it this week that when my manager tossed me a TB case on Thursday afternoon, it simply caused my mind to go blank. For a moment, TB case management was shoved so far back inside my head that I struggled to retrieve it. But retrieving it was essential, because my job is to keep the farmer informed about what he or she has to do, and manage the system so that the awful disruption of being locked down is bearable. By Friday morning, I was ready to go. Changing direction when something new crops up is part of my job and something I have to manage.

Autumn has really set in now. Unsurprising as we are at the end of September. I don’t know where the year has gone. This week has seen a return to blue skies and I have been enjoying Blackbird Lane with its changing colours and ever-shifting hedgerows. Yesterday morning was particularly wonderful. The sun, low in the sky, lit up the dew drops bedecking thousands of spider webs. Normally invisible, they stood out against the leafy backdrop. There are berries everywhere too and the sun shone on those too, so bright and cheerful. Hope you enjoy the pictures I took, even though they don’t do it justice. You’ll have to imagine the gentle warmth of the sun, the chill air on my cheeks and the earthy scent of autumn, that hung in the air with the birdsong.

Do Not Attend

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a good week all and thanks for reading.

Golden Hemorrhoids and Sticky Toffee Pudding

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At the start of this week, I was quite tense. I’ve explained before that I am trying to work towards a bonus payment, which requires a lot of hoop-jumping and I am attempting some of the hoops right at the last minute, given that the deadline for submitting my activities is Monday coming. On Tuesday last week, I was meant to be presenting training on Foot and Mouth Disease and an update on Bluetongue. On the morning of the presentation, I received a message to say it the meeting was cancelled. I confess, I was rather relieved, though hopefully it won’t undermine my case.

On Wednesday, I gave my Disease Risk Form training to some of the vets. It was given at our regional meeting and I fondly looked round the room at the three or four vets in attendance and thought there was nobody there that would worry me to present to.

When the time of the meeting arrived, Josephine, my veterinary mentor told me we were linking in by Teams, and slightly to my horror, I realized that there were vets at all levels, linking in from the whole of Scotland. Still, I didn’t have any time to worry, and apart from wishing I’d thought to bring a glass of water for my dry mouth, the whole thing went off pretty well.

I must say though, that Josephine herself had given some training on Bluetongue (the situation is unfolding fast – we’re trying to keep it out of Scotland) which she made much more fun than anything I have produced. As you can see below, the cow on the Lipton’s tea van is leaving England and crossing the yellow border into Scotland and we were learning about the special measures the farmer would have to undertake. Suffice to say, there won’t be a lot of English animals at Scottish shows this year and vice versa.

Not sure whose the Coke bottle is, but clearly it should really have been Irn Bru for the sake of consistency.

Wednesday night was the summer meal at my writing group in Lockerbie. The hotel we use does food and they are responsible for the sticky toffee pudding at the top of the page. As regular readers will know, I’m a bit of a foodie and the beef stroganoff, for my taste, had too much Dijon mustard, to the point where that was the principal flavour, but it was pleasant enough.

On Thursday morning I woke up feeling a bit more relaxed, with all my training done for now. I’ve mentioned before that I am reading the Bible and I have an app that gives me three readings each day, two from the Old Testament and one from the New. My first Old Testament reading was Samuel and I was bemused to read that, having stolen The Ark of the Covenant, the Philistines were blighted with “‘emerods in their secret parts”.

Of course, I had to look this up. There are sometimes words I don’t fully understand and sometimes I don’t check, but these emerods were coming up, over and over, and moreover, when the Philistines sensibly decided that the safest thing was to swiftly hand the Ark back to Israel, the priests and diviners told them they had to give it back with an offering that consisted of five golden mice and that they had to make images of their “emerods” from gold and hand over five of those as well.

So when I checked, it turns out that the word “emerods” is actually an old word for hemorrhoids. I must say, the Bible does throw up some truly bizarre things now and then! As it was my friend Valerie who encouraged me into the Bible reading, I tried to send her a message, “Golden hemorrhoids? I’ve heard it all now!” But having sent it, I realized a minute or two later that I had sent it instead to another friend. Fortunately, I managed to delete it before she saw it, but I had a laugh and shared that with Valerie too. Let’s face it, that would be quite a message to wake up to, without context or explanation!

I shall leave you with a few, wonderfully overgrown pictures from Blackbird Lane. Thank you, as ever, for reading. Hope you have a good week.

.

Good Morning From Yorkshire

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Isn’t it warm? It’s not yet seven thirty as I write this, but Triar and I have been out for our walk early. We stopped to have a chat with some heifers in a field (we stayed outside the gate) which is the high point of our day so far! Aren’t they gorgeous?

I came down yesterday as I had a dentist’s appointment to get a filling. I intended to come down on Thursday evening, but was unexpectedly offered a cancellation appointment to see a neurologist, so of course I jumped at the chance. As the occupational therapist at work wanted, he has given me a diagnosis – FND, which I’m guessing most people haven’t heard of. It’s described everywhere as being “like a software problem and not a hardware problem”. Basically they can’t see anything wrong on a battery of tests, but it fits certain criteria.

I’m still trying to process the ramifications. The tests I had were years ago and he hasn’t sent me for any new ones. With hindsight, I’m not sure we talked enough about what’s happening now and how it will be fixed. Back in Norway, I maintained fairly good health for three years, by resting properly when I needed to. He’s going to write me a letter to take to occupational health, so I will see what it says.

But overall, I think it’s good. On examination, he didn’t find anything new or particularly significant. He seemed certain there wasn’t a degenerative disorder. Having spent years looking up my own symptoms (don’t do this!) I had myself thought FND was the closest fit. Back in 2017 when this all began for me, I found almost nothing online about it. Now the internet is awash with information. It is, I feel the neurological disorder du jour! Hopefully I can find a way to manage it better than I am at the moment. I’m still working full time and doing a good job. I’d just like to have more energy to do things when work is over.

In other news, I’m getting through the paperwork mountain, though the dreaded Framework Agreement still needs some work. I’m giving training sessions next week, on Foot and Mouth disease, to some local authority inspectors on Tuesday and on the Disease Risk Form (investigation) during TB outbreaks to my fellow Senior Veterinary Inspectors. My boss, Dean, has a case lined up for me when those are done and there is some chicken work starting from July, so plenty to keep me going. I may be easily tired, but I also don’t like twiddling my thumbs, so it’s all going right at the moment.

I shall leave you with some more cow pictures and maybe some flowers too. Blackbird Lane is wonderfully overgrown and tangled at the moment, with wildflowers peeking out all over the place. And now it’s time to go make breakfast, so have a good week all, and thanks for reading.

New (Closed) Abbey

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Triar and I went over to New Abbey last Saturday. It’s a sweet village, not too far from Dumfries, and it hosts two Historic Scotland premises. Sweetheart Abbey has been swathed in scaffolding and fences for a while, but I have been intending to visit the corn mill for a while. I parked the car and walked in through the gate. The door was locked. Having checked the board outside with the opening times (10 till 4) and my watch (just after 10) I tried the door again, in case it was just stiff. No joy!

I was slightly bemused that they hadn’t blue tacked a notice on the window or on the notice board that said the opening times, but she explained they were having refurbishment done. It was on the website, she assured me. Seemingly taking pity on me (I had been polite, as usual, but persistent enough to knock when it was clear I was being studiously ignored) she opened the gate to let me into the garden to see the water wheel.


She then advised me it was a lovely wander up to the mill pond. Unfortunately there was no water in it, she told me. They’d had some invasive weed which the council’d had to drain the pond for, swathing it in black plastic to finally finish off the evil plant. Well I had to take Triar out somewhere and she’d assured me it was pretty. I’m sure it would be lovely with water, on a lovely summers day. Triar posed for a picture with the plastic swathed backdrop pond. At least one of them was pretty!

She’d also told me it was possible to walk in part of the garden at Sweetheart Abbey, so we went there next and did that, then tempted by an attractive looking cafe opposite it, I decided to go in for a coffee. I had been mostly fasting during the days (coffee aside) and eating only in the afternoon, so my intention was to continue that pattern, ut when I went into the cafe, the server there told me it wasn’t really opening time yet. They opened at 11, but I could go in and wait, if I liked.

As I sat there in lone splendour among the tea and coffee awards hanging on the walls, listening to the ponderous ticking of the grandfather clock, I decided it would only be polite to order breakfast. When she finally came back, I ordered scrambled egg and smoked salmon toast with my latte and have no regrets.

There were also some interesting vegan items on the menu, including bean and hazelnut pate, with various bread and toast combinations, so I shall probably go back and try something else another day.

It’s been a beautiful week. This was the view from my kitchen window on Tuesday morning when I went through to make coffee.

On Wednesday I was through in Stranraer to visit some chickens and on Thursday, I went to Glenluce to look at some cows in a field! Both visits were successful and straightforward, so the paperwork only took me a morning’s work, which was nice. I also stopped for Fish and Chips at Port William (at least, I think that’s where we were!) which were pretty good, though the chips weren’t as lovely as the fish.

It was, altogether, a lovely day.

Our reason for being in Port William was that there had been a report of a dead sheep on the slipway, but either someone had taken it away, or the tide had done so. We had a good look around, but saw nothing.

Anyway, I’m now at Valerie’s for the weekend and I believe we might go wild swimming somewhere, so I’d better get up and get some warming breakfast. The bright sun seems to have deserted this morning, so it may be a little chillier than the hot tub. Wish me luck!

I’ll leave you with a photo from a ruined chapel Triar and I explored yesterday, up at the now, tragically deserted and vandalized, Airth Castle, which was a hotel when I lived here, many years ago. Have a lovely week all!

Projects

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I am working very slowly on my writing projects. Various sources advise would-be authors to set themselves a routine. Write every day, they urge, or at least consistently. But there are days and weeks when work is taking almost everything I have and when I get home, I cook, eat, watch TV or read, and then I fall into bed. I think, if I had a project with a deadline, I would manage, but without that, I am writing very slowly, when I feel ready and whole.

This week at work has been more measured than the preceding weeks and for the past couple of days, I have been contemplating my Tir n’a Noir story. It starts with Black November: a man watching the raging sea as he declines into the pains of age and the ravages of a long life. That part is written in the past tense as he tries to catch the echoes of the long-ago summer, when Mary came to him.

He catches the echo and falls into a memory. While the current world is grey, the memory is rich with the green of Arctic summer, with its day that lasts for months, when the primitive plants are rushing towards the light. This part, I have written in the present tense. Though it is only in his mind, somehow, this is more real to him than what is happening now. Among the nature, he hears the sound of laughter and is so filled with energy and fascination, he runs towards it.

And that is as far as I have got. I have been waiting and wondering what Mary looks like, playing with ideas in my head. She’s Irish, but I don’t want the cliche of red hair and green eyes, beautiful as those things are. It came to me that I wanted her to remind him of a bird and I started to look up Arctic birds, but nothing really fit.

But for the past couple of days, I have been batting ideas around with my friend Shirley. I met Shirley in the boat terminal in Finnsnes as we queued for the fast boat to Tromsø. She and her friend Linda were speaking English and it was such a rare event, that I spoke to them. Some decisions just turn out to be right, and that was one of them! Anyway, I digress. Shirley took me to Dyrøya in May last year, and that visit inspired me to set my story there.

ToThe snow covered mountains of Senja, from Dyrøya

So having inserted the boat that brought Mary into this scene (a traditional pine-built fishing boat, obviously) I told Shirley our main character had seen the boat, but not yet Mary. I was assuming Mary was already on shore, but I hadn’t said so to Shirley, who assumed she was still on board. We were also discussing cormorants – not the most elegant of birds, but I want Mary to have dark hair and bright blue eyes, which fits better than the Arctic warbler I had been considering. Shirley suggested Mary was standing with outstretched arms, and from that, I saw her with her dark hair and bathing costume, diving neatly into the calm, clear water.

So now I know how Mary will enter the story. I just have to write it and try to find words as striking as the image. I can tell this story is going to unfold very slowly, but if I am in the mood for writing, I can return to my other book, which is about two thirds finished – at least the first draft is two thirds finished. Maybe, one day, I will complete both of them.

So that is project number one. Number two, for the first time in my life, I am working through reading the Bible. Valerie (another no-regrets friendship, wonderfully rekindled) is Christadelphian, a Christian group that puts a great deal of importance on studying the Bible. She sent me an app, which gives three readings each day, two from the Old Testament and one from the New.

Like many people who (have) attend(ed) a traditional church, I am much more familiar with the New Testament than the Old. I know I tried years ago to read it, but stuck on the long lists of names and genealogy. This time, I have pushed on through and am currently reading Numbers. I watched a Netflix show, Testament, which is about Moses. It shows and discusses the plagues that God brought on the Egyptians as well as showing Moses leading the people of Israel into the wilderness.

I confess, I am struggling with the Old Testament God, who seems fickle, angry, and vengeful in comparison with the God that Christ preached about. But it was the same God that Christ was preaching about and that seems very clear.

I guess these are not new struggles. I am never going to be a Bible scholar, though in some way, I regret not having learned more years ago. I find Christian forgiveness and the bonds with community that faith brings to give me a stability that is difficult to find, in this modern world.

But I am trying to find a pathway that combines those easy things with the new knowledge about how God is presented to us in the Old Testament. I don’t want to rationalise it away – pick and choose the bits to believe and pretend the rest is irrelevant or false. I will add here, that Testament showed Moses leading his people through the Red Sea, but Numbers details that there were 600,000 men (and there would be women and children too) and so the idea that there were a million people, living in the desert, picking up their holy tabernacle and moving the whole encampment round…

Well you can understand why I am having difficulty with that concept. The arguments about realism tend to focus on Genesis and creation, but this part seems more impossible to me. I can only persevere and hope that I can find some place of equilibrium.

I did start searching online for one of the cleverest Biblical Scholars I have come across in my life and I found a wonderful video of him talking about the lead up to Christ’s crucifixion in the gospel according to John. I shall share it here, for any Bible Nerds who may be interested. He’s a Monsignor now, but he was Father Patrick when I attended his church, years ago.

My other projects are more prosaic. The house and garden. I have even less energy for those, but will probably end up doing my work to pay for others to do the jobs that need to be done. I just need to find the energy to keep the garden under enough control that it won’t cost thousands more to fix it, when I’ve got the house into better shape. Sometimes it seems there is just too much to do and maybe I should have bought a well maintained apartment!

Work continues apace. I have a new welfare case and another TB suspicion. There’s a bonus available if I can prove that I have certain skills… and there’s another project. The whole of life seems to be a massive juggling act. But for now, I have the weekend and a little oasis of time to spend. I will share a few more images from my garden, which is starting to burst into flower, though I suspect some of the bushes would have benefitted from some pruning at the appropriate times, which is definitively not now. Its wild state is attracting the birds and I’m not going to do anything that will drive them away.

Have a good week all, and if you’ve persevered through my ramblings, thanks for reading!

Songs and Horrors

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

Last Sunday, having not written anything on my novel for a good few weeks despite good intentions, a new idea thrust its way into my head. There’s a well-known song by folk rock band Vamp, called Tir n’a Noir. It has a beautiful melody, and when I came to understand the words (they’re in Norwegian and also dialect) they are, if anything, even more beautiful.

On a stormy November day, an old man is reaching for memories of a beautiful summer from his youth, when he met and fell in love with Mary McKear. His remembrance is dim, there are hints he has been melancholy and seeking solace for a long time, sometimes at the bottom of a glass. I like to think, a glass of Irish Whisky, as that’s where Mary is from.

Tir n’a Noir is named in the song as the place he met Mary, but it is, I believe, a reference to Tír na nÓg, which is a mystical land in Irish mythology, a paradise of everlasting youth and beauty.

Towards the end is a hauntingly written verse, which I will try to translate for my English readers, though I won’t be able to do it justice and I’m not going to cast aside meaning for rhyme or rhythm.

Så når kvelden komme og eg stilt går ombord,
Og min livbåt blir låra i seks fot med jord,
Seil’ eg vest i havet te Mary McKear i
Det grønna Tir n’a Noir.


Then when evening comes and I silently board,
And my lifeboat is laid six feet under the earth,
I sail west on the sea to Mary McKear in
The green Tir n’a Noir.

I’ve just seen on Norwegian Wikipedia, about this song, it describes her as his wife, but (unless I missed something in my translation) it’s unclear whether Mary was his wife, or how long she was with him. We only catch a glimpse, where his grey life now is contrasted with the wonderful green summer when he felt fully alive as they laughed together. It’s suggested it was long ago, as he remembers her, as if through a mist, over horizons that slide and crumble, or wither.

Anyway, the urge came to me that I wanted to write their story, showing those contrasts, between the dim present and the wonderfully remembered green land, when he was young and filled with love and hope. I want to explore and reveal his story, or at least my own interpretation at how he might have arrived at the point where he sees his coffin as a lifeboat.

In researching and translating the song, I found reference to the fact that the words were actually a poem, by a Norwegian poet: Kolbein Falkeid. The lyrics are written in his local Haugesund dialect. So I hope my Norwegian friends can forgive me the imperfection, because I want to set my story in the North of Norway, where the winters are long and dark and the summers are so intensely green that I can imagine them as the green paradise where he met her.

I don’t know where the story will take me, though ideas are already arriving of how he ended up taking to the bottle. It’s melancholy in it’s beauty but the song steers very clear of being a dirge, and I want my story to have a similarly haunting beauty. Of course, I look at what I want to achieve and know it’s beyond my current writing skills, but I can only start and hope that I can come close to the vision that has arisen in my head.

I’ve a lot to say this morning. It’s been a long week and I may run out of time as I’m going on a mini-writing retreat, which meets at 10:30, so I will write what I can, and if I run out of time, I can finish later or tomorrow.

These flowers were given to me by a colleague (Lauren) along with some scones on Tuesday. Another colleague (Lisa) ran me home on Monday evening and brought me back the morning after. By some miracle, Donna must have felt my pain as she invited me for dinner at 17:35 on Monday evening.

As regular readers noticed, there was a two week gap in this blog. I couldn’t face writing and it was due to uneasiness in my mind. I was dealing with a welfare case. Sometimes, with experience, there are factors which ring alarm bells in your head, and this one has been sounding in mine, loud and clear. I feel a bit like Miss Marple, remembering people and drawing parallels. My parallel this time, was to an awful case in Norway that I wasn’t involved in. Rather, it fell to a close colleague. I only read about it: a report I couldn’t read in one go as the horrors were too much. It made the national news and the farmer went to prison for two years.

The day before I missed my first blog post, I had seen the farmer take an action which meant that, in theory, the animals should be easier to look after, but also had the effect that they were now entirely reliant on that person. They had been outside, where to an extent they could forage for themselves, though there wasn’t a huge amount of grass. Now they were shut in. The animals in Norway had been shut in too. So uneasy was I that they would not be properly looked after, that I went back out the day after, a Saturday morning when I shouldn’t have been working, but I hadn’t slept and knew I wouldn’t unless I put my mind at rest.

That trip out, did put my mind at rest, to an extent. I saw the animals had been fed and they had water. It’s difficult with cases where the extent of the problems can’t be easily predicted. You have to put a plan in place, then trust that the farmer will follow it, but follow up yourself within a timeframe that’s not too long, in case he or she fails to follow through. I guess, if I did one thing wrong, it was that three weeks was too long, but visiting too often can be seen as micromanagement or even harassment.

It is some consolation to me, that a private vet had been out in between and said he hadn’t seen any real cause for alarm. And though it was bad, I am aware that it could have been a lot worse. Because of the actions we took on that day, most of the animals have now been moved to somewhere where they are safe. We have done what we can to ensure those that remain are not at risk… they are now back outside, but still with access to shelter.

And I discovered how thoughtful my colleagues and friends are. I’ve said before that I find great support when surrounded by a circle of strong women, and somehow, my circle is getting stronger as time goes by.

I’m going to go now as there are a couple of things I have to do before going out, not least to take Triar down Blackbird Lane, but I will return, probably tomorrow, to write about the rest of the week.

Take care.