Happy Christmas Everyone! I hope everyone has had a fantastic day. I have eaten lots (mmm.. pheasant... mm... christmas pudding) and got many pairs of socks (which were wholly needed), lots of things to make me smell nice (because I smell), moisturiser (because Santa is jealous of how rugged I am) and a snooker cue (oooo!)

I attach a picture of our Christmas tree, a beautiful Fraser Fir from The Christmas Forest. It really is a beaut.

Update: 2nd Jan 2008 - The Tree STILL looks great! It's only dropped a few needles and has retained its shape (unlike Nords) even though it's infront of a radiator. I have watered it lovingly though. Hooray for Frasers!

Distributing stock with cannons - no one has really put much effort into this form of delivery - i think it has potential...

Trees and People

This is probably the longest I have ever gone without blogging. How's things I hear you cry? Well, currently I am selling trees (the Christmas Forest, Richmond) again - my 3rd year, and this year I have taken to the helm, and I must admit that it's been quite enjoyable. Generally the staff have seemed happy so far, and I've found it quite invigorating making decisions and being the guy everyone asks for help from. Don't think this means I'm planning a career as a suit, tie, briefcase and blackberry man, oh no. I couldn't stand such a life - anything involving being crammed onto a train like getting wide christmas trees through the 45cm diameter netting machine every day wouldn't suit me. But yes, trees have been sold.

I've often reached the point during this season where I've suddenly become amazed at the sheer size of the population of Richmond/London/the UK/the World. After a huge weekend where people have been queuing the whole length of the place, I think surely there can't be any more people who need Xmas trees - but of course there are. Like that time I was walking down the road and saw (and actually registered their presence for the 1st time) all the TV aerials on the roofs of houses and realised just how many houses there must be in the country (and subsequently how much money the BBC must make from TV licencing!).

These two pictures are of the Richmond Forest, sneakily taken from the back of a huge flat-back we'd filled with dead trees. Throwing trees onto the back of that lorry if TOUGH work - even dead trees - that weigh half of normal because they have no needles... I have a new level of respect for the warehouse people.

1 down, 8 to go.

And so the 1st term as a clinical vet student comes to a close. It's been good. Long, but good. There's been a lot of lectures, but they've been necessary (though some pretty boring, not pointing any fingers radiography and anaesthesia) and generally pretty interesting. I actually quite enjoyed parasitology - it seemed pretty relevant, which was really satisfying. We had a few healthy debates in animal welfare - including one on zoo animals. A surprising number seemed to be against them on welfare grounds - I couldn't help but observe that the vast majority of zoo animals are kept in much better conditions than the vast majority of farm animals. This was especially brought to my attention since working with Richard the hoof trimmer and seeing farms where a large percentage of their cows were lame with significant foot problems. Lameness is a massive problem in the dairy industry especially - it seems that the selective breeding of these animals for high milk yields, along with the massive metabolic burden put on their bodies by this level of milk production has adversely affected their foot condition. Diet also has a strong baring on lameness too. 25% of dairy cattle are treated for lameness every year, and 1% culled because of it.