Back in cambridge

Back in Cambridge. The 1st day involved shopping (bought some door hooks which promptly fell off in the middle of the night waking me up as my coat went crashing to the floor, toothpaste and other such essentials), chinese takeaway, and the major event of the day, website creation for Vicky and Alex's plays, unified under the title "Broken Glass" - click here (brokenglassplay.co.uk) for a look, and if you're in the Cambridge area make sure you come along!

End the Neglect.

I'm currently going through my "Never Listened To" Playlist - as I realised I had about 500 tracks that I'd never listened to. Some of them I have, just not on Itunes etc, but it still upsets me to think that some of my music has been neglected. I like to think that I like all of my music (with the exception of odd tracks on albums). How many unlistened-to tracks do you have? Stop the neglect -listen to them.

There are so many diseases! How can there be!?

Happy New Year Everyone. Welcome to 2008 (he says as if he is the guardian of the lockers to which people are welcomed at the start of a new year), welcome.

I spent New Year at Rahul's - We'd been to Asda a few days previously so he could buy "some" food, and managed to fill a whole trolley (which at Asda is a feat I can tell you - no plastic cutlery (!) and no plastic champagne flutes (!) what is the world coming to ;) ). Then, having driven them home we got all this shopping up 5 flights of stairs (in one trip may I add) and he was stocked up for party. However, when the big day arrived it became clear that buying unprepared food (peppers, mushrooms, lamb) etc. was maybe a bad idea as it required much oven space which was seriously lacking, and time, which was also lacking, particularly as it stole time away from vital celebration and drinking time (in the intervening days he'd bought a huge amount of drink, which I found chilling on his balcony).

Anyway, much fun was had (and we did have some kebabs, which were fabtastic) and Rahul, Duncan, me and many of Rahul's uni friends welcomed in the new year with a fantastic panoramic firework display from his 5th floor window - at least 40 displays going on simulataneously (with one almost exploding right outside the window). Great :)

Resolutions

Resolutons:

1. To blog more during term - now I am a clinical vet student it becomes much more imperative that I blog! Surely my vettings are the only interesting thing that gets put on here anyway!
2. To stay fit. Seemingly walking 4 miles a day is not enough to stave off uber-uni-belly (which I lost in a week of Xmas tree selling). Situps?
   

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.

Un-Recognition

Not the tracing fingers over once forgotten journeys
Memories freshly jogged.
Not the squinted and determined scrutiny of birthplaces
Work places and homes,
And not the futile hoarding of names and places
For Thursday’s Pub Quiz.
Just a myriad of colours, lines, shapes and textures
A jigsaw on a grand scale
And they all blur together as it spins inevitably, and tortuously
Across the floor.

It was dark when we left the vet school today. Wet and cold. Sniffle.

Broken cues

Broken cues - someone (I know who you are WM) has broken the cue in the bar, thus preventing the playing of pool, which is most upsetting - our practice today had to be cancelled.

Parasites anyone?

My goodness me - regular readers, if you are still checking this I bow down to you, for I have neglected the blog for far too long. I am now a clinical vet student don't ya know, and so have been having an inaugural number of lectures, which has been a shock to my system made fragile by last years slack timetable. I have learnt about alot of parasites - those you may have heard of (Ascaris, Toxocara) and those that may never have entered your wormy radar (Ostertagiosis anyone?). Parasitology is very simple: you can split the worms into 2 classes:
1) long wormy things.
2) short wormy things.
If you wish to go into more detail than this, things get very complicated, and of course there is that cut/off point between long and short that no-one can really work out, so I suppose there's a 3rd group:
3) medium sized wormy things that are neither long nor short
And then there are such GI parasites that aren't wormy...
4) Flukes.
And now we're getting into dangerous complicated territory. To tell the truth, our parasitology course has expanded to 137 pages of separation. Phew!

In rainbows.

There's a new radiohead album. Oh yeah - it finally arrived. I've been like a hare (not narcoleptic like the one in the fable) waiting patiently for the tortoise to finish the race - for over 3 years. Finally they've produced something, and it's beautiful. Plus you can pay as much for it as you want! Amazing!

PARTY!

We had a housewarming party, both to celebrate our moving into our funky new magnolia house of innuendo and also to warm it. We felt the number of bodies available would provide warmth for many weeks to come*. People began rolling in at about 8.30pm, and my room became cloakroom (as it's just by the front door) and also toilet (as it is ensuite and downstairs). Many people came, including Bethmo who adventured all the way down from Durham (on a train that took a million hours to get here) to see it, which was really great. Lots of Vicky's course peeps came, along with linguists, vets, friends of Mr Taylor and Mary and much hilarity was had by all.

Until it was gatecrashed that was. Some crayzeees came in off the street after giving some guests some cigarettes and proceeded to drink our wine, piss in my loo and generally get in the way until they left (Vicky pointed them in the direction of the door). Grr.


*Incidentally I wonder if there is an opening for using cows to heat houses? They could be connected up by pipes, and their methane (which would be at a decent average 38.5 degrees C) could be run through the house's central heating system. Just a thought. (Joke)

p.s. photo stolen from Becky VW's facebook page. My apologies. It is of the party.

How to #1

How to...

be a meat-eating fruitarian...

1) Find a goat, or other edible animal
2) Pick up goat
3) Climb up tree, holding goat.
4) Drop goat from tree.
5) Descend tree
6) Tuck in!

we have the internet in the house... a post will come. In the meantime - 14-9 to England, oh yeah.

September forgotten NOT!

I didn't actually post in september. At all. How crazy of me. Incase you're interested I did some hoof-trimming. Went round with a hoof trimmer I know through my Pa, and it was really interesting. They were lovely people, I saw loads of farms (including a farmer I worked with ages ago) and learnt alot. Hurrah!

Houses, Englings and Bronte

Hello!

Recent internet obsession - scrabulous.com and also its facebook ap. They're both great ways of playing scrabble online, and I've become a little obsessed. Best move so far, involved playing "RAPpERS" on the 1st go (70 ish points) and then making it "CRAPPERS" on the next move, getting a triple word and 54 points. Huzzah!

Last week was exciting. I went up to Cambridge for the day to see our new house. It looks about a million times better than it did when we went to look round before (and it still looked good then), probably because there was only me and my sister in there, as opposed to 13 people! It smells a little dusty, but apart from that should be amazing to live in! Me and Hannah had a good day in Cambridge carrying stuff to the house, finding out that the number 7 bus goes straight there, eating in a pub, hoovering (!), talking to lady about horses (?) and making videos on my camera. hehe Larks.

The following day I went to see Vicky (who is looking very well) in London. We went for cake and a drink in a pub around Leicester Square and nattered for an hour and a half before Vicky had to go and feed her family.

This week is Hannah's results week and, apart from that, not alot. I'm reading Jane Eyre (I read Jasper Fford's 'The Eyre Affair' last week, and feel like I should read the real thing) at the moment, and can't really put it down. It's an amazing book - I'm quite surprised really. I got a really old copy from Oxfam in Kingston (along with Wuthering Heights - they were the same print and I couldn't see them split up) - cost me £2.98 in total. Bargainusmaximus!

Tom

On Thursday

Stables, Simpson and Frosts.

I've spent the week at the local stables - the same place I was at last year. It's a It was good fun again, the people there are all lovely, and the horses are all so laid back and relaxed that it's a joy to work with them. We also had visits from the vet and farrier, so I tagged along with them while they were there, spending the rest of my time doing the standard vet student tasks of mucking out, grooming and tacking up. 11 weeks done now - just 1 week of farm experience to do!

In other news, I went to the cinema on Wednesday to see The Simpson's movie. I went with Hannah and Mum and Dad - it was a nice family evening out. The film is good, very funny, just like a modern Simpsons episode by 83 minutes long. The entire storyline does focus on the family which means some of the other characters are forgotten about, but I suppose they had to do that. It is the only movie they've made, and it is called "The Simpsons". However, I think the telly program always benifited from the many well known characters. Still a very good film though! We went on a Wednesday, which meant we got one ticket free (text "film" to 241), but it meant the queue in the Rotunda was huge - stretching out almost to Pizza Express! Rahul said he was going to be in the cinema at the same time (we drew 3-3 at snooker that very day), but I didn't see him. I did see Jfro though, which was cool - haven't seen him properly for ages - we'll have to arrange a drink. Fancy it Jamie?