It’s Sunday night and I’m sat infront of the footy relaxing, something I’ve been unable to do for a fair while as life recently has been hectic to say the least. Since I last wrote I’ve made it through 2/3 of my equine rotation, driven to Suffolk twice, and attended a multitude of nights out/partys etc…

Last weekend Rich came over Friday to attend a couple of partys and generally relax as life’s been pretty stressful for the guy recently. Friday night I took him over to a 5th yr house party which was a good laugh despite the lack of people, features of the night included Ian’s multiple Vindaloo recitals, Rich and Paul’s Crouch and Becks dancing, Ian’s telling off and the crappy paddling pool.
The peach of the term’s social events took place Saturday with the Jock’s football/slipslide party. The partying started at 2:00pm with the England kick off and finished at roughly 4:00am after much carnage and drinking associated destruction. The guys had sorted out a few TVs for the match, constructed an entire outdoor bar, made a fire, sorted a bbq and generally turned the house into an ideal pty venue. However the highlight of the day was the huge plastic sheet in the garden covered with fairy liquid, wall paper paste, soap-suds and water. This was used for a multitude of party games including football, late night half naked sliding and general sliding antics, Rich even attempted some crazy frontflip slide.

The past week has been incredibly busy and stressful. I had both Monday and Tuesday off uni to drive over to Suffolk for my Granddad’s funeral, which went as well as it could go and was appropriately respectful for the old gentleman. Myself, Rich and my cousin Neil all made speeches which we managed to deliver ok.
After arriving home Tuesday night it was back to the grindstone as equine work continued for the rest of the week.

The equine rotation has gone really well so far, this I feel has had nothing to do with my equine knowledge but my group gelling together well and opposing the potential super awkward clinician force as a team. I’ve had two cases so far, one lameness case and another hyperlipaemic horse. Can’t say anymore than that, but all’s gone well and hopefully I’ll pick up another case this week. We have to get numerous things ticked off on equine of which I’ve now sorted them all out but my referral letter which I’ll get nailed on Tuesday. Tasks so far completed include and iv injection, clinical exam, radiograph taking, a talk on epistaxis (nose bleeds) and a reproductive practical. Fingers crossed I’ll have equine ticked off this time next week, which is a massive bonus before the summer as it’s definitely one of the harder rotations with a lot of on-call.

Another great night out definitely worth a mention was on Thursday when me, Tom and Nick gate crashed the girls night out. Nothing especially comedy to mention apart from Tom and I’s love heart distributions which got some fairly amusing responses.

This weekend has been Mum’s 50th birthday party back over in Suffolk again (so another 9hr round trip). The close family all came over to Nanna’s for a bbq and general booze up. The whole family had a much needed good time and I spent most of the day playing the unexpectedly aggressive game that is croquet.

Upcoming stuff includes much equine work and on call duties, a pub crawl on Weds and Hannah plus boyfriend coming over for a house party n Friday. I also need to sort out a panto meeting plus we’ve started the ball rolling on spay clinic organisation for when we qualify, will explain at a later date.

The most important thing to have happened since I last made an entry is the sad passing away of my Grandfather. I debated whether to include this in an entry but as I like this blog to accurately reflect on my life it would be insulting to Granddad not to, plus I hope to keep all these entries when I finish as a reminder to myself of everything important that has taken place during each week at Vetschool from yrs 2-5. All my family is currently in Suffolk where the Scales family originated, and I’ll be driving over once the date of the funeral is set. My upcoming rotation next week is equine and though it has a reputation for giving students a tough time I’m sure they’ll be completely amenable as far is giving me the necessary days off is concerned.

The goings on in Langford over the past week are relatively non-eventful apart from completing my first rotation and consuming immense amounts of bbq food.
The farm animal rotation I’ve just completed was ended by a week of bovine/ovine reproduction. For this we had to produce two reports and present group answers to 17questions taking into consideration many aspects of fertility work and cattle health. The reports were on the fertility performance of a local farm and on the fertility capacity of a semen sample. Other than reports we had 2tutorials and 1practical. The 1st tutorial went over our Interherd fertility report and the other was on a day book scenario, taking into consideration which calls are emergencies and how each call should be dealt with. Highlight of the 2nd tutorial is that we got to do it outside in the sun, much to the displeasure of all passes by stuck in CAS buildings all day. The practical for repro was on pregnancy diagnosis and ultrasound scanning in cows, this practical was definitely the highlight of the academic side of the week as I finally feel slightly competent in regards to rectal pregnancy diagnosing cattle (a big achievement for someone who on every PD practical last year ended up waving my hand around for a bit giving up and going home).

To celebrate the end of my first rotation I joined in with the bbq at the bell house and then had a few drinks at the Old Inn in order to wish Andy a happy birthday. After the pub a few of us went back to the bell house to check on the progress of the hot-tub plan. Basically the guys had been over to asda and purchased a 25quid good size paddling pool, filled it with hotwater by connecting a hose to the kitchen hot tap and putting in half a bottle of lynx shower gel for bubbles. The results where pretty impressive, as temperature was bath quality and there was room for the 8of us that stayed in there drinking beer till early morning.
Yesterday I went over to the jocks to watch the match, and now feel that learning the Crouch dance is going to be an essential skill for the upcoming month. Then in the evening I had a bbq here, not very eventful though many people came over for a pleasant evening.

Today I’m going to get some food shopping done, play some EDC football, and get ready for starting equine tomorrow by attending 8o’clock checks. Currently there’s no news on panto, hopefully they’ll be a meeting next week, and band is still on hold, probably till starting jams next term for the Soiree.