Wales and the Midlands

Lincoln
Our speedy wheels, courtesy of the vet clinic (They call it the "Noddy Car") It has dog cages, running (hot) water and lots of drawers - good for touring Europe?
Midlands Vistas

Tim and Hanako on the way up Snowdon, the highest peak in Wales (about 1000m?)
Climbing in Wales is a social experience! This was a Bank Holiday weekend, but apparently not an unusually high number of people! (Can you spot Hana?)
The summit - fight for a spot! The cloud cleared half an hour after we headed down..



Horse trekking in Snowdonia


Well we have been in the UK for 4 weeks now, and besides a weekend in Wales with Kate's cousin Tim and Hana (also our super hosts in London), we have spent our time working at two vet clinics in the Midlands (2 hrs N of London). England is ridiculously easy to get around in after Asia, although painfully expensive. It costs money just to breathe in London, so we were glad to get out and into the country, to our (free) vet house and car!

We are currently in Gainsborough, a small town in Lincolnshire. It's an area southern English love to rubbish as flat and dull, however after several weeks here we can say that it also has many beautiful power stations. Lincoln is a nearby city with a great 900yr old cathedral and beautiful cobbled streets, where we have been to see the movies and to collect parking tickets.

The clinic is very busy, with 7 vets and lots of other staff. Katie has been given a job as vet nurse, which she describes as "great fun until you have to give a rabid cat an injection!". She is sporting lots of scratches and bite wounds to match Jamie's. It's fantastic that she's found work here as we will be returning for another month in October. I am finding the vet work quite exhausting- a very large case-load with about 5 minutes booked for each consult. You really have to race people and their pets thru the surgery! However I've had plenty of chances to get out to see a few cattle and horses, which is always nice. The farms here are tiny! Lots of people have labradors and spaniels for hunting game, and hearing them describe their obese pets as "working dogs" is a laugh. It has also been funny seeing Iguanas, hamsters, chipmunks and rabbits. As an Aussie locum we met said "People keep all kinds of vermin as pets here.."

We have another week here before heading to Germany for a week to see Katie's family and hopefully to visit Berlin. Then we're off to South Wales for a month's vet work.

What about Steve Irwin!? And Peter Brock too.. We had a consolatory XXXX with Nigel the other vet locum from Australia. V sad.