I took the wife away for a day out last week. I live in a country region of Ayrshire in Scotland. You may have heard of the foot and mouth epidemic spreading through the country at present. Thankfully, Ayrshire has been spared so far .......Dumfries, on the other hand, has not.
I took the wife to Blackpool (she likes the place) and our route goes through Dumfries to get to the M6. Going down South at this time of year is generally quite nice. The fields are full of stock, usually with calves and lambs, and the weather is not so bad as well. Not this year, I'm afraid.
The weather was nice, and all seemed normal. Driving along with the stereo droning in the background, the wife reading, everything like all those years gone past that we've done on the same trip. Until, just before Loch Ken.............you start to notice things...........the fields are empty...no sheep...no cows, only birds inhabit the fields and loads of rabbits running around for some reason.
Maybe its because the fields are empty you notice all the rabbits.......... A few miles on and we get the signs at the side of the road. You are entering a foot and mouth infected area. This is a shock to the system. It's just a story on the News to me. I see flocks of sheep every time I get into the car and go anywhere. I see cows grazing and farmers out ploughing every day. Not here, I don't. It's like driving through a landscape from a Quatermass film from the sixties. I expect to see soldiers in Germ warfare outfits any minute. The countryside seems to be totally silent when I turn the radio down; there is hardly any traffic either emphasising the outlandishness of it all.
Next, we come to the disinfectant mats on the road. You crawl the car slowly over these, coating the tyres with disinfectant to hopefully prevent you carrying the virus onwards.
The next awful stage...we pass a large pit in the ground a few yards from the road. Hooves and legs can be seen sticking out of it while a pall of smoke rises skywards as they burn the carcasses. A truly dreadful sight...by this time, the wife is crying, large tears rolling down her cheeks at the awful waste of it all. How could this happen in modern times?
We drive past and continue our journey. As we crest the hill long after Castle Douglas, the road descends into Dumfries. The countryside is laid out before us, and all that takes your eyes are the plumes of smoke........... all near farms...........
There are occasional pockets of livestock still to be seen although in one case, they were grazing next to a newly dug pit near the side of the road. I didn't bother to point this out to the wife who sat shell shocked beside me.
The worst part was passing near Gretna, the wind was blowing and the stench of dead animals made us gag. This smell persisted for nearly a mile and reminded us that we hadn't escaped yet. Signs were at the roadside, mostly railing at the government and their policy of slaughtering healthy animals. By this time, we were getting used to the sight of empty fields and it became almost a game (albeit a macabre one) to spot livestock in the surrounding fields. When we eventually came to what passed for normality, we began to relax.
Now, there was only the return journey to brave and that was more than a day away...............
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