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Hi All,
It's been a long time since I wrote the last newsletter, in fact I can’t even remember when it was, anyway here we are, and we are trying to make this a monthly occurrence again.
Lots of water has gone under the bridges, lots of miles were driven, lots of coffee was drunk, lots of joints were injected and lots of hairs have fallen off my head since last time. The weather is finally nice and warm, much deserved considering how wet the winter and spring have been. The barbecue is out, concert season is on the way and taking dogs to the river is
a must. Hope most of you have enjoyed a bit of holiday during the last few weeks – if not current days weather will hopefully suffice. Emily and myself went to Sicily for a week in June, we stayed in a working vineyard, fantastic weather and delicious food, thirst quenching wine, I put on half a stone in a week! Which was a much needed kick up my butt to start a proper diet and carry on exercising, which I have been doing recently to ameliorate my back pain, under Conor’s wise training. I never thought I could actually enjoy deadlifting and squatting, however somehow I do, and it’s worked wonders for my back!
Most horses are now back in training, getting fit and ready for a hopefully fruitful 2024-25 season. After a couple of quiet weeks in May and June, where everything revolved around sales work, UK and France, the wheels are spinning again and most yards are back at nearly full capacity.
Last season was great for us. Our clients had fantastic results, so our goal is to maintain or even better improve this trend! The practice has gone from strength to strength. Can you believe we are 5 vets now?? And a further 5 additional staff members between office and nurse/techs?? That’s wild, considering the practice is 7 years old! Crazy to remember how stressed out I was when I started. I don’t think I slept for the first 12 months of business, I couldn’t in fact, it was just me and Emma operating out of a little caravan size office near Studley, for £280/month including bills. Do I sleep better now? Not at all but that’s probably caffeine related.
I have a fantastic group of young vets, all the toys in the shop in our office in Bourton on the water, and an outstanding support staff capable of satisfying all your veterinary needs! I tried to look for an up-to-date practice picture and just realized we don’t have one! So here it is last years. We definitely need to take a fresh one at our yearly Big Feastival Outing in August.
Currently we have a Dave, a Pat, an Archie, 2x Molly’s (vet and tech), an Emma, a Brooke, a Sandrine, and a Holly. I am pretty sure our faces (or voices) are familiar to most of you by now.
Dave has been with me for about 3 years now. Ah time flies when you are having fun. He’s well known to all tyre shops from Bourton to Warminster and has gotten busier and busier over the years. He’s taken more admin and management roles as well recently, both with us and with Stow Rugby club, which is of great help (to both). Holly, who joined us in the spring having finished her registered vet nurse course, is with Dave most of the time helping out with daily duties and reducing the need for the RAC to be on speed dial. She was with me at the sales in Newmarket a month ago and has proven herself invaluable.
Pat and Archie have joined us about a year ago, both doing pretty well and in different areas of vet medicine.
Pat has come to us from Coolmore, same as Dave (and myself from my globetrotting days), and has slotted well in, focusing and providing daily vet magic mostly in racing yards. He can be seen riding out in local racing yards on quiet days and weekends, something I was never capable of, definitely a valuable skill to have, both socially and professionally! Archie has joined us straight off vet school (Edinburgh) and his enthusiasm has allowed him to become a bit of a jack of all trades, focusing mainly on repro. He’s the tallest vet in racing (to my knowledge) and that comes right handy when scanning mares and injecting backs.
Archie is due to travel to Australia in the next couple weeks. He’s off for a southern hemisphere breeding season so he will come back (CAUSE HE WILL – OR I’M GONNA GO PICK HIM UP MYSELF) full of knowledge, skills and ideas on how to get them mares pregnant and them babies sold for a lot of money. As you can see by the picture nearby he’s already accustomed to the oz lifestyle, even before leaving the UK. He is due back in January – he’ll have a busy portfolio of mares to look at this coming season so I might EVEN have to scan some mares myself from time to time and on busy days, things I normally dodge like the plague. You’ll hear more from him in next month’s newsletter.
Molly has joined us in the spring and is our latest addition. Over a couple months she has become familiar to most yards I attend, and already has a 360-degree preparation that allowed her to fit right in and get busy from day one, and being in charge whilst I’m away - which is great as there is so much happening now that locating vets so each area is covered 24/7 for emergencies has sometimes been tricky in the past.
What I like mostly about our little gang of vets is that we actually communicate quite a bit between us, which is really refreshing, and shows a nice team effort which is beneficial to us all.
Molly (tech) has now been with me for more than a year, taking me to all places whilst I work at the computer in the car (just like now, typing this newsletter) and helping out with exams and procedures. Somehow and inexplicably, she still tolerates me on a daily basis and never moans about my choice of music in the car.
Emma, Brooke and Sandrine run the office for us. I never get to see them, maybe once a fortnight, which I am sure they are happy about. In fact the office runs pretty much independently by now which is great, it allows us vets to focus on the vet side whilst the office works its magic.
What else is new? I’m not really sure to be honest, the practice runs pretty smoothly which is delightful, onwards and upwards. What will happen in the next 12 months? Not sure either, we are still getting up every morning to look at pretty horses, but we have some short and long term plans which we hope to start at some point soon.
So all in all we really can’t complain, life is good and things are moving forward in the right direction and long may this continue! Hope you enjoyed the reading and look forward to catching up in next month’s newsletter.
All the best,
Paolo
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