I have a question. What does it mean when someone ‘follows’ you on Substack? I have had a number of notifications recently of people following me. The way the notification comes to me there is invariably an encouragement to ‘follow back’.

Now it might be said that in following back, which out of politeness I felt obliged to do, was maybe not the most sensible act when I don’t know what it entails. Equally, nothing that I have noticed has happened as a result.

Another Substack blank. Apparently, the way to increase your range is to ‘use notes’. You might not think so, but this is two problems. One, where does one write/upload a note? And what is the purpose of the Note? Is it supposed to be like X. if so, do we really want to be like X? Surely not. But I suppose it drives engagement and other modern buzz words, and this drives profits. Ah well.

One day when I was consulting a woman came in and looked suspiciously at me.

“Who are you?” she said dismissively. Naturally enough I said

“I’m Dave Cuffe.”

“No, you’re not. I saw Mr. Cuffe the last week.” I thought about this. I was the only male vet in the practice. We did have a male nurse, but I trusted him implicitly. I called the nurse handling reception and she came in. I said

“Would you tell this client what my name is?” She looked a little unsure. After all, one is supposed to know one’s own name. Gamely enough though, she said

“You are Mr. Cuffe.”

“Thank-you.” I said, looking at the client. She looked angry, and stormed out onto the street. I never saw her again, and when we looked, there was no record of her having been in a week earlier. There must be an explanation, but I have no idea what it is.

Back in the day when Tony Blair was PM two different clients told me that they were personal friends of the man. One was a chap best described as a likely lad. He talked nineteen to the dozen and TB ‘s name was in almost every sentence. I had come out into the waiting room with my last client, a particularly good-looking and smartly dressed young lady. Seeing this chap wandering around the waiting room, I, with raised eyebrow and a wave of the hand enquired if he was with her. She was horrified and indicated not. Eventually there was only the man himself, my nurse and myself. In as friendly a voice as I could muster, I asked him what he really wanted. He said “what I really want is a drink”. I gave him a few quid and he thanked me and wandered off seemingly quite happy, or about to be.

The other chap could only be described as businessman, and maybe as a businessman in a hurry. He refused to see my associate - he was an important person, a friend of Tony Blair – and demanded to see me. I asked my associate to step outside and once we were alone, I explained to him that I could not tolerate that sort of rudeness (he had not been in any way polite) and that I wanted him to apologise to my associate, which he did on the way out with bad grace.

I never saw either of these again either, and also, I never got to check with Tony Blair.

My brother offered to look after some hamsters for a workmate who was off on vacation. My brother duly went in every day and did the necessary. One afternoon there was a riot going on outside (North London) right outside the block of flats, and although this may not have anything to do with it, one of the hamsters bolted and ran off along a pipe running through the wall. The were housed in the bathroom to facilitate my brother. It would be embarrassing to greet your returning workmate with the news the one of the two hamsters was AWOL. We worked out a plan. It took some time but eventually what he (my brother) did was place the cage actually in the bath. Then he draped a towel over the edge of the bath, and on this he balanced an empty loo roll, with food inside, and with a stop to make sure it could only fall into the bath. He then scattered hamster food liberally over the bottom of the bath and went home. When he returned the next day, missing hamster and toilet roll were both in the bath. Crises averted.

On another occasion, many years ago, an RSPCA officer rang me. He had taken in a cat for someone, left it in a cat cage in his garage and went inside. Later he went out to get something from his van and spotted that the cat cage was empty. He searched high and low for the cat of which there was no sign. The garage was secure, no gaps etc. So where was the cat? That is when he called me. I asked him if he had a freezer out there in his garage. Yes, he said, why? Well cat’s love the heat and the hottest point in a chilly garage is beside the motor in the rear of the freezer. He thought I was mad, but there was the cat.

I was called out to Freightliners City Farm in Islington one Sunday afternoon. I should say that all my veterinary experience was in small animals. I did originally intend to go back to County Meath and enter a mixed practice dealing with cows and horses, but I fell in love with London small animal practice and never went back. However, as an Irish vet it was assumed that I had grown up on a farm and knew everything about farm animals which I think is why I ended up doing City Farm visits all over London. In fact, the nearest I had come to a sheep in very many years was buying lamb chops. So I got to the farm and a sheep had been in labour for many hours and was beginning to fade. I worked entirely from first principles. I put on an arm-length glove, squirted some lubricant on it and went looking for the lamb. Its head was retroflexed (pointing backwards) impeding exit. I pushed the lamb back, pulled the head forward and out the lamb fell on the straw. They thought I was a genius. I think the laurels should go to the sheep. The motto is I suppose, that sometimes you have to go back to go forward.

One day I was presented with a pup with parvo virus. This was life threatening and I admitted the pup for treatment in isolation. Four or five days later the pup was ready to go home. The owner said she had to work all that day and evening but could I drop the pup off to her flat where her husband would take the pup in. I agreed as it was nearby and I didn’t want to keep the pup longer than necessary. Leaving the car with the pup, I wondered if the car would be there when I got back. When I got to the flat there were about six guys there drinking rum and smoking weed and in generally laid-back good form. They were happy to see the pup but it had a littermate that was now sick. I explained that I would need to hospitalise this pup also. I mentioned that there would be a sizeable bill to pay and this was waved away as of little consequence. Two weeks later this pup had also recovered and the owner collected the pup and was very happy and grateful. I suggested that she might like to settle the outstanding account. With a big smile she said her husband would drop the money in after the weekend. The bill was now several hundreds of pounds and this was many years ago when that was a very sizeable amount. I confess that I partly doubted I would ever see the money, but the pups needed the treatment. I put it down to experience. On the Monday evening just before we shut, the husband walked in with one of the pups. He had brought the pup in just to show us how well it was doing, and then he paid the bill in full, in cash, sincerely thanked us all and left. I felt guilty about my earlier assumption.