Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Surrey

Yesterday, I got to go to Surrey to report on foot and mouth...which really means I spent the day bending down in bushes, trying to avoid poison ivy while watching dead cows loaded into a truck through a pair of binoculars. I had to contort into such strange positions just to get a view that I am very sore this morning!
My editor told me yesterday morning to get to Surrey, so I hopped a quick train out to Guildford and caught up with the photographer who was already out in the field (literally) reporting on the second case of foot and mouth within the last few days.
Luckily, my cab driver in Guildford was a news reading man. All I had to tell him was that I was a reporter, and he said he knew right where to take me.
"I thought you might not know. No offense, love, but you don't exactly look like you're from around here," he said. He was right. I'd chosen that day to be too lazy to match any colors, so I was dressed in black and wearing flipflops. Not quite what one wears in the English country side.
Once we got there, I saw reporters and photographers everywhere, climbing on ladders, peeking over bushes, trying to see where the cows are/were. I spent the day walking along roads and footpaths, discussing the outbreak with farmers and semiretired in tiny Normandy, England. The officials working on the outbreak hid the action from reporters behind trucks and trees, so while the photographers ran around in the heat, climbing ladders to get the perfect shot, reporters went to the pub across the street to watch and pretend like they were working.
Minus the gruesome sight of dead cows being loaded into a truck, the trip was just lovely. The town was beautiful_much quieter and sunnier than London. Exhausted as I was, I tried not to fall asleep on the train ride home. My last chance to see British countryside for a while, I think.
http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2007/08/07/883393-uk-says-lab-likely-foot-and-mouth-source
Today is my last day at work! There hasn't been much to do, honestly. Big news is an illegal translation of Harry Potter in France, and something about a cute monkey in England. One of the girls on the program spent her internship organizing a charity beer olympics tonight (not quite the AP, but could be fun), so our program has decided to celebrate our last days by suppoting the event she organized.

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