Jane & Rog’s Eastwards Coddiwomple

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Coddiwompling day 44: Woosh.

“Woosh” is the sound of money leaving your bank account when you enter Denmark.

The cost of living in Denmark is 16.3% higher than in the UK but that’s not the killer. As you drive over the Oresund Bridge from Sweden you tap your card without thinking and spend £114. On a bridge toll. That said, it’s a very cool bridge that disappears into the sea on an artificial island. And, the drive around is back through Estonia and Poland so a bit spendy on diesel.

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A bridge and a tunnel
Once on Zealand, the largest of Denmark’s largest island (if you exclude the two that are larger), we drove directly west to Sagnlandet Lejre just west of Roskilde. It’s a mixed period reconstruction site. The hilight was definitely the Viking King’s house and associated “living archaeologists” who were skinning a goat to eat this evening.

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Flynn had to look away

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Three Iron Age people imagining a goat dinner.

We were offered bread dough and a chance to cook on an open fire. The fire wasn’t lit yet though and the rain came down so we settled for sausages made from their own wild boar from the restaurant. Sadly we weren’t allowed to eat in the reproduction King’s hall.

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Cnut.​

From there, back east (it’s a small country) to the Arken museum of modern art. They had a big Anish Kapoor exhibition on which was fantastic. We’re big fans and took far too many photos. S-Curve was interesting to watch as it captivated everyone who came across it - us included. Just like an old fashioned hall of mirrors. Almost as an afterthought, the Arken had Grayson Perry’s Walthamstow tapestry in a side room.

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Actual size.
As we left the gallery, the rain started. We shopped at Meny for every eventuality: lamb to barbecue in the sun, salmon to fry quickly between showers and basic veg for pasta if it poursed. Parked up at Guldborg Camping I walked Flynn as thunder rattled across the island. It looked like pasta was on the menu.

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Rain stops stick
Luckily the weather broke (helped by a few cans of local IPA and some French fizz) and we ate the salmon.

Guldborg Camping is interesting and continues our arty theme. The toilet block has a Picasso on the wall and, strikingly a Michelangelo in opposition! The cubicles are labeled Chagall, Matisse, Kandinsky and Van Gough, each with artwork to match. There was a queue for Kandinsky. Maybe criticism in action or it was the only cubicle with paper.

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Sadly never met
Codiwomple rating: Vikings!
Ankle report: Fear not death for the hour of your doom is set and no one can escape it.
 
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I should also add this picture that Jane took of our neighbours. Clearly RoadSurfer.com need handouts about cable management.

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I am having nightmares already

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Helen Ariel I have grim news for the Beer Index Report. Another way Denmark fleeces you is the beer.

In the supermarket I was offered a special: two 440ml cans for only 100DDK that’s about ten quid in the old money. Even Brewdog PIPA is £2 a can - I aim for 47p at home.
 
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Don’t want to alarm you but when I was half heartedly researching for a trip to Sweden (nephew lives in Upsala) I think you have another bridge which is a similar price. From my weak memory it was to cost us £500 + in tolls and ferries etc to get there.
 
Don’t want to alarm you but when I was half heartedly researching for a trip to Sweden (nephew lives in Upsala) I think you have another bridge which is a similar price. From my weak memory it was to cost us £500 + in tolls and ferries etc to get there.
Glerp. We’re planning the ferry next to Fyn so hoping that’s cheaper than the bridge.

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As it’s appropriate, you need to assemble the next paragraph yourself from the following package:

The Dënby bløg

Contains: 40 small nuts, 39 small bolts, 1 small piece of plastic which you thrown away but turns out to be vital and a bag of words containing the following: (museum We stop from was south our Eksjö drove the and first Ikea).

Yes, we looked round the Ikea museum in Älmhult.

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A room full of törrflaps, blonhåvens and dikwadds.

Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of Ikea, died only fairly recently in 2018 at the age of 91. He was only 17 when he started the business! The strange Ikea names for their products are down to Ingvar - they’re all the names of real places or things, rather than being invented. This is because Ingvar was dyslexic and thought he would make life easier for himself. For example, the bathroom stuff is named after Sweden’s rivers and lakes.

The museum was rather lacking in depth, so I wouldn’t drive miles out of the way to see it.

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20% of people have very boring lives, it seems.

There is a massive Ikea store nearby though, if you can cope with one. Rog rarely can.

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The best part was the Annie Leibovitz photo collaboration.

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The weather was grey first thing and then rained all day, absolutely bucketing it down in the afternoon. It put paid to plans of cooking, again, so we’ve stopped in a car park in Malmö for the night. We’ve absolutely charged through Sweden, but we’re happy with that as we definitely want to return and explore properly - although not in high season.

In Malmö, the Curse of Monday struck again. Both the restaurants we had planned in Mundus were closed. Neither of us fancied a posh nosh. So we ended up at the local Thai, which was very good, and I ensured delivered me plenty of veg.

I think this holiday’s tendency to be pork-heavy and veg-free has made me certain that I will take our salad thingies next time. They’re tupperware technology, with a bowl for dry salad leaves, and two other sealed parts for dressing and protein. Would be great to prepare in the morning ready for lunch on the road.

I’m aware we’re just heading home now, so are people still interested in this thread? There’s always the blog as an option. We’re also nearly out of data, but Rog is chatting to a man at EE about that.

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Coddiwompling score: Rain stopped play.
Ankle score: Leg before wicket.
Hey Rob, did you ever work for tefal by any chance 🤭

Loving the blog.

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The bridges and ferries are regulated by the Government and so are normally the same pric. Ferry to Germany may be cheaper.
Is there some way off just registering your vehicle and paying by direct debit or perhaps a toll tag like Fulli?
 
Our first culture of the day was 15th century - that is, the frescos of Tågerup Kirke. These were uncovered and “restored” in the 1880s, with various tartings-up (for this is the official art historic term) since.

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Still, compared to the usual scant and faded remains, it did give us the chance to see how the original work would have looked, covering the entire church as it did.

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We had a quick stop at the free exhibition centre at Rødbyhavn. This is where the EU is building Europe’s single biggest infrastructure project, the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel. When it’s finished (possibly in 2029), it will be the world’s longest immersed tunnel, completing a motorway and rail link between Hamburg (Germany) and Malmö (Sweden).

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This wasn’t as interesting as I’d hoped, but when I re-read my Mundus pin afterwards, I realised we had missed out on the viewing platform.

Then to Dodekalitten. This is a modern-day stonehenge of a dozen 7m-tall megaliths, each weighing 25 to 45 tonnes, by artist Thomas Kadziola. As of today, 11 are complete. They form a circle in the field and look out over fields of wheat to the sea.

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The weirdest thing is that speakers underneath stone bench seats play a computer-generated music whose composition is influenced by the date, tides and weather conditions. On a bright midday in July, crammed with more people than we’ve seen since Kent, it wasn’t that atmospheric. I’d visit on a misty February dawn for a better experience.



Final stop before the ferry to Langeland was Frederiksdal, who make red wine from cherries. I’ve often wondered why such a large proportion of wine is made from grapes, and no-one tries apples, or melons. The Frederiksdal answer would seem to be that it’s because it turns out to be quite expensive - we paid about £20 for our bottle. Mind you, this is Denmark. Anyway, the wine we chose was the driest one they made, and we loved it - it tasted very much of cherries at first, but then more like a claret full of tannins at the finish. All my wine knowledge was worth nothing though when the bottle we bought for that large sum turned out to be just 500ml. Even more expensive, then.

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The ferry was about half the cost of the bridge it was allowing us to bypass, at £50, so that’s free wine & vermouth then, in Jane Maths.

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We parked for the night in the free carpark just outside Ribe. A wide variety of motorhomes were already there, so we’ve got the right place.

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Ribe is Denmark’s oldest town, where half-timbered houses huddle around the country’s first cathedral. In fact the entire old town district has been designated a preservation zone.

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It really is a beautiful town. Definitely a recommend from us. Although a beer and a wine with a view cost us £18!

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Dinner was at Sælhunden, where we just bagged a table by being more decisive than some outdoor menu ditherers. It was very good, simple food. We both loved our local flatfish with lemon, brown buttermilk new potatoes and greens.

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Coddiwompling score: 0
Ankle score: 1
 
Anti Coddiwompling day -4: nothing

We did very little today. The drive from Ribe to Soltau (back in Germany) was horrendous mainly due to roadworks around Hamburg but also due to a wrong turn I took onto the wrong autobahn. We had planned to go back east slightly to see U Boat U-995. After the wrong turn it would have added an hour of driving so we skipped it. There’s always another submarine to see.

Even without das boot, it took us until about 3pm to get to Röders Park camping (///presets.metering.unleaded).

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Number nine.

Jane did vanwork whilst I booked an appointment at the vet for flynn’s worming - day minus four means we’re preparing for the return to Blighty.

Codiwomple rating: n/a
Ankle report: 🦵
 
We were up and away bright and early to make sure we weren’t late for Flynn’s vet appointment just outside Bremen.

The clinic was large and squeaky clean, very unlike Flynn who stimks a bit after so long without a shower. It even has statues to show where to wait for cats, and for dogs.

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Flynn is very good at the vets, to make up for some of his other sins (chickens), but he does expect the odd treat.

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After I’d filled in 11 forms (one for each of the countries we have crossed so far this trip, in their own language) and written three illustrated copies of Flynn’s life history, we were allowed to see the friendly lady vet. She preferred to given an injection for worming rather than a tablet. We understood why when we got the bill.

We then parked up near Bremen city centre and had a wander round. The main objective was a posh German outdoor shop called Unterwegs, where Rog fell in love with a Petromax barbecue and had to be gently persuaded that more investigation was best before splashing out. Honestly, his number of barbecues owned is only just beaten by his number of bags (still in possession, not including those lost). And as for hats! There isn’t an integer silly enough to comprehend the size and diversity of his headwear collection.

Bremen centre around the cathedral was impressive, but the weather didn’t make for good photos.

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After a quick lunch of hippy soup - Armenian Pigherd’s Weekend Broth (him)and Egyptian Boatman’s Beany Surprise (her), it was back on the road to our twelfth country of the trip, the Netherlands.

We’re in the marina aire at Winschoten, for €17, after rejecting some free parking for various reasons, including slope & length of pitch, and lack of other vans possibly indicating lack of legality. A very good aire from the look of it - large pitches separated with hedges, and tables and chairs out all around.

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We walked into town for dinner. It wasn’t a pretty, historic town, but it was also much more pleasant to walk around than many similar British towns on a Friday night.

Dinner was at Indrapoera, an Asian restaurant where you could order 3 dishes each in as many as five courses, by ticking boxes on a paper menu. “You won’t manage five,” said the waiter chappy.

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We will, we thought.

We didn’t, despite misunderstanding the instructions and only ordering half a course the first time.

Very good, and a nice relaxed evening.

Coddiwompling rating - nil, pretty much on rails to home.

Ankle rating - getting boring.
 
Anti Coddiwompling day -3: Holland

We’ve been to Holland quite a lot but generally stuck to city breaks. We fixed that today and had a great time.

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But first we had an extension built: behold the frankendenby.

We left the harbour and drove slightly back northwards to the fortified village of Fort Bourtange. The fort was completed in 1593 under orders from Will Orange who wanted to control the road from Groningen (under Spanish occupation) and Germany (under German occupation). In 1851 the eighty years war was long gone and so they turned Fort Bourtange into a village. The fortifications are fantastically well preserved. After walking Flynn around the surrounding canals (and getting him a well overdue freshwater bath) we had a coffee and breakfast in the square. Viewing from the ground, Fort Bourtange is just a nice village with a moat.

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A coffee in a nice village…
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…with a moat.
The drone shows it off better:

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Fortifications



…but you also want to get a few thousand meters up and look at the Google Maps Satellite images.

From there we had planned another two stops but the driving was against us so we chose the tiny canal town of Giethoorn - the Venice of the Netherlands.

Giethoorn is nothing like Venice with the exception of having canals but, Rochdale can claim that too. Also like Rochdale, it is also full of tourists. In hindsight, a sunny July Saturday at lunchtime wasn’t the best time to visit Holland’s most popular tourist attraction. Still, we did easily get a great seat overlooking the Grand Canal and Ponte Vecchio to eat our bitterballen and croque monsuir.

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We had planned to hire a boat and cruise up the canal but it was far too busy. Instead we watched clueless boat hirers try to get out of trouble by applying moar power! Moar rudder! Obviously they got into trouble - the boats were more or less the length of the canal’s width so it was very easy to get stuck. The (few) locals cruising in their sleeker (and more fragile) boats were not amused.

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Is this the right way to the harbour?

On the drive leaving Giethoorn the Denby poltergeist decided to have one more go at disrupting the holiday. The cab aircon stopped working if the fan was above the two setting. Then it did. Then it didn’t. I don’t think we can be bothered to investigate this with two days to go.

We drove on for another couple of warm hours to Geertruidenberg Marina (///viewer.paragraph.remembers) but I prefer to think we’re staying in the next door town, the fantastically named Raamsdonksveer.

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Not Raamsdonksveer

We had our eyes on two restaurants serving Dutch food: the somewhat up its own arse Restaurant Weeshuys and the more down to earth D’n Bergsche Hap. Unfortunately - if predictably - they were both closed. In Weeshuys case it looked permanent. So, after a quick glass of pink on the market square, we were left with a choice of one Italian or a chip van. It wasn’t what we’d hoped for but it was very nice.

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His and hers pink.

Codiwomple rating: NaN
Ankle report: missing - the report, not the ankle.

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Waiting for the what three words camper stop please and a picture of a clean Flynn ( now you know why we keep Lola clipped when in the van GWPs do tend to get a bit high!) Safe journey home and thanks for the interesting and informative travelogs
 
Anti Coddiwompling day -3: Holland

We’ve been to Holland quite a lot but generally stuck to city breaks. We fixed that today and had a great time.

View attachment 928820
But first we had an extension built: behold the frankendenby.

We left the harbour and drove slightly back northwards to the fortified village of Fort Bourtange. The fort was completed in 1593 under orders from Will Orange who wanted to control the road from Groningen (under Spanish occupation) and Germany (under German occupation). In 1851 the eighty years war was long gone and so they turned Fort Bourtange into a village. The fortifications are fantastically well preserved. After walking Flynn around the surrounding canals (and getting him a well overdue freshwater bath) we had a coffee and breakfast in the square. Viewing from the ground, Fort Bourtange is just a nice village with a moat.

View attachment 928822
A coffee in a nice village…
View attachment 928821
…with a moat.
The drone shows it off better:

View attachment 928823
Fortifications



…but you also want to get a few thousand meters up and look at the Google Maps Satellite images.

From there we had planned another two stops but the driving was against us so we chose the tiny canal town of Giethoorn - the Venice of the Netherlands.

Giethoorn is nothing like Venice with the exception of having canals but, Rochdale can claim that too. Also like Rochdale, it is also full of tourists. In hindsight, a sunny July Saturday at lunchtime wasn’t the best time to visit Holland’s most popular tourist attraction. Still, we did easily get a great seat overlooking the Grand Canal and Ponte Vecchio to eat our bitterballen and croque monsuir.

View attachment 928825

We had planned to hire a boat and cruise up the canal but it was far too busy. Instead we watched clueless boat hirers try to get out of trouble by applying moar power! Moar rudder! Obviously they got into trouble - the boats were more or less the length of the canal’s width so it was very easy to get stuck. The (few) locals cruising in their sleeker (and more fragile) boats were not amused.

View attachment 928826
Is this the right way to the harbour?

On the drive leaving Giethoorn the Denby poltergeist decided to have one more go at disrupting the holiday. The cab aircon stopped working if the fan was above the two setting. Then it did. Then it didn’t. I don’t think we can be bothered to investigate this with two days to go.

We drove on for another couple of warm hours to Geertruidenberg Marina (///viewer.paragraph.remembers) but I prefer to think we’re staying in the next door town, the fantastically named Raamsdonksveer.

View attachment 928836
Not Raamsdonksveer

We had our eyes on two restaurants serving Dutch food: the somewhat up its own arse Restaurant Weeshuys and the more down to earth D’n Bergsche Hap. Unfortunately - if predictably - they were both closed. In Weeshuys case it looked permanent. So, after a quick glass of pink on the market square, we were left with a choice of one Italian or a chip van. It wasn’t what we’d hoped for but it was very nice.

View attachment 928837
His and hers pink.

Codiwomple rating: NaN
Ankle report: missing - the report, not the ankle.


In the photo captioned

Is this the right way to the harbour?

It looks as though the steering is firmly in the hands of Allah, and nobody else.😂
 
First stop, first Dutch supermarket. It was only a small one AND STILL DIDN’T HAVE LAMB. We were even disappointed by the fish section.

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35% of animal doctors recommend it

Rog was not disappointed at all by the above, and asked the supermarket assistant for directions to it, immediately.

Sadly for him, she explained it was just Dutch for cream.

Today’s sightseeing was the lovely port town of Veere in Zeeland. It was very polishy indeed, rather like an up-market version of Henley-on-Thames. A lovely place to moor a boat.

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The town owes its prosperity to its role as a port for the import of wool from Scotland in the sixteenth century. There’s even a museum in two former Scottish merchants’ houses.

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Och aye, the stroopwaffel

Being dog-enabled, we settled first from some stick throwing and then an expensive drink on the front row of the harbour, to watch the various water craft come and go. Perhaps there would be a repeat performance of yesterday’s boating fracas?

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But our expectation of schadenfreude was in vain, as the people mooring their very shiny ships were, as you’d expect, rather good at it.

We swerved an expensive lunch and had a bun full of eel each from a kiosk on the quay.

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I also tried looking at a few lady-shops, but it doesn’t go well with a husband and large dog in tow. I did try persuading Rog at this one…

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Then it was off and south through the Westerscheldet Tunnel (6.6km) and not long after, into Belgium. At least the Cloggies didn’t sting us for the tunnel the way those Danes did. It was a mere €7.45 rather than a hundred of your good English pounds.

Our site for the night is just over the border, Camperplaats De Riethoeve, which is a nice little farm site for €10 all in, with views of fields all around.

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We played our final game of Five Tribes this holiday. It may not be a coincidence that we realised we’d made a fundamental rules error, and that I won decisively.

Dinner was crispy lamb with spicy beans and tzatziki - a recipe I’ve made at home a few times, except this time (see earlier), it was crispy pork. Still good.

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Tomorrow it’s a short hop to Calais where the campsite and final dinner are booked. Sad face / happy face.

Coddiwompling score : surprisingly high as both touristing and site were decided today.
 
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After I’d filled in 11 forms (one for each of the countries we have crossed so far this trip, in their own language) and written three illustrated copies of Flynn’s life history, we were allowed to see the friendly lady vet. She preferred to given an injection for worming rather than a tablet. We understood why when we got the bill.
Hi. I've enjoyed reading your thread. Could you tell me what injection the vet gave for the worming treatment? Going back a while our previous dog often ended up with an injection. Now, with our current dog (a rescue who is nigh on impossible to give a tablet to in the vet surgery) we have been told that the injectable wormer isn't allowed any more. It would be a great relief to find that there is again a version licenced for use in the EU.
 
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We bought the yoghurt version in Croatia :rofl:

Hope you have a safe trip home. I’ve really enjoyed your posts, informative but humorous.

It’s really good that you’re both really good at it, so it takes the pressure off just one blogger!

If Flynn is anything like our first Springer he will have a fit of the blues when he gets home. We took her to Dartmoor in 1976 and she spent the whole two weeks walking and swimming. She didn’t get out of her bed for two days when we got home - she was really depressed!

Looking forward to your next trip!
 
Hi. I've enjoyed reading your thread. Could you tell me what injection the vet gave for the worming treatment? Going back a while our previous dog often ended up with an injection. Now, with our current dog (a rescue who is nigh on impossible to give a tablet to in the vet surgery) we have been told that the injectable wormer isn't allowed any more. It would be a great relief to find that there is again a version licenced for use in the EU.
Oh no, I hope ours is OK, it’s Vetbancid, which looks to have the usual praziquantel in it.

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