Bring yourself; the animal is welcome but not required. If you have vaccination cards, insurance details or the name of your previous practice, bring those too — but if you have none of it, we will still register you in ten minutes and chase the records ourselves. There is no registration fee. We will ask about diet, previous illnesses, whether the animal is nervous of anything in particular, and who else in the household we may speak to about treatment, which sounds bureaucratic and matters enormously at two in the morning. You will leave with the out-of-hours number, the fee list, and an appointment only if you want one.

Most of our small-animal clients are within about fifteen minutes of Ludlow: the town itself, Ashford Carbonell, Bromfield, Onibury, Caynham, Richards Castle and out toward Craven Arms and Tenbury Wells. Farm and equine work runs considerably wider across south Shropshire, north Herefordshire and into Powys, which is why Rosa’s day starts early. If you are further out, the practical question is not whether we will register you but how long you would be driving at three in the morning in February — and we would honestly rather you had a good practice ten minutes away than a sentimental attachment to one an hour off.

The Old Yard is off Temeside, past the auction rooms, and the entrance is easy to drive straight past — look for the brass plate and the green door rather than for a number. There are eleven spaces on site including two beside the level side entrance, and if they are full the long-stay car park on Smithfield Road is four minutes on foot. Ludlow station is a ten-minute walk. If you are arriving with something heavy or frightened, ring from the car park and somebody will come out to you with a trolley or a blanket; that is an entirely normal thing to ask for and not an imposition on anyone.

Tell us when you book and we will put you at the quiet end of the list — first thing, or straight after lunch, when the waiting room is empty. Cats do far better if the carrier has been left out at home for a week beforehand and sprayed with pheromone an hour before travelling. Dogs do better if they have been in once simply to eat sausage and go home again, which we will arrange for free and are asked for more often than you would think. If a consulting room is genuinely impossible we will see the animal in the car, and if that is impossible too we will come to the house.