Dear Diary
Happy New Year! Once again the old year has disappeared like a lickit in my feed bucket — one minute there and next poof!
So how was your Christmas? Mine was very quiet as on Boxing Day the sky had a dandruff attack and we got inches of the white stuff. Unlike a lot of horses around us we still get turned out in the snow (we clearly have evil mothers and an evil yard owner) but as the roads/school and tracks resembled an ice rink, we did not work at all for most of the holiday period. I was not amused by my Facebooks fans suggestion that they would pay good money to see me in our school ice skating rink in full Lycra and sequins — ‘Hovis on Ice’ is not going to happen people.
Mother on ice however is hilarious — imagine a red-nosed, fluffed-up poodle doing a poor man’s impression of bolero, and you might have an inkling as to the level of amusement I gain on a daily basis when it’s icy. Add this to her attempts to stop me from jogging (I swear if she screams “WALK ONLY!” in my ear one more time I’m reporting her to Hovis Rights Commission at the Hague) and hey presto you have the ice-skating version of Eddie the Eagle.
Her sideways slip into the electric fencing is always priceless (I refute any suggestion I may have aided this with a discrete flick of my nose) and her wheelbarrow bob sleigh down the slight slope into my field is inspired. If her arms wind-milled any more I could loan her out to a green energy facility…
I assume it was due to the snow and ice that mother suggested I wanted to think hard about my New Year resolutions. With my foot still not 100 per cent I could semi see her argument — spinning in circles might have been a bad idea. I have been following advice from the Ginger Fly-trap and icing my foot every day — admittedly shoving it into my field trough at the same time as mother was breaking the ice in there with her foot, didn’t always go down so well with she-who-wields-a-schooling-whip.
I didn’t attend school so how am I supposed to understand the physics of water displacement and the biological impact of the resulting tidal wave of ice cold water down mother’s welly? I am now fully versed in the English language impact that such an event causes — as is most of the surrounding area…
So how many of you saw my Christmas message? Obviously that was not my real voice (it was disguised to stop mares the land over fainting from the velvet loveliness of my Irish brogue) but I think the guy did a reasonable job. Henry — the mechanical dude in the video was an oddball — he didn’t speak much and then when he moved he sounded like a tractor. Which as we all know doesn’t sit too well with me…
The ladies from the BEF were impressed with me and although much of my acting brilliance was cut from the final edit, I am still convinced I could have a future in television/film. I am therefore hoping when everyone gets back to work that the offers start to come in.
Talking of mail arriving, thank you to all who sent me Christmas presents and cards — it was SO exciting opening them, I felt like a pop star or something. Dolly was most jealous and has stepped up her campaign to cement her position as a WAG. I am not complaining — by February I’ll be lucky if she doesn’t try to kill me the second I set foot in the barn.
Anyway, as the snow has now melted and we have a small mud bath in its place, I’m off to liberally apply a mud pack to my feathers — the expression of joy on mother’s face when she sees my handy work is always so heart warming…
Laters
Hovis
