Hovis’ Friday diary: it should be illegal to make a boy perform before the sun has appeared

Dear diary,

So, this has been a gloriously quiet week with she-who-must-be-obeyed sunning herself in distant lands (well Spain, with Granny but heh, she wasn’t here and that’s a bonus!).

The heat and flies have been horrendous and for the first half of the week that mother was away, the boss lady was also away leaving Aunty Em and Aunty H in charge. Or thinking they were…

This did mean I was brought in early — and by “brought in” I mean I dragged Aunty Em in with purpose and more vigour than a woman at the boxing day sales, i.e. full tilt — and allowed to stay inside all day chilling (literally) and avoiding those biting monsters. That was the up side.

The downside was it almost meant work was conducted at an hour so ungodly that even the devil himself was horrified. It should be made illegal to expect a boy to perform having been dragged out of a field before the sun has barely made an appearance and more importantly, before he’s had his breakfast. I thought there were supposed to be welfare laws about this sort of thing? Do I, or do I not spend all my time raising money to help horses who have been subjected to cruelty and neglect? What else has a boy got to do to prevent this sort of abject cruelty happening on these shores? I mean I’d offer myself for stud duties if that helped, being the generous soul I am, but due to an Irish man with a glint in his eye and a sharp scalpel I’m not quite the boy I once was in that department. And let’s not even get me started on that gross injustice…

Anyway, back on the subject of work, I got a surprise this week in the form of my one-time partner in crime and now mummy of two human foals, Aunty Becky. She’s been on stud duties for a while — mum says they obviously don’t pay their TV licence at certain times of the year — and so I’ve not seen much of her. To be fair she’s probably not seen much of herself either — especially her toes…

She’s not ridden in forever and to be fair, when you’ve been out of the game for so long it’s only natural that you would return to the best ride you’ve ever had — and as Mary King and Geoff Billington would attest to — once you’ve sat on me, life is never the same again.

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It was great to see her again and I showed her this by being my usual jaunty forward self and reminding her of our past glory days racing across cross-country courses together; all enthusiasm and zero technique or indeed semblance of control while mother sat weeping with joy — or terror it, was always hard to tell. Mum has said she can ride me whenever she likes as long as she agrees it with Aunty Em, so I sense a lot of work in my future. But this will be OK because it helps me get ready for my news, my news that I can’t quite tell you yet but will be able to soon. I don’t actually mean to tease — it’s just with she-who-doesn’t-get-her-priorities-right going away certain things haven’t been signed yet so I can’t say anything. As soon as I can I will, I promise!

I’m off to hide from the recently returned mothership for fear of a bath/stressage and an argument about head carriage — not necessarily in that order.

Laters,

Hovis

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