Hovis’ Friday diary: And people think I’m the high maintenance one…
(Image credit: Karen Thompson)
Dear diary,
It’s fair to say that this week was definitely summed up as: “I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes; the storm that’s all around me and there the trampoline goes…” brought to you by the 2022 version of Wet, Wet, Wet – Dudley, Eunice and Franklin.
Now before any of you intelligent mules (or smart asses for those not as refined as what I iz) point out I haven’t got fingers or toes, since when has factual truth ever got in the way of a good story? Just ask the Downing Street press office if you don’t believe me…
The point being it’s been windier than Barbie’s stable after he’s been on bargain basement swede, and the rain has lashed harder than mother’s tongue, which I can assure you is some feat. As a result, we’ve spent many a day this past week confined to barracks for our own safety as mother nature threw a humdinger of all strops; she makes my mother look like an amateur and trust me, that’s saying something.
It was so bad on Friday, Cool New Shoes Man decided to abort his mission for safety’s sake, and remember peeps, this is a man who provokes mother on social media for kicks. Admittedly this means he usually displays all the self-care capabilities of a depressed lemming on suicide watch, but on Friday he clearly decided that Eunice, me and mother were not a trio he fancied taking on. As a result, I saw him on Saturday morning instead, which meant we had weekend snuggles instead of weekday ones. I just wish we could get to a stage where he doesn’t get so embarrassed about our overt affection – all these years and he still goes really red and speechless when I lean into him. Admittedly he says onto whereas I say into but heh, it’s just pronunciation, right?
Either way, it’s endearing how breathless and giddy he gets being in my presence – I can understand it, very few people can cope with being so close to a nation’s equine idol, but I would have hoped that eventually he would learn to cope with it. Mother does always look faintly alarmed as he turns puce and breathes like a broken-winded carthorse, but I can never decide if that’s due to the fact semi-competent farriers are hard to find or the fact she’s realised she’s the only other supposed adult there, so any mouth-to-mouth requirements will fall to her. Either way, by the time he’s finished and is still upright (more or less), both look relieved and he’s proven, unlike Sir Sweat-me-not, that he doesn’t have such issues.
Tuesday saw the weather calm down enough for us to be able to go out without dodging flying objects (and by that, I mean like debris rather than mother arriving on her broomstick), so we went out for a leg stretch. It should be noted that I am an athlete of some note (I have after all been ridden by some of the nations finest equestrians – and Aunty Em), so my leg stretch is always going to seem more acrobatic than most. That is not because, as my mother suggests, I have an intellect only rivalled by a garden gnome, but more because I am special – something mother and I agree on but I do detect a slight edge in the way she says it? As a result, I needed a complete bath when I came back in, much to the delight of our lovely yard manager who thoroughly enjoyed her half hour of wet and wild with me. She’s only human after all.
Less so Barbie, who stood on her foot because she dared to use mane spray in the same postcode as he was in and thus triggered the sort of meltdown not seen since someone told Trump we all knew he wore a hairpiece. And people think I’m the high maintenance one…
Mind you, he had given us hours on fun over the weekend, when thwarted in her attempts to ride due to the storms, mini-mother had “pampered” him. When we say “pampered” we mean covered him in little pink flowers and such like which had me sniggering so hard I snorted my Coligone supplement, which then led to some very embarrassing questions being asked as to what was on my nostrils…
Anyways, I’m off to enjoy the relative calm before the inevitable next storm, stay safe peoples.
Laters,
Hovis
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