Hovis’ Friday diary: back in the bad books

Dear diary

Well it’s fair to say I am still riding on a wave of excitement post my amazing weekend at Your Horse is Alive. The number of fans on my Facebook pages has risen (for those of you looking for my pages search for “We Love Hovis and His Friday Diaries on H&H” on Facebook), offers of sponsorship and free things have flooded in, people have been posting pictures of me all over the internet. One little girl even emailed Bransby Horses to ask if she could adopt a friend for me. Which in principle I’m not against by the way — as long as the “friend” is a mare of appropriate age and appropriate level of loose morals…

It’s fair to say, by the time I got home from the event (after an exciting interlude in the car park when none of the electrics on my borrowed executive transport worked — I won’t repeat the language that dad was using) I was very, very tired. So as a result mum gave me most of the week off, allowing me to bore entertain the yard with high tales of my antics with my new friends Mary, Carl and Nip and Tuck-shop.

In fairness, Dolly has clearly realised that maybe I’m worth knowing and has spent a great deal of the time since I’ve come back canoodling over the fence. Which I’m enjoying while it lasts — she’ll be back trying to kill me by next week…

So as I reported last week before I went off to enjoy my fame and mingle with the stars, Herman the German needle man had announced my foot still wasn’t a great deal better — so I had to remain on walk-only for a little while longer before we “consider other options”. From the way mother sobbed — like a TOWIE cast member on hearing the sunbed machines have broken — then I’m not liking the idea of “other options”, so I am attempting to behave and allow my foot to heal. Note I say “attempting” — it wasn’t my fault that everyone decided to have a good hoolie about the other day and it would have just been rude not to join in.

I did spend a few hours futilely trying to hide the skid marks and divots in the field before giving up and awaiting the inevitable ear bending by mother. Apparently not only were my parents not married, I have a brain in inverse proportion to the size of my feet and she isn’t suffering through only walking me — for me to undo all that by doing a good impression of the Spanish Riding School in my “down time”. It’s fair to say she wasn’t amused. I did briefly consider telling her that my new friend Carl has been with the Spanish Riding School all week and I am reconsidering my view on stressage but somehow I didn’t think it would help…

I’d like to say that I managed to get back into her good books when she took me out for a brief walk around the block with Dolly at the weekend — but I’d be lying. I fail to see how it is my fault that Dolly is about as much use as a wing woman as a beach umbrella in a hurricane. The fact that both of us are recovering from injuries and our mothers were daft enough to ask us to walk past a SKIP, is a reflection of their daftness — not our lack of bravery. After the fifth spin in the middle of the road, mother was getting increasingly alarmed about me doing myself a mischief and so after a brief discussion it was decided mother (as she is younger and *cough* fitter than Aunty H) would dismount and lead us past the danger. Which reaffirms my view that mother is nuts — does she not know how dangerous those skips can be?

Anyway we got past it with both Dolly and me manfully (and womanfully?) managing not to flatten mother on our dash past the dastardly item and then faced the next challenge — mother remounting. All I can do is apologise to the driver of the bright yellow sports car that got a full eyeful of my mother’s substantial derriere fighting gravity, while attempting to re-access my saddle. The fact I tried to disown her by walking off halfway through her inelegant manoeuvre, perhaps didn’t help but I do think the names she called me were disproportionately harsh. Aunty H had nearly fallen off laughing by this point but I note she didn’t get a smack across her rump with Mr Schooling whip. I’m sure that’s discrimination…

You would think after such excitement things couldn’t get any worse? Perhaps I should therefore skim over my brief high-speed foray into the newly-planted wheat field and Dolly’s complete tantrum over being asked to stand still while the tractor (who had caused the aforementioned wheat field dash) went past? The fact that Dolly was completely wound up and pranced all the way home may have incited me to follow suit and as such — while I’m sure she was secretly impressed with my Spanish walk, piaffing, half-pass and impromptu leg yield — mother hid her pleasure behind a facade of swear words so fluent that the innocence of the local rabbit population has been forever tarnished.

She loves me really.

I think.

I did behave on Sunday, but to be honest I think the balance of bad books versus good books is so firmly wedged one way it’s going to take a minor miracle to swing it the other way. Mind you she did tell me that she’d had a ludicrous offer for me this week and had turned it down — so maybe I am not destined to end up at the side of the road with a “free to anybody stupid enough to take him” sign around my neck. Not just yet anyway…

By next week I might have some exciting news for you, but it’s all secret at the moment (I’m working on building suspense up here — is it working?!).

So until next week be good and if you can’t be good — don’t get caught.

Laters

Hovis

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