Hovis’ Friday diary: the battle of the sausage washing

Dear diary,

I write this as a violated shadow of my former self, a battered soul — admittedly one with a very clean man sausage and de-greased feathers, but with my trust in humans irrevocably damaged.

Last Friday after I had enjoyed a week with a much bigger paddock which allows me to show off my moves, but one which seems suspiciously low on grass after mother was heard muttering about my waist line (erm hello?! Pot, kettle, big fat ass anyone?), I was fetched in to see Herman the German Needleman’s more glamourous (and until this point, much more loveable) sidekick.

This was, I thought, to make sure all my vaccinations were up to date because I’m going so far south that I need protection from the nasties. With this in mind, I obligingly stood still while she shoved the sword of Damocles in my neck because I am a horse of the people and if that’s the price I pay for spreading my love to you southern folk, then it’s a price I bear with fortitude.

Now if I had been a less trusting soul, the fact she put two needles in my neck should have given me a clue. That and the fact her and mother had disappeared for a “girl chat” only five minutes earlier, but that’s me folks — a trusting, feathered gentleman who sees good in everyone, including she-who-I-should-know-is-not-to-be-trusted.

Within seconds of her removing the needle, tweetie pie was doing a fly by around my ears and I could feel my eyelids taking on the consistency of Portland cement. Now normally I would surrender to the pleasant buzz of being stoned off my face but mother, in a typically amateur move, showed her hand too early in terms of what she was intending to do. And I literally mean showed her hand early — by putting on surgical gloves with the determined air of a woman on a mission. Drugged or not, I’m not daft and I swiftly retracted my Hovis dangler with the speed and precision of a man hiding his credit cards at the Harrods sale. We stood in impasse with the glamourous Needle Lady and mother eyeing my wee willie winky like a bunch of gamblers watching a roulette wheel — with feigned indifference but laser intensity. Uh uh. No way was I falling for that. If I’d clenched my muscles any tighter I’d have ruptured something.

By this stage, it was clear in the battle of the sausage washing it was Hovis 1: mother 0. So as is the way with women, they just switched tactics and drugged me further.

I am a big bold mass of magnificent equine muscle, but every man has his weakness — mine is apparently an inability to cope with the level of dope normally given to a Shetland pony. In my defence, I am like a well-trained athlete who gets drunk after half a shandy — I’m not a lightweight, I’m just super-fit. Honest.

By the time I came around, Herman’s evil side kick had vanished, but mother had been joined by the boss lady, a bucket of warm water and a flannel. Going on the fact my man sausage was so clean it was gleaming, I’m pretty sure they hadn’t been water boarding me, but to be honest that might have been preferable. Surely there should be rules against this sort of thing? All my feathers had been clearly been de-greased and thoroughly brushed through with a nit comb as they were sticking out like the mane of an albino lion after an unfortunate accidental electrocution. I looked like the dude from Back to the Future — only slightly more startled.

What makes the violation even worse is, after it became clear I was now awake — apparently my back foot flashing past mother’s nose wasn’t subtle — I was confined to my stable with NO food while mother waddled off on a hack with a smug looking black and white bijou bogtrotter and a clearly traumatised mini-mother who seemed to be doing a lot of “eeewwww”-ing. Seriously, sometimes I think the kid is the only with any sense in the family.

What then made it EVEN worse is the erstwhile cowardly coblet then covered himself in glory by turning not a single hair after he was apparently confronted with a series of monstrous tractors of terror. While I chalk that up to proof that Darwin was in fact right about the survival of the featherist, his smugness knew no bounds and I mentally made plans to flick him into next week off the end of one of my newly clean feathers.

The only highlight in all this is that mother is on holiday as we speak, so I think all of my body parts are at least safe for the next week or so, but it does mean no diary next week as she’s apparently nowhere where she is able to get to a phone while I dictate it to her.

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If you’re in need therefore of a pick me up laugh, then I would suggest a read of the text exchange (a real one, I hasten to add) between mother, Herman the German Needleman and Cool New Shoes Man, which CNSM took screen shots of and posted on my Facebook pages. If you ever needed proof of what I have to put up, with then it’s there in black and white. How I have survived to the age of 16 with this team of “professionals” I genuinely know not. And to think only last week I was nice about them both. I had clearly been sniffing the bute again.

I’m off to ring horseline and to plot my revenge.

Laters,

Hovis

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