Hovis’ Friday diary: ‘a concerned Hovis’

Dear Diary

This week, I am mainly concerned and when I am concerned Aunty C says I get a little wrinkle above each eye making me look like a Beagle that needs something called Botox. I’m not sure what Botox is but it doesn’t sound fun…

So what, I hear you ask, is making you concerned dearest Hovis? Well several things if I’m honest with you but let me explain:

Firstly, there is my mother. After being given the all clear by the physio last week, mum took me out with my main wingman Billy for a little stroll and a “leg stretch”. I should point out that at 16.2hh my legs aren’t in need of stretching, which is more than can be said for stumpy, but I shall refrain… Anyway I was excited about this idea until I realised two things: 1) there were hundreds of tractors of terror out, and 2) Aunty C had suggested that route.

That route involves crossing the lair of the steel snakes TWICE, going down a lane with some very, very dubious lilac trees and bypassing several fields of clouds with legs, that have Billy clinging to me like moss to a log (and I like the man but not that much). It is fair to say neither Billy nor I are particularly keen on that route, so neither of us were exactly streaming forwards in a “wow this is fun” sort of a manner.

Now, rather than think “oh I know it’s because of my blind stupidity in coming down this route and thus I should refrain from now on” — my mother takes my lack of forwardness as a sign my shoulder might still hurt. The fact that I power trotted the entire way home leaving Billy in my wake, until the incident with the very large lorry when I might have gone back to make sure he didn’t need my help, (obviously) didn’t give her any clues. I am booked to see the physio again on Friday, why I have no idea but heh-hum if I get a decent massage out of it…

Then there is Herman the German Needle man. I like him — he’s a cool dude with a fun accent and a good sense of humour. Which let’s face it, he has to deal with “special” clients like my mother. However, he is also the sneakiest of sneaky people. Take this week. I see him coming down the drive in his van and he winds down his window to talk to me, thus to be sociable, I trot alongside his van towards mother who had just appeared at the field gate.

He even got out of his van and gave me a big emotional hug, after mum had got my head collar on. How lovely you may think, and indeed it was. Until the part where he illustrated his cunning sleight of hand, and shoved a needle in my neck. Damn the man. He is so cunning, he makes foxes look as cunning as a custard cream. I am now utterly concerned to let him anywhere near me for fear of what else he might want to pull out of his sleeve and shove into my anatomy…

THEN there’s the little ginger dude. He’s a nice little guy, we hang out sometimes and I educate him about the world as only one as worldly as I can do. We’ve taken to doing a bit of mutual grooming on occasion — after all two dudes giving each other a manly neck nibble is all fine. But the other day the dude got a tad carried away and nibbled my moustache. Which one can only imagine from a distance probably looked like we were snogging each other.

Needless to say hawk-eyed Dolly spotted this brief interlude and has spent the last few days singing “Hovis and B sitting in a tree…” (I’d finish the song but it has the *whispers* “K-word” in it which might be too rude for younger readers.) I am mortified. Mum says I need to chill out and except the little dude is very metrosexual. All I can say is that I hope he asked Herman the German for a cream for that whilst he was there.

In other news my lovely sharer, Aunty Becky, has a new job. She’s going to work on a stud farm. This has both delighted me and worried me. I am delighted that I have immediate access to a bunch of mares with low morals and I am praying frantically for a “take your share-horse to work day” as soon as possible. I am however concerned that by working with all these fancy warmbloods she a) might catch stressage-itus and thus go off cross-country, b) might try to encourage mother to slim me down to the size of a thoroughbred or C) might not love me anymore because, although I am a Hovis, I am not well-bred.

So I am standing here with my concerned wrinkled little face, listening to the one mare in the area singing about me and some little orange dude doing unmentionables up a tree and pondering how exactly my life came to this.

Laters

Hovis

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