Hovis’ Friday diary: Gelding flu is serious and it’s been touch and go

Dear diary,

For a while this week it’s been touch and go as to whether this diary would even be written; not for once because I was in the dog house but more because I have been on my sick bed.

I’d come in from the field last Friday very stiff and sore and generally feeling VERY sorry for myself. Mother was phoned and the boss lady did unmentionables to me with a thermometer, from which I might never recover. I was running a temperature and generally looked and felt like I’d be run over by a tractor. All was not good.

Mum was actually away at a health spa with granny and my uncle as this week (yesterday to be precise) mother hit the BIG 4-0. The way she came back from the health spa covered in bruises after an ill-advised keep fit class and a run in with the well know dangers of a hula-hoop (seriously — I swear on my feathers she looked like she’d been kidney punched) confirmed my long held belief that she shouldn’t be let out without minders. Boss lady assured mum she’d look after me (which did seem to involve thermometers in highly dodgy places) and that I wasn’t in imminent danger of shuffling off my mortal coil and so thus avoided mother tearing back from the spa in nothing more than a bathrobe and pair of cucumber slices. A sight frankly no one needs to see. EVER.

Mother turned up looking very concerned the next day having been reassured by the boss lady that she had checked on me all night. I was poked and prodded all over by mother (who is so clueless she makes Dory look like a brain surgeon) and by the boss lady (who actually does know what she’s doing even if she is a little enthusiastic with sticking things into my derrière) with the consensus being I should be given bute and monitored closely before the vet was called. Dismissive comments about “gelding flu” and “manning up” were heard but I ignored them. As mere two-legged females what can they know of my suffering?

Aunty Em was very worried, the Hovite Army were worried, the other aunties at the yard were worried, and my highly strung orange mates in the barn were worried — it was a very worrying time for everyone.

Herman the German Needle Man has been heard several times in the past discussing the day I get something even he, in his brilliance, can’t fix and how he intends to flee the country before having to be the one that dispatches a national treasure into the afterlife — this was serious enough that he started looking at flights..

Continued below…

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But because I am a tough, manly type I pulled through. Gelding flu is serious people and should not be in any way mistaken with any sniffles that mares get — females of any species cannot understand the depth of suffering us men go through. Comments about “manning up” or indeed heartfelt prayers that geldings don’t foal just demonstrates this — my fellow men just rise above it. WE know how much we suffer.

So I’ve had a nice week off, had some great drugs, eaten warm sloppy food, worn two rugs and generally been mollycoddled. On reflection, maybe this gelding flu lark isn’t so bad after all…

Laters,

Hovis

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