Hovis’ Friday diary: being a hacking hero and enjoying it while it lasts…

Dear Diary

It’s day nine hundred and ninety-nine billion of the human strangles epidemic and whilst fear still remains of a second spike more ferocious than a porcupine with hiccups, across the land a new norm has settled. It reaffirms my long-held belief that humans are like poos in a water trough – you just can’t keep them down and like small furless phoenixes they will rise again…

Mother is neither small nor furless, but what is becoming increasingly clear is she has the stubbornness of a mule with its feet encased in concrete. Despite me trying to sacrifice her to the gods of tractors a week ago, she still turned up on Sunday like a suspiciously bad smell at a christening with the optimism of Joe Wicks at a seal colony.

She had, at least, returned the night before to rescue us from the sort of deluge that requires boat building and the hasty finding of a significant other after “mis-reading” the weather forecast when she turned us out naked to face all of mother nature’s fury. To be fair I think it was less the rain that provoked her rare act of altruism, but more the mass amount of lightening flying about which did have one concerned about being hit by a materialising DeLorean at any second.

Either way by the time she did actually get her act together on the Saturday evening, Barbie Boy and I were wet through and less than amused. Well ok, I did snigger when the rain caused her to get electrocuted multiple times by the gate handles, but having been partnered with the portly poodle for over 13 years, I have learnt to take the humour where you can find it…

Net haynet we had spent the night in on Saturday so I couldn’t even express my disgust at being made to go out at an hour so ungodly it wouldn’t have got through the door of a church without vaporised (which to be fair neither would mother) by dragging my heels whilst being led in. Instead I took a perverse pleasure in having rolled in so many shavings, by the time she’d brushed them all off we were re-enacting a white Christmas in the gangway and mother looked like the before picture in a Head & Shoulders advert. It’s the small things peoples, the small things.

So, after saddling me and having to tighten my girth another 120 holes due to my supreme starvation regime, we mounted up and headed out of the yard with a rather wild-eyed Bob and his mother (who had totally normal eyes – just to be clear). I settled in my customary position – close enough to Bob’s derriere to shove him under the wheels of any passing crop sprayers, but not close enough to give him any ideas – but mother had apparently been speaking with Cool New Shoes Man about “making me stride out” more so I was forced to walk up alongside Bob instead. Now a) I find this advice rich coming from the man who only “strides out” when he’s upset mother and doesn’t fancy being fed homegrown Italian manballs, and b) if I walk alongside Bob I either have to put him on my blind side and risk him launching a stealth snog when I’m unable to defend myself or put him on my good side and rely on him to be my guide dog which is like entrusting your life to a depressed Dachshund.

Anyway, because this is mother and because she has the riding ability and inner thigh muscles of an aged sumo wrestler, I was forced to capitulate faster than Trump Junior was removed from Twitter. Which is so far as to say, quickly but protesting loudly…

On we tootled, towards the next village as both mothers deemed the off-road routes to be “too boggy” following the downpour the night before when all of a sudden Bob and I heard it. The sort of hissing only heard when a cat’s tail is caught in a vice, a gremlin is exposed to water or when two women turn up at a wedding in the same outfit. Bob stopped in his tracks like a Vanilla Ice had just shouted “sSop!” (although to be clearly he did neither collaborate nor listen), suddenly becoming as deaf to all mothership’s signals as a toddler in a sweet shop and as about as likely to throw a massive strop. Now in my version of events, with my billion-pound bionic left eye I assessed the situation like an equine avenger before bravely stepping forth and leading the cowardly cow-pony past the potential savage serpent and all imminent danger, saving both him and humanity from certain doom. In mother’s version she cracked me on the ass, put her leg on and calmly walked past the small water stream coming from a hole in the irrigation pipe. I know which one I’d rather believe…

We did have the small issue of a suicidal MAMIL, who perhaps recognising what a loss to the equine world Bob and I would be, bravely and silently came around the back of us and threw himself into the face of danger without any regard for his safety. Or in other words he was a walking advert for Darwinism who not only risked being sat on by ½ a tonne of petrified piebald and ¾ tonne of cannily cautious Clydesdale, but also the far greater danger of mother’s wrath all for the sake of the split second he’d have had to wait. Needless to say, the lycra clad lunatic was treated to a very fluent Anglo-Saxon description of both his heritage and his intellectual prowess whilst we sashayed through the spray like an X-quine rated wet and wild video.

The rest of the hack passed without incident until we had to repeat the save going the other way because it seems Bob has the sort of memory that makes Dory look like my mother when it comes to memory (i.e. one like an elephant with an ass to match). Such praise was lavished on me by Bob’s grateful mother than I strode home with the pep and vigour of Usain Bolt on a promise whilst he glared at me and moodily mouthed “tractors” from under his moustache. Green, it has to be said, is not a good colour on him…

So, I am for once basking in the glory of being the “good boy” of the outing and since this is a rarer occurrence than the mothership smiling without the aid of alcohol, then like the British sunshine, I’m going to enjoy it whilst it lasts.

Laters

Hovis the Hacking Hero Horse

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