Dear Diary
Happy New Year! I’m not entirely sure where the old year has gone but like a Likit in my stable, it appears to have vanished and now we have a new one (which sadly doesn’t happen with the disappearing Likits).
So as my secretary was on strike over the Christmas holidays and rudely wouldn’t type up my amusing musings (do you like that!?) I have much to tell you. In summary, it has been a few weeks of highs, lows and being forced to dress as a reindeer (if anyone knows any good therapists, I would love their number).
So here are my Christmas 2013 highs and lows:
High: Snogging Foxy a LOT.
Low: Trying to snog ginger mare and having her remove a chunk of my facial hair with her teeth. It was less “love bites” and more “love mauls you like a vampire with rabies”.
High: Christmas hacking with Aunty Becky.
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Low: Being forced outside dressed like Rudolph in leg warmers, and made to walk the streets in winds high enough to make my antlers twirl about like a pair of batons at a cheerleading convention.
High: Christmas hacking with mum.
Low: Having a tractor of terror creep up behind me unheard in the wind, forcing me to take evasive action which was then described by all who saw it as a “piaffe around Billy’s bottom like Michael Flatley at a line dancing contest”.
High: My Christmas lick.
Low: My smack on the bum for wiping said lick down mum’s back and across my little sister, such that she looked like a miniature Rambo with molasses instead of war paint. I thought she looked cute and positively edible. Mum said it took an hour to get the molasses out of her hair…
High: Managing to rip a big enough hole in my haynets, such that I didn’t have to bother fiddling about getting it through all those silly little holes.
Low: Mum punishing said deed by replacing my manly black haynets with new neon pink ones. Oh and posting pictures of them all over my Facebook pages.
High: Getting revenge for the haynet incident by coating my white feathers in so much mud, I looked like a Calvary black.
Low: Forgetting what an evil witch mother is and being subjected to a lengthy COLD shower to remove said mud.
High: Enjoying a brisk trot up from the field to the stables every night in the howling wind with mum.
Low: Forgetting mum is both short and about as athletic as a lump of Portland cement, thus unable to keep up with my enthusiastic field exit and Usain Bolt-like charge to the stables. Apparently, gravel rash is not the name of a new band and when found on one’s bum is very painful. I don’t know about mum’s bum, but I know mine hurt from being walloped with a leadrope whilst being reminded about my parent’s unmarried status…
High: Seeing dad at the end of the drive, breaking free from mum and rushing down the drive towards him like something from a Disney slow motion picture.
Low: Misjudging my stopping distance and squashing his toes. Do Disney films feature a 6ft ex-rugby player hopping about on one foot screaming like a girl?
I could go on but I’m depressing myself. Added to all this, Aunty Becky had her first lesson with ginger savage mare’s mother, who it transpires is just as evil as “evil army man” himself. She’s obviously read my little book of secret Hovis evasions and was boringly good at telling Aunty Becky how to thwart me. I either need a new book or to stand on her when she’s next not looking, otherwise I can see a year of prancing about on the cards.
So here’s to 2014 dearest Diary, I hope you’ve all had a great holiday and are now raring to go. Remember though, New Year’s resolutions are fab — unless they involve stressage, then that resolution needs to last as long as a snowflake in a microwave…
Laters
Hovis
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Hovis shared his weekly diary each Friday on the Horse & Hound website between 2008 and February 2025. Initially located on the popular H&H forum, he moved to the main website in February 2013. He published nine books, each to raise funds for his local equine welfare charity Bransby Horses. You can read all his diary entries below. H&H also published a final tribute to our much-loved equine contributor.
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