Hovis’ Friday diary: ‘highs and bruises’

Dear Diary

This week has mainly been one of highs and lows. Or more accurately highs and bruises — highs for me (quite literally) and bruises for mother. Bear with me and I shall explain all.

Friday saw me reunited with my favourite and rather wonderful sharer Aunty Becky. She came with cuddles and polos and I remembered why I love her so much. She then demanded an hour’s worth of poncing out of me and, I’ve got to be honest, the love faded a little. She gave me a cold shower to cool off and the love faded some more. She then exchanged views with mother that my girth line might have expanded slightly. I plotted her demise…

The one thing we all agreed on is that I am definitely turbo charged at the moment; good grass, nice weather and a decrease in the amount of poncing I have been doing of late and I’m feeling GOOD! Which I think sort of explains why Saturday saw mum dragging the old wooden jump wings out of their dusty resting place. What happened next was like something out of a Die Hard movie — except mother wasn’t wearing a white vest (thank god for small mercies) nor saying things like “YippeekyaaMothercupboards”.

As she lifted the jump wing it swung round and karate-kicked her in the face! It was like the Jet Li of fillers. Mother swiftly managed to subdue the dastardly object but the bruising up her right arm and across the side of her face was impressive. Now I could pass comments about blondes who get themselves attacked by inanimate objects and come off worse but that would be unfair — mother isn’t a real blonde after all…

Despite looking like she’d already gone ten rounds with Rocky, mother still decided that she fancied jumping which was music to my very large ears. She set the jump to a reasonable height for her (i.e. it was actually off the floor) and we warmed up with me excitedly straying closer to the rarely seen elevated poles. After poncing about for a ridiculously long time (seriously people “flat work” should just be the bits between jumps) we got down to business.

Now when I said the jump was a reasonable height for her that didn’t mean I considered it a challenge, so thus my enthusiastic bound over the poles might have been viewed by some as giving it a little bit more air than was truly required. Needless to the say the raw power of my athleticism bounced mother nearly clean out of the saddle and she added to her bruises by head butting my ears. I was happy. Mother was questioning my parentage.

We went round again and despite valiant efforts from mother to tame my exuberance it’s fair to say there was plenty of daylight between my feet and the jump. Mother slithered off my back, swearing a tad. I was gutted thinking that she was calling a halt to proceedings but NO! She put the jump UP! Muttering something about “giving me something to think about” and the fact she could “only die once” she clambered back on board and away we went again. Once more I sneered in the face of the challenge and soared like a lark over the poles. Well ok, perhaps more like a jumbo jet in leg warmers but heh let’s not confuse reality with literary imagery…

Once more mother was catapulted out of the saddle and only the peak of her hat preventing her being lost forever down my inner ear canal, like a large swearing human hearing aid. The pattern of: JUMP, dislodging mother, jump being raised, JUMP, continued for another 20-minutes with me happily realising the jump was now at a serious height and I was still flying it, and mother realising her nerve was going to run out long before she found a height that was actually going to make me think about it. By this stage I was sweating like a Shetland at a burger van, whilst mother was black and blue and loudly considering super-gluing herself to the saddle. We called it a day.

Mother was last heard muttering about technique for not allowing me to catapult her out of the saddle because everything she had tried hadn’t worked. Lessons were mentioned, I think, but to be honest the number of rather choice adjectives being used was making my young and innocent ears weep. Needless to say, I had enjoyed myself immensely and proved once again that feather power is indeed the answer to the GBR eventing and showjumping teams. I have my passport, my haynet is packed and I have a carrot bag to wear over my ears (I’ve not got a tea cosy). I’m ready people, just say the word.

Yours bouncily

Hovis

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