Dear diary,
It’s day 908,647,297,504 of the human strangles epidemic. Hope of returning the humans to box rest, or better still, out to work, is fading faster than a fake tan in lockdown, while across the land, equines continue to be subjected to whatever genius idea of “training” some dimwit in a dressage download suggested this week…
In my case, as I was kept “ticking over” like a cuckoo clock (mother’s cuckoo, I’m clockwork) during the locked in period, so now I’m back to being forced out hacking out every week with Bob and the mothership, which is the equivalent of being sent down a mine with a claustrophobic canary — at best suspect, and at worse, highly dangerous for all concerned…
So, after a week of being subjected to mini-mother stressage schooling, Aunty Em, and critiquing my circles with the biased eye of one back to seeing her Olympian coach on a regular basis, I was awoken early on Sunday morning by a jaded but determined looking mother and unceremoniously dragged in from the field.
It was already warming up faster than a frog in a saucepan by the time mother had wrestled me into my tack and led me out to the school to mount up. Once again, observing social distancing protocols, I waited until she had climbed up onto the mounting block before dutifully moving the recommended 2m away. She climbed back down and moved me back. I waited until she’d climbed back up and repeated. This could have gone on for some time if not for my powers of observation, which sensed if I didn’t pack it in then the 2m distance I was observing so stringently might start to be measured vertically rather than horizontally. Complete with headstone…
Finally aboard, we all set off down the back track with Bob slightly in front so that I could sacrifice him at the first hint of trouble.
Now it’s worth pointing out at this stage that the back track has been a LOT of tractor activity, which not only makes me very “guarded” (mum prefers a different word, but it’s rather unprintable), but has also caused very, very deep ruts on either side of the central small strip of grass. Fair to say, I rediscovered how deep, as on turning my head to check out an apparent stealth attack from the rabbit militia on our right flank, using my million dollar left eye to make the full assessment, and in doing so accidentally turning my manly frame in the process, I fell off the edge. Mother did an impromptu ear inspection while I scrabbled to keep us both upright with the grace and finesse of an intoxicated arachnid on ice. Needless to say, I managed to regain my footing with mother clinging on to me like a socialite to her pre-nuptial agreement, and we carried on with as much cool as we could muster which, wasn’t much…
On we progressed, with me now on high alert to everything, which may or may not be trying to kill me. The list, it appeared, was endless; there was the offensively odd old onion heap, the mistrustful manure mound, and let us not forget the shady and suspicious stick. By the time we had reached the road I had undoubtedly saved our lives no less then six times. I know, I could hear the faint strains of Enrique singing “Hero” in my ears too…
We got onto the road and I decided it might be expeditious to close the gap between Bob and I once more, just in case I needed to throw him under a bus (and to be clear, I didn’t mean metaphorically), so I set off in hot pursuit. I’m not sure if it was the realisation that when properly motivated I’m still capable of the kind of trot that had Viagra sticking his tongue down my throat in awe when we met, or the fact that upon Bob slamming his anchors on I promptly executed a pirouette so swift and precise the Royal Ballet company having been ringing daily, that had mother questioning both my parentage and my life expectancy in pretty basic anglo-saxon, but something certainly set her off. To be fair, on spinning again I found that not only was mother not quite caring by this stage if I was dead or alive, but she had enough leg on my to spin me right round, baby right round, such that I was back facing where I started from.
Wench.
We thus twirled down the road like Anne Widdecombe doing a Viennese waltz while Bob played “don’t step on the shadows” such that soon both our mother’s were espousing the joys of hacking through teeth gritted so hard you could hear the cracking of enamel three counties over. Such fun!
If I ever needed proof, however, that my mother has the survival tendencies of a depressed lemming, then feeling her tense slightly at the sight of an innocent irrigator was enough. She has no idea of the inherent danger of bandit branches, and yet worries over a huge hissing H2O hose — the woman is totally illogical…
Continued below…
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To finish what had been yet another test to my Hoverine superpowers, after I got her safely past her scary sprinkler, I then decided to up my step count by jogging sideways down the drive like a crab at a ceilidh, which brought forth tears of joy, thanks to God for the fact her back surgeon is covered under her insurance and a promise that more performances of that nature would be rewarded in Devon. Bob swears she said Heaven, but the boy spooks at patches of light, so what does he know?
I’m off to await my cream scone anyways.
Laters,
Hovis
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