Hovis’ Friday diary: ‘I came down with all 718kg of muscled equine perfection on her foot’
(Image credit: Karen Thompson)
Dear diary,
Apologies for my lack of diary last week, but my scribe had the audacity to bob off on holiday and so I had no one to dictate to – to be clear, her typing is the only skill set she brings to the party and from the frequency of grammatical and spelling errors that appear at times, I suggest that if talent was petrol, she wouldn’t have enough to ride a moped around a Cheerio ring…
Still, inflicting herself on the poor population of some foreign clime did at least mean I had some peace and quiet, safe from one or other of her “ideas” – I use the term loosely because “idea” implies a brain at work and I’m fairly sure there’s a trade description law suit lurking in there somewhere – although it’s fair to say that when she did come back, she wasn’t happy.
In my defence, I have always been very clear on the one of the mothership’s many rules which I have (up until now) resolutely abided by. The one that’s filed under: “good sharers are very hard to find”, subsection: “therefore muller mother but never hurt Aunty Em”. I have ditched mother, spooked on mother, bronced on mother and erstwhile impressed upon mother that her riding abilities should be constrained to carousel rides, but I have always tended to treat Aunty Em with the reverence and love that this shining example of a sharer deserves. Mother and I agree on very little, but we do agree that if Carlsberg made sharers then they still wouldn’t make one as good as Aunty Em.
However… I am also a highly tuned ninja with the innate reflexes of a cobra and the combat readiness of a honey badger with PMT. Thus, when we were perambulating around the school the other week and I saw danger lurking in the bushes, it was only my above-mentioned skills and reflexes that saved us from certain death. I bravely span around to face the danger, sheltering Aunty Em as I reared above her to protect her with my manly frame…
…and possibly came down with all 718kg of muscled equine perfection on her foot.
Now, I don’t see how that’s my fault? Just because her reflexes lag behind mine (she is a mere mortal after all) and didn’t thus get her appendage out of the way, resulting in some impressive bruising and the odd broken bone or two, shouldn’t detract from the fact that she’s still alive if not exactly kicking. I did that. Saved her, I mean. And possibly broke her toe – but that’s like collateral damage and not worthy of posting all over Facebook such that the distant mothership saw the damage and managed to work herself into a frenzy before she got back.
It perhaps doesn’t help that my version of events and Aunty Em’s don’t entirely match, with hers featuring expressions like “jumped into my arms like Scooby Doo” and “totally lost his flipping poop” (she used much ruder words, but I’m in enough trouble as it is), but let’s be honest, she is either in shock or covering up the fact that the danger was on us faster than her eyes could track. She admits she “saw absolutely nothing” but does manage to convey in that simple sentence the slight sense that she thinks I perhaps overreacted. Which is typical of the untrained and the uneducated about the higher trained instincts of us ninja types.
Still, it’s fair to say I am in de casa del pero with both the women in my life.
I will leave you thus with a faint tease as I’m feeling too upset to do more. BUT, for those of you who have poured over my previous seven books of literary brilliance (all sold at www.bransbyhorses.co.uk with all proceeds going to the charity) and have thus despaired of ever reading another book as funny nor as brilliantly written, then just for you–– later this year number eight will be out! Keep your eyes peeled on my Facebook pages and whatnot for more details.
Laters,
Hovis
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