Hovis’ Friday Diary: ‘I don’t think I’m made for winter’

Dear diary

I need help, urgently. Someone has kidnapped my mother and replaced her with a weird creature who looks like mum, smells like mum and definitely swears like mum but who definitely isn’t mum. Because my mother would never ever ever ever ever (do you get the point?) do what she did this week.

It started at the weekend, when I realised (not for the first time) how much I dislike winter. I don’t think I’m made for winter. My mane doesn’t blow all majestically in the wind, it stands up on end like a squirrel on an electric fence. My tail doesn’t fan out behind me in an impressive manner, it waves about like an octopus at a rave concert. My rugs don’t rise and fall on my shoulders as though lifted by my heartbeat, they whistle up my bottom like the wind up the M1. In short, winter plays havoc with any hope I have of pulling Foxy, the new mare, and the only thing that makes Dolly come near me at this time of year is the fact I make an outstanding wind break.

So after a Saturday spent watching the rain run down my nose, with the speed and grace of that Eddie the Eagle bloke on a ski jump, I was a little huffy by the time mother arrived. So to me, I could be forgiven for being a little keen to get inside into my nice warm stable, even if it did mean flattening mother into the gate…whilst the electric ropes were still up. I can confirm to all those wondering about the conductive properties of wet yard jackets, that if mother’s “yelp” was anything to go by, they are quite effective. Ooops. As for making her walk through the puddles whilst I leapt for the safety of dry ground, I think that’s a tad unfair — one cannot be too sure how deep those puddles are and, as a horse, my doggy paddle is not the best.

So all of this sounds like the normal situation I hear you all say — Hovis is in the dog house and his mother is calling him a banker with questionable parentage. But no! That’s the point! She didn’t. She muttered a few choice words but that was it. No ranting, no “Mr. Lead rope meet bottom”, no nothing. It was most odd. I was becoming alarmed, but worse was to come…

The weekend’s weather was so bad and the school so unusable, I managed to get out of doing any work at all, which was great. Monday morning came around and the weather had worsened still, so when I wasn’t turned out I was a little perplexed but not upset. Billy and I hung out listening to the radio and generally chatting when to our surprise our mothers walked in. Now, did I mention the weather was bad? Like blowing harder than an asthmatic hamster on a treadmill and my mother, who normally doesn’t like to ride if there’s a breath of breeze, wants to ride in it? Who is this imposter and what has she done with mum?

There was much talk of Bridget Jones style “big girl’s pants”, which to be honest I’d rather not hear — a boy needs brain bleach when I have to think about mother’s undergarments, and then off we went.

Whoever this imposter is, she rode me in such a relaxed manner I almost began to enjoy myself and all was fine apart from briefly nearly unseating her when I decided to do an impromptu dressage display in the village — I was channelling my inner fairy like that Viagra dude and NOT spooking at a skip, as inaccurately reported on my Facebook pages…

The rain did mean I was actually forced to work in something resembling an outline the whole way, just to be able to see two hooves in front of my feathers, which in turn resulted in the mother imposter looking highly smug on our return to the yard. Personally, I would have thought looking smug when you resemble a drowned red-nosed rat with an afro is a little inappropriate but “heh hum”.

So I’m not sure where mum has gone dearest diary, but since this mother-like person actually stated she had seen some cross-country at the weekend and had a desire to have a go, I was kind of thinking I don’t want the old version back. Until that is, she mentioned that it was “pairs” cross-country — the old version may have been a bit of a whimp but she didn’t think green fruit jumped over things…

Yours confusedly

Hovis

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