The human strangles epidemic has now reached a number of days that even a talented horse like me can’t begin to spell, and shows no signs of being over yet. The good news is there are more pricks going into arms than at a hedgehog Twister competition, while the opening of grooming parlours does mean that at least the herd (and herd leader in particular) are looking less feral and slightly less like indignant electrocuted cats.
Alas however, the majority of the human herd are still “working from home” — although to be fair, once the world gets back to normal, I do worry for employers the world over as offices fill up with pyjama-wearing, caffeine addicted, biscuit guzzling layabouts who cannot function for longer than five minutes without Facebook and the soundtrack of Loose Women. It will be a boom time for the plus sized clothing industry though, because I can assure you that there’s no strip grazing routine on earth that’s going to get any of them back into work attire any time soon… forget facemasks, the average human needs their mouth gaffer taping closed…
Talking of a portly human, she-who-needs-to-wear-a-grazing-muzzle continues with her boring plan of walking me around for 10 minutes while she pretends to be able to ride, and I plot 1,001 ways to faceplant her into the fence while making it look like an unfortunate accident. Aunty Em is also continuing, but she at least spices it up a bit and sometimes walks me in-hand and sometimes brings her better half who hasn’t got a clue how to ride but thinks I’m ace, so I let him sit on me while I behave like a saint just because I can. I don’t want to muller all humans. Just mother.
Although the list temporarily got a little longer this week after the boss lady got a tad concerned over the size of my man parts. My Hovis sausage and protective man sausage cave were looking like an over-inflated balloon model of Katie Price and the boss lady was concerned. A phone call was made and Aunty Em was dispatched to buy lubricant (and a packet of Wotsits, although I don’t think that was part of the request, she freestyled it). What the woman behind the till thought she was up to was anyone’s guess. Out came the boss lady with marigolds, KY and a gleam in her eye that had my sausage retracting back to my kidneys faster than a politician doing a u-turn over buses with signs on, and lo, I spent an hour being violated. Worse was yet to come as the boss lady felt that I should be violated by someone with a degree and a call was made to Herman the German Needle Man’s pimp (or receptionist as mother calls her). Thankfully Herman himself wasn’t available so at least the sidekick who was dispatched was female. That was about the only comfort as she did things to me which will never be spoken of again and removed three “beans” from my mortally offended appendage. Why anyone calls those things “beans” I know not. “Beans” conjures up images of magic stalks to fairy lands in the sky or even potatoes and cheese. Certainly, something small and inoffensive. What came out of my Hovis hose was three icebergs. They were HUGE. Like sink the Titanic size. No wonder my bits were bulging — it’s a wonder they hadn’t exploded and covered the surrounding area with baby Hovis making milk. It’s fair to say that like Voldemort, this will never be spoken of again — the trauma however will be with me for life.
So, I’m off to find a therapist’s couch to lie on (face down, I hasten to add) and try to prevent PTSD every time I see rubber gloves. I am not hopeful.
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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.
