Hovis’ Friday diary: mother is looking for volunteers to pilot Hoverine airlines…

Dear diary,

We are now in the “I’ve-lost-count-and-the-will-to-live-but-somewhere-in-the-billions” day of the human strangles epidemic with one day blurring into another; much like the most of the nineties for the Happy Mondays — only minus the white stuff and a plethora of loose moralled groupies.

As one day merges into another, I am struck by how one thing remains a constant in my life, one thing remains reassuringly the same no matter what goes on around me: yep, my total inability to understand women. Or more specifically, my mother.

Not five months ago she was snotting all over my shoulders, not to mention poor Herman the German Needle Man and Cool New Shoes Man, as she forgot once again that I am the Hoverine, and prepared herself for my last chapter. Not four months ago she pledged the microscopic last dregs of her soul (what was left from that and her bodily offerings to the bank manager) to be a much better person — try not to laugh, she was very serious at the time — if I could ever be sound enough to make it to the field. Not three months ago she was overcome by emotion at the letter written by mini-mother (whose soul frankly is a LOT more intact) to Father Christmas foregoing presents if he would make me better, even just enough to be a lawn mower for the rest of my days.

So thus, imagine my utter confusion at the weekend as I joyously cavort down the field like the love child of Zebeddi and Bambi after a blue smartie binge-athon, only to be greeted with multiple suggestions my parents were not indeed wed and a view that my birth name may not be Hovis but Richard, all screamed like a Belfast fishwife and utilising rhythming slang for duck as punctuation. She did manage to catch some of my moves (not the best ones if I’m really honest) on camera and I do apologise to anyone who had the misfortune of watching it. Not because of the rude names she called me, but because she sounds like the sort of phone call you get when asthmatic Aunt Agnes phones in the middle of a Zumba class after she’d “run” up the field towards me, hell bent on stopping me with the force of her rage alone. (Note: I use the word “run” very lightly — I mean locomoted slightly faster than an aged tortoise with angina).

Now admittedly some of this rage may have been due to the fact that only the night before I’d come in from the field slightly stiff and sore, which had prompted marginally hysterical phone calls to the whole of my support team (apart from Herman, who I swear has her number on automatic block after 5pm) and had resulted in my lovely physio heading straight out on the Saturday morning. Indeed, I had spent Saturday morning having a lovely massage, some ultrasound to a slightly sore shoulder and general poking of the enjoyable type. She should be pleased that only hours later I felt like Tiger on a promise, neigh indeed be paying homage to the talents of my steely fingered physio, not loudly crying how she should have just set fire to a bunch of £20 notes in the car park…

On Tuesday, Herman headed out to see me (I presume as summer is fast-approaching, he needs the tiling finishing on the bottom of the new swimming pool). And so to reward his hardship of having to deal with mother, I gave him a ringside seat to the show I like to call “only fools own horses” in which as mother “ran” to trot me up, I either ran behind her so Herman couldn’t see anything apart from mother’s bouncing funbags or lunged suddenly sideways onto grass, knocking mother into next week in the process. After three attempts in which I doubt he could deduce anything apart from the fact my mother should stick to owning gerbils, I was allowed to retire to the barn for a yet another photoshoot on the inside of my foot. Here the images revealed that despite the fact I am in myself much sounder in terms of clinical appearance, the bones in my foot are still as unbalanced as my mother, with my pedal bone leaning more to the right of centre than Keir Starmer. As a result the self-proclaimed royal of remedial shoeing, none other than NAF Farrier of the Year himself, Cool New Shoes Man is coming today to fit me for a custom made set of Jimmy Choo-Choos, which should have mother back on first name terms with the bank manager to pay for them.

Continued below…

Hovis’ Friday diary: ‘Five minutes in and she resembled the ‘before’ image on a Tena Lady advert’

Hovis has had an encounter with a hosepipe...

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To be honest, the humour of the day wasn’t yet done as the more German side of the Chuckle Brothers then suggested that, as I did need to get a bit of weight off (note he’s not brave enough to suggest the same to mother) and as I can’t be trusted to either walk in-hand without re-enacting Scooby Doo every time a worm passes wind, nor be lunged without exploding like a weather vane in a force 10 gale, then mother should mount me for a gentle five minutes in the school in walk several times a week. I don’t know who gave him the filthiest look — me or the blubbership — but neither of us looked too enthused; fair to say mother is now frantically turning on the charm to warp factor 12 to anyone with life insurance within a 10 mile radius to look for volunteers to pilot Hoverine airlines…

Any volunteers should post their name, address and the named beneficiaries of their will to my manager and someone will be in touch. Probably a psychiatrist…

Laters,

Hovis

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