Hovis’ Friday diary: off to pastures new
(Image credit: Karen Thompson)
Dear diary,
Since the humans strangles epidemic has now been around for a period longer than the dinosaurs roamed the earth for, I cannot even tell you what day we are now on, but fair to say it’s a number bigger than the one Jimmy Carr owed the tax man…
To be fair, however, I have had other things on my mind for tomorrow we pack our haynets and head to a new horse hotel, which means today I write this last diary from my home of the last 11+ years. Mother tells me that the new hotel is very nice and the people are very excited about my arrival (let’s be honest, they’re only human after all), but it will still be very strange.
When we arrived here all those years ago, I never expected to meet a lady love who could ease the pain in my heart left when Fit Mare died; a mercurial black beauty who flits between being unable to move without me to trying to kill me faster than a politician can back-peddle. Other than, when I’ve been away meeting my fans, we’ve not been separated during those years and now she is going off to retire with her new companion friend and I am heading for a different pasture. I shall miss her and my Aunty H, who pretends to be all tough but secretly brings me treats and nice things all the time.
I was thinking of all the adventures I have had while I have lived here and there’s really too many to count. I have seen horses come and go again, have lost some amazing friends over the rainbow bridge and have diced with death myself like a muscled musketeer. I have hacked for miles (in some cases many more miles than mother was intending, after I have legged it to avoid tractors), galloped across the farms stubble fields and face planted mother into the school so many times her outline is visible even when it’s been harrowed. To put it into perspective, I think we moved during my first book and I have now written seven so all that content – the hilarity, the heartbreak and the humungous vets bills have all taken place here.
Which brings me onto something that I couldn’t not do. A thank you. A thank you to a lady without whom frankly I still wouldn’t be here, a lady who can scare me into an outline with a lift of an eyebrow, a lady who weighs about the same as one of mother’s biceps and yet can get me to produce movements no one ever thought I could do (including me) with the merest twitch of her inner thigh. A lady who has come out to check on me all night when I’ve been ill, made me camomile tea and mushed up veggie smoothies, who has injected me, nursed me and cleaned my man parts so many times I have PTSD over marigolds. A good yard owner is like a diet that works for mother – impossibly hard to find and worth their weight in gold – and for the past 11 years I have been lucky to have been cared for by one of the best. I might not at times have looked like I appreciated it, but boss lady you are irreplaceable, and I know the mothership will be lost without you. Enjoy your retirement, but let’s be honest, you will miss a winter of our favourite game (which leg is Hovis lame on), I know you will…
So as one chapter ends, another begins. Mother has managed to fit 11 years of life litter into boxes (many boxes) and so operation “move” will start on Saturday morning. I am told there is a plethora of lovely ladies eagerly awaiting the arrival of the biggest stud since Spankel (we just won’t tell them that the baby makers were cruelly removed when I was younger, just yet) and that the concierge is preparing my suite, but I have also heard there is some horror device called a horse walker along with the stressage school that I specifically didn’t want. I’m fairly sure there must be a law against putting half blind horses in such a device, so I need legal advice pronto.
When I write next week I will have news on my new home, but until then I’m off to spend my last few hours with my love.
Laters,
Hovis
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