Dear diary,
My name is Hovis and I have real beef with this Barney dude whoever he is.
For the past few days my rug has been blowing up my bottom like wind up the M1, my mane has been waving about like seaweed at a rave and even worse I was viciously attacked by a flying bin lid after my mother’s genius “field box” (aka a green bin) took off faster than Usain Bolt and attempted to commit hari kari upon my persons.
My feathers are so windswept I look like an electrified poodle and coming in and out of the field in a morning has been like trying to swim uphill like a large equine salmon.
All in all Barney I am unamused. Which makes mother and I a matching pair…
After the rain of the past few weeks the school had cleared at the weekend but the wind was already whipping up into a total frenzy. I thought I had possibly escaped work when mother was seen dolefully peering out of the barn doors with an “I know I should but I really can’t face riding in this” expression on her face.
But then the boss lady decided to mention that she thought I might have been a tad stiff on a couple of mornings when I went out to the field. Why oh why would such a nice, petite, charming lady be so evil to me?
Immediately mother was transformed from a fair weather wimp into a steely eyed bringer of misery and I was frog marched out to the school, naked as a jail bird and sporting a windswept hairstyle that Elvis himself would have been proud of.
I tried very hard to behave, I really did but as I swiftly loosened off I became aware that the wind was decreasing my hearing range and so I should be on heightened alert to all dangers. Let’s face it I can’t leave our defence to mother — she has the survival instincts of a lemming.
Twice I thought I heard approaching attackers so leapt forth like kung fu Hovis, delivering a series of high kicks that Jean-Claude-whathisface-with-the-dodgy-hair would have been proud of. Mother seemed unimpressed and merely loudly suggested I was getting too old to audition for River Dance.
But then I saw it… a creeping deadly menace which had to be addressed immediately. I leapt forward, spun around mid air and hurtled to the other end of the school fly bucking like a rocking horse on a cross channel ferry. I admit to briefly forgetting mother and so her sand surfing was impressive but I was, by this stage, in the corner of the school defending her and myself against the incoming peril. Tense, I was ready to react, all nerves tingling and all muscles poised like an equine boxer ready to come out of his corner.
When the pheasant had finished walking alongside the school it disappeared into a hedge but to be fair you can never be too careful so I snorted a few times for good measure just to remind it who was the boss around here. I think that told it.
After this impressive display of manliness you’d think mother would have been doing handsprings at my bravery but as usual there’s just no pleasing the woman and she seemed to be standing in the middle of the school having a pained conversation with herself. The gusting wind made it very hard to understand what she was saying but I gathered the poor dear was fantasising about a new hobby involving taxidermy…
By this stage I think she’d also decided that I was looking unsound again so we attempted a few trot-ups down the drive. Alas running backwards at speed has never been mother’s forte (neither has running forwards at speed if we’re totally honest) so she gave up.
I was most relieved until the other pain in the posterior woman in my life arrived and the two of them ganged up on me. Aunty Becky may be younger, slimmer and longer legged than mother (not hard – there’s daschunds with longer legs than mother) but she possesses the same single minded mentality. Between them I did several laps of the drive and was declared sound in body and unsound in mind. Pot, kettle, black is all I’m saying.
Anyway mum tells me the nice NAF team have sent me some more goodies and my mate who supplies me with my magnetic bands is sending some more to combat my “old age stiffness” so I have no doubt I shall be fine. If I could find someone to supply mother with happy pills that would be even better.
I’d like to think I might get to do something fun this weekend but if this wind continues then I remain doubtful. If anyone sees a large red and ginger mass in the skies above Lincolnshire, it might not be a bird or a plane it might be an airborne Hovis. Anyone got any ground tethers?
Laters,
Hovis
