Dear diary,
I know that I am blind as a bat in my right eye, but I could have almost sworn I saw some blades of grass in among the sea of mud in the fields the other day. Now, I could have been wrong, and it could have been an Irish worm en-route to supporting the rugby, but for a brief second there was glimmering hope that spring might be around the corner after week 34,573 of the British winter.
There is little other hope as the mercurial one continues to drench us on a daily basis; I actually think the only time I was ever this wet was during the epic mother meltdown of 2021 when Herman the German and Cool New Shoes Man drew lots as to who had to tell her I was about to meet my maker. Although there was more snot back then than there is now, which I suppose is a small thing to be grateful for…
In the meantime however, like most places across the country, anything smaller than 14hh is being issued with arm bands and an emergency life raft on a pull cord for fear of drowning in the divots. Us more muscled and manly specimens are being moaned at for causing said divots and are being requested to float to our fields like Mary Poppins – any jokes about blimps will not be well-received here for the record…
I think at some point back in the past 10 years I remember my feathers being white for longer than the five minutes it takes to get from the wash room to the stables, but it’s a distant and faded memory now sort of like when mum thinks about being a size eight…
But instead of being negative I am choosing to focus on the fact that the nights are very slowly getting lighter. Unfortunately I can still see the pint-sized pain in my posterior well past 4.30pm now – the clouds with legs have been seen playing piggy back games in the fields and, if you really really squint, some green stuff can be seen emerging from the quagmire. Spring might be getting ready with about as much oomph as mother trying to put her socks on in the morning, but just like her, it is going to get there some time soon.
Which of course then presents the annual fun of the “festival of freshness” in which riders across the land compete to see how many times they can use that word (usually between gritted teeth) as we, their noble steeds, piaffe sideways with the knee high action of a Las Vegas chorus line and all the “whooaa” obedience of the legendary Shamrock…
The daisy reins, martingales and other S&M paraphernalia will all be fetched out of the “emergency brakes” bag in the back of the tack room, post-Christmas failed diet arses will be wriggled into sticky bum jodhpurs and tack shops across the land will put the order in for air jacket refill canisters. This, my friends, is revenge time for all those antlers, bells, tinsel and other festive indignities; nothing says don’t dress me as an elf as well as cantering sideways down the road with the speed of a Japanese bullet train and zero control.
Let’s be honest, there’s a window of time when spring is springing when we have a get out of jail free card for behaving like a Class A tw*twomble and my god is it fun!
So take a deep breath, ignore the rain pouring down your nose and start plotting your moves.
Laters,
Hovis
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