Dear diary,
Well it’s out! My fourth masterpiece Hovis’ Friday diary: The Fast and the Feathery is on now on sale at www.bransbyhorses.co.uk priced £5.99, with all profits going to the charity. As some of you asked me last week, you can buy the book worldwide — the Hovite Army will shop anywhere so my world domination plans can continue.
So mother spent the weekend poncing about at Bransby, signing books, having her photo taken and generally lording about like she is in anyway responsible for the utter genius that is my latest work.
She apparently met a fair few of the Hovite Army and signed a few new recruits so hello to my new followers on Facebook.
On Friday I was supposed to go out for a hack with the American dude but he stood me up. He owes me big time for that as I ended up being beasted around the school for 50 minutes by mother doing hundred of transitions. By the time we’d finished I didn’t know if I was coming, going or trotting or cantering. Mother seemed pleased with herself and her efforts. I cursed my supposed mate Mr Nester for ever planting the idea that transitions are good. The man is a killjoy of epic proportions.
Then on Saturday I finally got the thing I have been dreaming of for well over a year. And no I don’t mean half an hour in my stable with a foxy mare with low morals, you filthy minded perverts. No, I jumped! I mean really jumped! Not trotting poles, not canter poles I mean JUMPS.
Ok they weren’t that big and Aunty Becky and I might have been very, very rusty but it was a step in the right direction.
Aunty Becky had taken me over one fence on the Tuesday night and apparently I so over-jumped it I nearly catapulted her into next week. So mother devised a cunning plan. Well her idea of a cunning plan. We did bounces. A LOT of bounces. Little, tiny ones but still it was HARD! It also meant I couldn’t over jump any of them otherwise we ended up with my feet all wrapped around poles. Trust me. I tried. Several times. Damn that woman.
It turns out not only have I not jumped for over a year but that Aunty Becky has never done grid work. To say the result wasn’t pretty is possibly putting it mildly, but with mother’s enthusiastic encouragement (if you view screaming “keep him straight and steady and just expletive deletive ride him” as encouragement) we got there in the end.
By the end I was sweatier than a fat man in a sauna, Aunty Becky looked like she wanted to die and mother was all smiles. Mini mother merely looked like she was confused, or possibly constipated — I have not yet learnt to understand her expressions.
After a quick shower I went off to tell my new American friend all about my jumping prowess. He was impressed. I could tell. Since the weekend we’ve all moved fields and we’re further away from each other but he’s taking some of the heat off me in the “babysitting the high maintenance mare” department. I figure I’ve had ear ache and every-other-body-part-she-can-chew ache all summer — he can take his turn now.
Apparently not only is cool new shoes man coming today, I’m also being filmed to promote the book. I’m not sure what this entails so I’ll tell you more next week. Until then remember that transitions are the work of the devil.
Laters,
Hovis
