Hovis’ Friday diary: ‘The world’s most dodgy looking game of Twister’

Dear diary,

Well that was a week of no one respecting my personal boundaries; I have been violated, cuddled, involved in a very dodgy threesome with Cool New Shoes Man and mother and lost another chunk of feather. Life is cruel.

So it started last Friday when Cool New Shoes Man (CNSM) turned up to give me new dancing shoes and realised that between him and mother, neither of them had any tubi-grip to protect my feather from going up in smoke. Singed leg hair is not a good look on anyone, let alone a man as magnificent as me, so both looked concerned. Their solution? For mother to act as a human tubi-grip and hold my feathers out of the way while CNSM worked. This led to mother, CNSM and unfortunately me playing what must have looked to the untrained observer like the world’s most dodgy looking game of Twister. All I can hope this that they enjoyed it more than I did… I ended up with a face full of most body parts and could not, in the end, tell who I was affectionately nuzzling in the vain hope of getting treats. To be fair, I was at least saved from CNSM “nuzzling” me back which has in the past involved far too much tongue to be PG rated and certainly caused some raised eyebrows from the boss lady who clearly didn’t know whether to be jealous or call the RSPCA…

CNSM did look a tad flustered by the time he’d finished and was last heard giving mother the price to transfer funds. Whether this was for my new shoes or other services was hard to tell…

So then on Saturday, after naively thinking that I’d been harassed enough, dad, mini-mother, mother and the boss lady all turned up en masse. With hindsight I should have run — a posse like that appearing meant it was never going to be doing something I enjoy. Alas, I was right and I was pinned down, the la-la stick put on my nose and my back leg held by a grimly determined looking dad. The boss lady leant down near my front leg and before you could say “how much do you want off sir?” I’d lost yet another strip of feather.

Now I know they are all claiming its to help my troublesome leg heal, but to be honest I am starting to worry what happens if it doesn’t grow back? I look like I’ve got mange. I’m therefore wondering if any fans out there can knit? Something along the lines of a large, fluffy, white leg warmer is required — think something along the lines of a tea cosy apart from it’s going over a Hovis limb. Seriously, I’ve got commitments and I can’t go out looking like a refugee from a blind barber convention.

Mother meanwhile has spent the week worrying about my soundness after aunty Em reported I was stiff on Monday. I do predict upon her arrival back from Scotland a LOT of trotting up and down the driveway with her running backwards and simultaneously trying to pretend she has a vet degree instead of a useless one in something called biochemistry. I’m 14-years-old mother, you wouldn’t pass a vetting on a good day so don’t get grumpy because in the cold and wet I take a bit longer to get going than I did when I was five. I can assure you the top end gears still work fine — the engine just needs a bit of idling with the heater on first…

Continued below…

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Talking of younger, fitter types, I have enjoyed my new game with my highly bred, fire-breathing next door neighbour. Since I had my bout of man flu the other week, the boss lady had hung one of my rugs against the bars to stop he and I getting to each other. To be clear, this is to engage in manly lip pulling and not in snogging each other as may well be reported by those not in the know. I can now sneak up on the other side of the rug and flick it at him when he’s not noticing. Cue him leaping in the air like an electrocuted barn cat and hyperventilating for at least five minutes. He may be all orange, muscled and moody but seriously, the dude is a complete girl. It is amusing though, and despite mother glaring at me to pack it in, I do have a mission to see if I can get him high enough to bang his head on the barn ceiling. Simple pleasures and all that.

Laters,

Hovis

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