Hovis’ Friday diary: ‘People to see, handbags to raid, snogs to be had – welcome to my life’
Hovis meets Lemon at Your Horse Live.
(Image credit: Mary Thackray)
Dear Diary
I’m back peoples, from another successful weekend at the cult event Your Horse is Alive, where once again I was raising money for those less fortunate than myself as well as hobnobbing with the elite of the equestrian world. I shall split my recap over two diaries so as not to short change you and to ensure that mother doesn’t get wrist ache writing all this down…
On Friday, as I predicted, I was turned out for a few hours with instructions to levitate and not to dirty my feathers in any way. Bearing in mind the yard is on clay soil, the mud is thicker than mother, and it was raining, then I did feel that as usual this ask was grossly unfair, but hey this is my life.
Eventually the mothership turned up and started to load all my vital equipment for the weekend – food, chalk, rugs, buckets, chalk, whitener, hay, chalk, wheelbarrow, chalk, mucking out gear – and did I mention the chalk? My mother, as I have oft told you, fakes it more than that mare from When Harry Met Sally, so every time anyone complimented her on the pristine whiteness of my feather over the weekend, I was tempted to stamp my foot and thus send up a cloud of dust so thick they would have thought the stables were on fire. “Elbow grease and a good scrub” my substantial arse…
Saturday morning dawned bright, dry and cold. My human hareem turned up to feed me, chalk me some more and give me a walk around (which mother didn’t do until after she’d chalked me so a trail of white hoof prints could be clearly seen across the concrete – as I have said before, if my mother’s IQ was 10 points higher she would qualify as a soup spoon…).
The doors threw open at 0830 and we were off! Lots of people to see, handbags to raid, snogs to be had and selfies to be snapped. I saw my mates Jay, Geoff, Ollie and Ben as well as many of my fans, some of whom were positively overwhelmed by being so close to equine royalty.
As the doors were different on these stables compared to usual then mother had shot off to get me a stable guard so that I could have my door open all day, which was super amusing as it meant I could reach a lot further into the gangway. As a result I had enormous fun yanking the table cloth out from under all my merch like a low-cost magician at a children’s party, in between sticking my nose into shopping bags and the odd coffee cup. In desperation mother than dispatched mini mother and Aunty M to get me a treat ball to distract me from mugging patrons and so I had great fun with that all weekend – particularly when I got the crowds kicking it back to me when I launched it at them.
I saw my uncle Vinny who used to be my night guard when I was down there and was so scared of me his voice went up six octaves every time I moved my head towards him and yet now comes in to give me cuddles and scratches – all without any wee coming out and everything. His wife seemed very cool with the fact he clearly loves me more than her, so I decided I liked her too and thus didn’t wipe snot down her back.
The same can’t be said of a couple of rather rude wannabee social media influencer types (not the actual influencers who had been properly invited) who wafted past with their hand-held cameras talking more poop than mother does. A few of them may have spent the rest of the day looking like a Hovis hanky – you want to act all snotty then I can make you look all snotty; you’re welcome…
Several large named brands did hear that the original, and best, equine influencer was there so by Sunday calls for photo ops were mounting up. More on that next week, but let’s just say there are some ladies whose lives will never be the same again…
Laters,
Hovis
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