Dear diary,
Well I have my date for my operation which in turn has sparked a flurry of other appointments being scheduled — haircuts, shoe removal, the booking of executive transport and mother seeking a therapist or quite frankly someone with a tonne of sedative…
We’ve got to wait a few weeks to line up the diaries of all the various people who have to be involved in surgery on a superstar (for the benefit of the doubt, that’s me), but mum felt it was worth it to get the A-team. Personally I have visions of them all on some sort of conference call arguing who was going to do it — I mean the responsibility of my health and welfare is one thing but dealing with my lunatic mother is quite another — and that’s before we even mention the Hovite Army…
So I shall be going up to Yorkshire in a couple of weeks’ time and all being well, and assuming I don’t shuffle off my mortal coil, I shall be up there about a week before coming home. Mum’s going to come up with me the day before and stay overnight nearby on the day of the operation so if I were you I’d get buying shares in Kleenex — trust me, they’re going to sky rocket in early November.
In the meantime I have to have drops into my eyes daily to ensure that my eyeballs remain nice and healthy. I don’t like eye drops. Mother doesn’t like eye drops or quite frankly me at the minute — what can I say? It not my fault she’s short and I merely have to extend my neck like a giraffe doing yoga to ensure that she can’t reach. I particularly enjoy the game of mother getting a set of steps, positioning them just so, climbing up and… then I move. Down she comes and repeat. I actually got to six times the other day before she got a look in her eyes so murderous that while I couldn’t entirely see it I could have sworn I smelt the soil of a freshly dug grave…
What this week has also taught me once more is not only is my mother a rotund ball of barely suppressed emotion and that eye drops are evil, but that there are some wonderful, generous and kind hearted people in the world. So often we hear of all the bad that we forget how many genuinely good people there are out there.
You may recall I re-designed/completely trashed my much loved and well-fitting medium weight rug over the summer and mum was not happy. So being the superstitious type she’s not replaced it yet (something to do with waiting until the operation is done), but instead was asking for recommendations for rugs to fit my manly frame as the make that this rug was is no longer available. One of the Hovite Army took it upon themselves to email the makers of one of the recommended rugs and they contacted mum. So from the bottom of my big heart thank you to Jo and the lovely people at the Big Horse Shop for the incredibly kind and generous gift of a lovely new medium weight rug with neck. I shall post lots of pictures on my Facebook page of me modelling it I promise. I know your message and offer made mum burst into tears on a plane in front of lots of people who now think mum is insane — bearing in mind mum actually has quite a respectable job I do always enjoy her trying to explain all of this to non-horsey work people who had up until this point thought mum was a highly professional ice queen with zero sense of humour.
“So your horse writes a blog for a world renowned equine publication, has written five books for charity and has a Facebook fan group known as the Hovite Army who literally are around the world?”
“Yes”
“Riiiggghhhhttttt”
Continued below…
Hovis’ Friday diary: I will develop bat-like senses and an ability to see in the rain
Hovis prepares for his big operation and beforehand,
So in summary I’m very grateful, mum’s very emotional and mum’s work colleagues are thinking of having her sectioned. Pretty much par for the course I feel.
So I’m off to avoid my eye drops, use my stunning bat-like senses to find the best grass (we’ve moved fields now for the winter — I haz grass again!) and await my present arriving.
Laters,
Hovis
