Dear diary,
So the day of the Lincolnshire Show draws closer. I know this not because of the almost palpable sense of excitement thrumming through the East Midlands countryside, the sudden surge in ticket sales, nor indeed the traffic on my Facebook pages. No, I know this because mother keeps looking at my feathers and my very “individual” mane styling and sobbing hysterically. Added to the fact I’ve developed mild rug rub (due to having a fly sheet on pretty much permanently because if I don’t I run about on my injured leg due to the bothersome flying menaces costing her even more money and the last shreds of her sanity) and I think it’s fair to say she’s on the hunt for a body double.
She considered phoning that breed traitor, the poncing dressage Clydesdale but he’s the wrong colour and shaves his legs (girl). She pondered a dude called Alfie who lives in Manchester, and who might not be speaking to me because his mum paid a lot of money to come and meet me, but he’s over a hand taller than me and the wrong colour. Last seen she was running around Scotland peering hopefully into fields for fellow Gaelic feathered friends but seriously, how on earth can she find a replacement me? God had lots of attempts — the puny Shetland, the ditzy mongrel warmblood, the high maintenance thoroughbred and the lunatic Arab to name but a few. But when he got one perfect equine specimen he relaxed and never made another. It’s a cross I bear on my manly orange-ish-in-the wrong-light shoulders but it does make mum’s attempt to find a replacement to even pretend to me quite frankly offensive. Besides which, does she think the Hovite Army wouldn’t spot a fake? I mean really? Sticking another feathered being into my pen and pretending to be me is like that Sally girl sitting in that cafe with her friend Harry loudly approving of the Victoria sponge they serve (I’m pretty sure that’s what she was doing?). She was faking it. Pure and simple. Nobody’s cake is THAT good — not even Mary Blueberry’s.
Besides which, I think my little idiosyncrasies (no mane, massacred feathers and bald patches — so only little ones) just make me more approachable? People can sometimes be quite cowed in the face of meeting famous people — I mean just look how utterly overwhelmed Mary King, Carl Hester, Geoff Billington and Monty Roberts, to name but a few, have looked when they’ve met me. So anything that makes me seem more “real” is only a good thing. The St John’s Ambulance people have quite enough to do at big events without having to revive swooning fans from my feet.
Continued below…
Hovis’ Friday diary: ‘Herman manfully kept his eyes on my feet and not mother’s heaving breasticles’
Hovis has been sauntering, swagging and sashaying in
Sadly mother doesn’t quite see things the same way and so is praying to the lord of locks for swift growth or for her to find some sort of clip-on hair extensions or for an all in one Lycra suit to become the prescribed dress code (for me clearly — mother in Lycra is a sight so terrifying the show would be giving its clientele therapy for years). As I can’t see any of the above happening, please could all of you coming to see me refrain from mentioning anything about hair, feather or baldness. Please? For me? You don’t have to live with her.
I’m off to eat grass, attempt to snog Dolly and await the latest breakdown (mother’s not Dolly’s — I am actually a good kisser). Wish me luck.
Laters,
Hovis
