Dear diary,
After the sadness of last week, you’d think I might have had a lovely week basking in love, enjoying good food and a warm bed. You would right? Yep, me too. Alas, I have my Mother instead of a normal person.
First of all she pushes off to see Grandma-who-lives-overseas leaving me with the boss lady for a week. “Ok” thinks I. Boss lady is more generous than mum with tea portions and, in all honesty, makes a better bed. But no. The first thing the blonde pint-sized one does is turn me out. Twenty four hours a day! I have had to sleep OUTSIDE. On the GROUND. With no duvet or anything. Not only that, but I’m allowed access to only a small bit of the nice lush green grass that’s coming through. And I mean a small amount. A group of mice couldn’t do the conga without concussing each other on the amount I’m allowed.
She then announces that I will be a “secondary grazer”. After being assured that this wasn’t anything requiring medical treatment by old Tom (not to be trusted, because he’s a thoroughbred) he explained that this meant I’d go into fields where others have eaten most of the grass. WHAT? I get everyone else’s sloppy seconds? Apparently, because of my ability to mow fields down to the appearance of bowling greens, I shall follow all the fussy eaters and munch the bits they don’t want. This a) ensures I stay a lean mean fighting machine and b) saves her the job of topping the fields.
Is this not exploitation? Surely I have a case for discrimination? She’s not asking all the highly bred ones to do this, so I suggest it is breedist. Any equine rights lawyers out there? I can promise you a high profile case and a handful of pasture mix. Anyone?
But then it got worse. I may have mentioned mum digging out my Darth Vader style face mask. Well, it may have accidentally found its way under a pile of rugs such that the boss lady couldn’t find it. How this happened, I obviously have no idea. The mice around here are untrustworthy kleptomaniacs, obviously. So as a result my nose might have got a bit sunburnt. “A bit” meaning any aircraft flying overhead might have confused me for a landing light. Mother went potty when she got home.
Needless to say, as I write this I am stood in the field with an inch of baby bum cream on my nose. The only saving grace being it can’t be seen under the sack I have over my head. If I hear any more “knights of the round stable” jokes I shall kick someone. In the goolies.
Then it got worse still. I was standing in a field with naff all grass, dodging a bunch of kleptomaniac mice doing the conga, with baby bum cream on my face, doing the dance of the seven veils when the HE arrived. The only man I’ve ever know to be able to reduce Mother to a jibbering wreck. A man so scary he reduced one of my brothers to a sweaty, exhausted, defeated mess in about 20min. Yes, you’ve guessed it, it was Evil Army Man.
Now this confused me because Mum had told me that sadly EAM had stopped teaching. I truly believe this was because after teaching me he realised he had never seen anything like me and was unlikely to again.
Anyway, the reason for his visit became clear only minutes later when the buckets of tools started to come out of the back of the truck. Frilly was hauled into the stable first with Mother threatening all sorts of retribution if she misbehaved. Thirty minutes later she reappeared, obviously shaken and with a look in her eye that didn’t bode well for EAM’s future breeding ability if she got within kicking distance.
I was then summoned and endured 30min of EAM crooning about how wonderful I am in my ear while sticking a Black and Decker down my throat. All while trying to avoid standing in wee. I knew Frilly didn’t like the dentist, but seriously, eeeuuuwww. Doing hopscotch over bodily fluids, with a metal gag in one’s mouth and a man in an all-in-one jumpsuit cuddling you looks even dodgier than it sounds. The only thing that cheered me up was the knowledge that Hot Stepper was going in after me. And I’d left him a very large poo…
I’ll leave you with this thought for the week: stress is like a turn of the forehand. It takes a lot of energy, but doesn’t get you anywhere in the end.
Profound, that’s me
Yours,
Hovis
