Hovis’ Friday diary: ‘I’m not angry, I’m just very disappointed’

Dear diary,

I am sad to report that my plan from last week didn’t work. I’m honestly not sure if you all merely paid lip service to my stunningly brilliant idea and didn’t wish to sacrifice the sh*tlands, or you just couldn’t catch the ankle biters, but I just don’t think we gave Mother Nature enough to appease her. I know there’s a view which is she might not have seen the gift as one she wanted, but I honestly don’t think that was the flaw in my cunning plan: a plan so cunning you could have stuck a tail on it and called it foxy. Nope, I think you all didn’t try hard enough. Just know I’m not angry, I’m just very disappointed.

Moreover, I’m still wet. Because SHE is still moody, hormonal and positively mean – and to be clear, I mean Mother Nature here and not my mother. Although to be fair the description does fit…

We had a few days when she maybe had been given some chocolate, or wine or perhaps valium and all seemed slightly positive and minorly upbeat – and by that I mean we just had some mild drizzle as opposed full water boarding – before normal services resumed. I thought my mother could be a decrepit diva brim full of rage at times but holy hell she is a rank amateur in comparison.

So unless all of you grow a set of cahones and actually try to offer her some more pint-sized offerings, we just have to wait her out. At some point she’s got to get bored of this game – although at the moment she’s got the staying power of mother at a bottomless brunch…

As I said last week, I try to be a haynet half full kind of a guy, so I am hanging on to the small signs that spring is en-route. Bonking bunnies, fornicating fluffies, sha**ing sheep oh yeah and the flowers – lots of flowers starting to appear – and some small signs of the long missed and not oft seen for months, green stuff.

Now because I am a man and thus capable of coping with anything that any mad (usually female) throws at me, all of these things I take in my still-rather-long-even-though-I’m-old-and-slightly-broken stride. The same is not true of the small ginger pint-sized pain in the posterior who has been causing all sorts of stress these past few weeks.

Two weeks ago, he came in lame; and because he is small, ginger and Welsh, he is by nature a complete drama queen and he didn’t do it by halves. Unlike me who actually broke my leg and the only person more surprised by the X-ray than my mother was the vet, who only minutes earlier had told mother there was nothing to worry about… well ‘ard that’s me.

Anyways, because the ginger ninja has PMS, apparently it makes him more prone to laminitis, so all hell broke loose. There were nerve blocks, there were trot-ups, there were X-rays, there was crying, there was snot (and that was just mother before she’d even seen the bill) and much drama. Anyways, net result is he hadn’t got laminitis, his pedal bone wasn’t doing any re-enactment of the exorcist and basically, he’s just a wimp. Well, the vet said he’s caused soft tissue damage to his feet in the deep clay, but let’s be honest, that is a bit wimpy. He’s been on box rest with a big deep bed for the past two weeks, and since none of us have been really going out due to the fields looking like the set from Never Ending Story where the pony dude was lost to the swamp, he’s had company. This hasn’t stopped him being a total pain and bleating about being bored every 20 seconds. Honestly, the amount of box rest I’ve had to do, and he whines about two weeks?

I’m therefore hoping for a temporary let up from Mother Nature’s tirades for the weekend if only to escape to my bog-like field away from the Welsh Whinger.

If anyone sees the woman upstairs just ask her if the issue was she wanted her sacrifices a little bigger? Say 12.2hh and orange? Just sayin’…

Laters,

Hovis

You might also be interested in:

Give Horse & Hound as a Mother’s Day gift – plus a £10 VEX Gift Card

Horse & Hound magazine, out every Thursday, is packed with all the latest news and reports, as well as interviews, specials, nostalgia, vet and training advice. Find how you can enjoy the magazine delivered to your door every week, plus options to upgrade your subscription to access our online service that brings you breaking news and reports as well as other benefits.