one and a half hosses

dear readers, another eventful week!  at the weekend bonzo's new friend arrived.  she is being lent to bonzo to stop him escaping in search of company.   she is called libby and is very small and just like a bear.  she has very thick fur and lots of hair over her eyes, just like bonzo.   bonzo took to her straight away and soon they were happily charging round the field.   

things were going swimmingly until bonzo realised that he had to share his food with libby.  this caused a certain amount of ear flattening and teeth baring.  libby pretended not to notice this rather ungentlemanly behaviour but drew the line at bonzo nipping her rather large behind.  she turned round and let him have it with her back feet in his chest.  this is called establishing the pecking order.   it seems that whoever can behave in the most scary fashion is allowed to peck the other one.  young dave and i have a similar arrangement.  

so the equine friends settled down to domestic bliss, punctuated by argy bargy at mealtimes.  for a couple of days this was fine.  then yesterday herself was getting the food for the pair of them, while young dave and i were pootling round the field, and all of a sudden bonzo sped up to libby at full tilt.  bonzo is not called 'the magnificent bonzo' for nothing.  he is a sight to behold at the best of times, but at speed is something else.  libby sped along beside him, her little legs running at twice the speed of his.

unfortunately bonzo has not read the highway code and had no idea about stopping distances.  as he approached the new wooden fence we could see his large but rather slow brain working.  it was clear that even with an emergency stop he was not going to avoid catastrophe.  but behind all that hair is a hint of genius.   as bonzo approached the fence he suddenly took off!  young dave and i had never seen anything like it - a flying horse!  unfortunately bonzo had got his calculations slightly adrift and, while he cleared the lower two rails, he smashed through the top one as though it was matchwood.  

libby galloped around the field neighing.   bonzo galloped up and down outside the field shaking his impressive head and neighing.  young dave ran round the field, dodging libby, with a plastic bottle in his mouth.  the only creature with any sense was myself, as you would expect.  i sat quietly and made mental notes.

eventually herself managed to catch young dave and we were placed in the car.  then herself whistled for bonzo, who came running in a way that put young dave to shame.  with the help of the nice lady at the stables eventually everyone was where they were supposed to be.  herself stood staring at the wreckage of the new fence.   i could not hear from inside the car but it looked to me as though she may have uttered an expletive.

the rest of the morning was taken up with fitting little rubber screw thingys into the new fence to take an electrified tape.  this gives bonzo a zap or two, after which he avoids it like the plague  (the problem with the previous electric fence appears to have been that the electricity was not traveling down the tape).

aside from all this horse-related drama, things have been a little sore in the thumb department.   regular readers will recall a little problem i had with my thumb.    it appears that, true to form, i am taking a while to heal.   so this evening, after a busy day of horsing around, off we went to the evil vet.  dr andy had a look at the thumb and gave it a little bathe.  then he stuck more needles in me.  having the ear of the vet herself asked about my poor old hips, which give me a fair bit of gip these days.

"i have a friend who is an acupuncturist," said dr andy, "it is very good for arthritis in dogs."  herself looked amazed.

"you mean stick more needles in him?  wouldn't the screaming be unbearable?"  at this i pricked up my ears.  i have no idea what an acupuncturist is but if they stick needles in you then i would be out of there before they could get their sewing kit out.   

anyway, i now have more pills and painkillers.  as soon as we got home from the evil vet's i felt better.  i gave young dave a little duffing up, just so he remembered who is where in the pecking order...