December 21st
Nibbler is getting more fabulous by the minute. He is excelling himself at games, at the beach, in his school work, everything – and he is enjoying every minute of it; we both are.

He dictated a note for me to take to The Phantom and Persil as he is staying another couple of days at his friend Footprint’s paddock.

‘My Dear Boys,

Try to behave while I am away being fabulous

Sincerely
Nibbler B’stard’

The Phantom and Persil rolled their eyes, they have become temporarily unemployed – The Phantom has been enjoying the benefit of sickness (Mud Fever) which is about to come to an end any day and Persil is having a well earned holiday.

“Nibbler thinks he is God’s gift to the earth” grumbled The Phantom.

“As an Atheist,” said Persil, “I know THAT can’t be true”.

December 17th
I was forced to go to the Chiropractor – that’s the modern name for the Inquisition.

He laid me out on the rack and began his ghastly craft.

“You’ll get nothing out of me” I yelled bravely as my spine was crunched under pressure.

So he upped the pain by applying some sort of calf press. It felt like my calf muscles were being prized apart; the pain was almost unbearable but still I refused to name the horses who had got me where I am today.

“I can’t remember their names” I gasped.

Finally, realising he was getting no information out of me, I was released.

“That was great”, I said, “Thanks for that – same again next week?” and I paid him!

These days facing the Inquisition is a very civilized affair.

December 16th

December 15th
I wormed the horses today.

Persil loves being wormed, he watched me get the tube out of the box and measure the dose.

“Yum num num” he said, “is that the apple flavoured one?”

The Phantom wasn’t impressed, “Apples”, he said, “Don’t they have carrot flavour?”

I stuck the tube into his mouth and he sucked it thoughtfully, “Not bad”, he said, “Is there any more?”

Finally I brought Nibbler in.

“I don’t think so” he roared, holding his head impossibly high up out of reach.

“Nibbler, you have to be wormed”.

“Na naaa” he said waving his head around and bouncing up and down.

“You could have worms”, I said.

“Hoof Hefner doesn’t have worms” he roared, “He has snakes”.

December 14th
Zeuss and I sat on the couch together looking at Flossom, who was sitting on the cat tower gazing out the window.

“If you shaved her,” said Zeuss, “what would be the difference between her and a pear?”

December 12th & 13th
Nibbler and I competed at the prestigious Le Cust*.

This is an event run by The Cust Equestrian Group (of which I happen to be on the committee) which involves doing a series of obstacles and activities over a set course.

We had to do it in pairs which meant we teamed up with a beautiful thoroughbred mare whom Nibbler instantly fell head over heels in love with.

It was the first time I’ve seen Nibbler lost for words. He was so enamoured with her that he didn’t even do his usual ‘show off’ routine. Instead he was very quiet and incredibly well behaved; so much was attention diverted by the mare, that he came across as unusually brave - walking over the mattress, wandering next to bouncing balloons and bustling under a flotilla of crackly flags without paying any attention to any of it.

On the 10km part of the course, he boldly trotted along the lanes paying no heed to the gale force wind battering the trees and clanking gate hinges, so busy was he with catching furtive glimpses of his new beloved.

I was gobsmacked.

“What’s got into you?” I asked him as we sidled past a paddock full of Alpacas without much hesitation. “What do you mean?” asked Nibbler feigning complete innocence.

“Since when have you been so brave?”

“I’m a big brave horse” said Nibbler looking at his girlfriend who batted her eyelashes at him and giggled helplessly.

“Hang on a minute Nibbler, “I said, and reminded him of the ‘Baby Bird’ episode of the day before.

Having been blown out of the nest, it sat indignantly squawking in the middle of our path causing Nibbler to leap about 15 metres sideways and stand trembling in fear refusing to go any further without stern guidance from me.

“They’ve got huge beaks” said Nibbler, “You have no idea what they can stuff into them”.

The mare nodded in agreement.

“Take my friend Footprint”, said Nibbler, encouraged by the mares wide eyed interest, “He would have been here today, but…” and he let the sentence hang in a ghastly shroud of silence while we all contemplated Footprint’s demise by baby bird mouth.

“Will you go first?” asked the mare hesitantly as we approached the disused quarry with its various obstacles laid out menacingly in it. “Of course” said Nibbler, “It’s the Gentlemanly thing to do” and we charged off over the ditch jump in fine style and down on into the quarry and back to home base*.

*The use of the word prestigious may be a little premature as this is the first of such events we have held, however I’m sensing that this time 50 years from now that is indeed what this event shall be.

* I should mention that my chivalrous horse took the opportunity to take a leak during the phase where you had to dismount and get your horse to stand for 15 seconds in a circle in the middle of the paddock.
This actually, was somewhat fortuitous as Nibbler would never usually stand for 5 seconds in the middle of a paddock full of other horses let alone 15, which happened to coincide, happily with the time it took him to take his leak. I felt frankly, appalled that he would do this in front of his new girlfriend – they had only known each other for a matter of hours. Amazingly enough though, she didn’t seem to mind, which was fortunate as he did not even have the grace to be a little embarrassed.

December 10th
My Mother is feeling rather pleased with herself.

She had a close encounter with a ‘Man-Problem’ and managed to solve it all by herself!

Somehow, she told me, the toilet door had become locked so she couldn’t get in. Of course, being locked out is infinitely preferable to being locked in as it is full of options as my Mother quickly realised.

“Suddenly, out of the blue” she said, “I realised I needed a tool and fortunately I still have a pile of Dad’s screwdrivers”. So she ducked out to the garage, surveyed several neat rows consisting of around 189 screwdrivers, and somehow managed to select the right one. “Did you know” she said, “that screwdrivers come in two different types?”

I did but she continued anyway. “There’s a flat number handy for opening paint cans and one with a doodacky pointy thing on the end of it” she said.

I understood immediately.

“I dismantled the whole door handle with the pointy one” she said proudly “ and then, I’m not exactly sure what I did but I wriggled it a bit and there was a click and the door unlocked!”

“That’s amazing?” I said, “Well done that Mum”.

“Yes”, she continued, “so now, when I go past that open door, I think to myself, I did that, and I feel rather proud of myself”.

“There’s a name for people who go around forcing doors open with screwdrivers” I said.

“Yes!” said My Mother, the alliteration possibilities knocking actual comprehension away, “I could be Dorothy Dee Door Doer”.

That wasn’t the sort of name I was thinking of but I ran with it enthusiastically as images of possible logos sprang to mind – “Fantastic I said, “If you were Scottish, you could become Dorothy Dee Dour Door Doer”.

“Now that’s just plain silly” she said.

December 9th
The lambs have been tip toeing suspiciously quietly around the house; not a sound from any of them. It was getting rather unnerving so as Partly seemed to be involved, I asked him about it.

“Oh that”, he said, “They’re rehearsing”.

“What now, ‘The Silence of the Lambs’?”

Partly looked at me “actually”, he said, “we were doing ‘The sound of Music’ but as none of us can stand the actual music we thought we’d do it as a mime”.

December 8th
My Mother rang.

“Someone has laid a plague in the memorial gardens” she said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“It says here, in plain English, that a plague has been laid in memoriam of someone, right next to the Rhododendron path”, she said.

“Good Grief”.

“Don’t you worry”, she said, “I shall stay well clear”.

I must go and clear the plague off my teeth.

Dec 7th
I happened to get up very early to get a drink. When I switched the light on in the kitchen, I found the cats surrounding Zeuss who was busy dissecting a rabbit on the kitchen floor.

I was not impressed.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I yelled.

The cats froze; Zeuss looked up at me blinking into the light while he hurriedly swallowed what he had been chewing. “Oh there you are” he said, “So glad you could join us”.

I gave him THE LOOK.

“You’ll be after the coroner’s report” he said, “I’ll get Flossom to fax it to you”.

I shook my head slowly.

“So”, I said, “Are you going to tell me what that poor rabbit died of?”

“It’ll be in my report” said Zeuss.

“Rough guess?”

Zeuss rolled his eyes and sighed loudly, “Well, I should think it would be pretty obvious” he said, “This rabbit has been pecked to death by a rogue chicken”.
Then he picked up the remains and dashed out the cat flap.

“He’s brilliant” said Grommart, “I don’t know how he knows these things” and a look of sheer wonder etched itself across her furry face.

December 5th & 6th
Nibbler has excelled himself.

We competed in a 20km Competitive Trail Ride (CTR) in the weekend.

We went in a team of 3 – Nibbler Footprint and a rather stunning looking mare whom Nibbler couldn’t keep his eyes off.

Footprint stooged his way along grumpily as Nibbler was having tremendous success impressing the mare with his new-found ‘gentleman ways’.”I taught him those manners” said Footprint, “without me he’d still be an uncouth lout”.

“So, Princess,” said Nibbler, morphing into Hoof Hefner, “Tell me about yourself”.

The mare batted her eyelashes and giggled before reciting her life’s ambitions in the manner of a beauty pageant contestant; “I like long walks in the sunshine, clover, watching the stars and one day I’d like to…”

“That’s FAB” said Hoof Hefner, somewhat rudely interrupting the flow of prattle, “but what can I tell you about me?” and without waiting for a reply he launched into the most astonishing stream of bragging I’ve ever heard. “Of course,” he said, “I was born a winner, everyone would look at me and say, ‘that horse is obviously a winner’…” on and on he went, telling her about how he can gallop faster than a speeding pullet, jump fences (he’d be lucky if he can clear a ditch), how brave he is, (Footprint snorted at that one…”this coming from the horse who believes Alpacas are going dominate the world”) and finally all about how incredibly handsome all the mares think he is. And the Mare lapped it all up.

“I can’t believe she believes all that bollocks” said Footprint to Sue.

Suddenly the flow of ‘Nibblertage’ was stopped as Nibbler put his brakes on causing both Footprint and the Mare to bang into him; “Oh what now? “Said Footprint.

“I can’t believe it’s not Butter” said Nibbler pointing with his nose to a rusty old plough languishing amongst the long grass.

Footprint and the Mare looked at each other quizzically. “You know he’s absolutely bonkers don’t you” whispered Footprint, while he had the chance, “Doolally……. nutaroo….. crackers…unhinged”.

“What was that?” said Nibbler, “Say what?”

“Unhinged” said Footprint smoothly, “I was just saying that that plough must have become UNHINGED”

Nibbler gave him a long look before turning and charging on ahead to the finish line.

December 3rd
A large magpie sat outside the kitchen window preening himself.

Then he stopped, stared in at the cats who sat agog, on their couch, and announced the following…”I am a God”, before flying off.

“I can’t believe he just said that” said Zeuss, the resident House God.

“Well, “said Grommart reasonably, “you have to admit, he can fly”. Zeuss drew himself up to his full height and glared at her, “but…but only you can, er, can?” she turned to Sticky for help, “well, you do other stuff, don’t you” said Sticky.

“What stuff?” this time from Flossom, who is very interested in stuff – mostly the art of stuffing one’s self.

“Important Holy stuff” said Zeuss.

“Like stuffing that Magpie”, boomed a loud voice from the direction of the cat flap. We all looked over to see Partly Bluett, lying outside with his head resting languidly in the cat flap. “It was just a suggestion” he said.

December 2nd
I don’t get out of bed for less than two bowls of jelly meat declared NZ’s most IDLE cat, Flossom MacFearsome.

December 1st

It has rained for about 3 days which means the House God is very bored.
I was therefore surprised to see him being very busy in the lounge organising things for his new idea.
“It’s a reality show” he explained, “NZ’s most IDLE cat”.
So far, he tells me, Flossom is well ahead by 3 votes.

BACK