Well yesterday I decided it was about that time in the year when I should remove my lardy arse from its dent that its settled into in the sofa and get it out there and back onto a horse seeing as I haven’t actually sat on one for over a month and polo season will be once more upon us in a few weeks time.
So off I went down to the stables feeling all self righteous that I had at last decided to get some exercise in and what greeted me – but streams of abuse!!
First of all I was asked the usual “Habari ya kupotea?” which literally translates as “How are you since you’ve been lost?” – and is obviously a polite version of “Where the bloody hell have you been?”
Anyway of course I replied with the usual excuses,
“I’ve been so busy at work” – Pathetic
“I’ve been away” – Lies
And what I should have said; “Actually I’m just a lazy git” – which of course would have been the ultimate truth but being the oh so pathetic girl that I am – best not mention the truth, but flower it with poor excuses and white lies!
Well there was nothing like poor excuses and white lies in return when I got on those horses let me tell you.
First of all – I realised they’d grown in the last few weeks (although of course they’re not supposed to do that at their age, they most definitely have), as I found it rather a long way up to raise my leg to get it in those stirrups let me tell you. In fact I haven’t had my leg up that high in months!!
Then off I toddled onto the ground, stick in hand to whack a few balls. Well there’s another thing that’s obviously changed in the last few months – the bloody ball has shrunk – I’m sure they thought I wanted a game of ping pong and had brought me something that seemed golf ball sized from all the way up there on top of the horse and my judgement was a little off shall we say!
Anyway after a few hits it seems my eyes adjusted to the size of the ball and it grew with every stroke back to the normal size of a polo ball which was great. My horses however were another story as, after their time off eating lots and doing little exercise, they have all turned it into 'Trojan horse' and proceeded to tow me from one end of the ground to the other!
The whole affair caused great hilarity amongst the syces (grooms to those of you not from these parts), and they all sat on the sidelines in hysterics.
When I finally made it back to the sideline myself, red faced and puffing and gracefully exited my horse by swinging my leg gracefully over the back of the saddle, and promptly collapsing into a heap on the floor, the syces were full of advice.
The smallest of them started it off – obviously it was a case of ‘smallest first and if he gets damned then the rest of us can keep our mouths shut’, so the small fellow says to me;
“That horse has a lot of energy doesn’t it?”
Er – understatement of the year, and he continues,
“You know, perhaps you should go home and do some press ups and then you might be able to stop him.”
– Oh Ok, thanks fellow, that’s fab – perhaps I could have done that spot of advice a little earlier before the horse ripped my shoulder out of its socket, but hey thanks, nice one….
Then the second bravest syce pipes up;
“Perhaps if you went for a run you might have a bit more energy.”
– Er, yea, right, ok, ....
But no they hadn’t quite finished with me yet, and the third guy takes his turn;
“Yes, and if you lost some few kilos of weight, the horse might become a little speedier too!!”
Well, bloody thanks a lot. So to sum it up I’m a fat git who should be doing a few press ups and running to the stables so that I give the horses backs a bit of a break, and to stop the excessive hilarity I seem to be causing in the pony lines ..........
Actually, I laughed so loud, and it made me realise. If a friend had said any of those things to me I’d have been mortified and probably told them to “Bugger Off” – in of course my bestest English mind! But for these guys, they haven’t said all those words to hurt my feelings, but they are just being brutally honest, and really that’s how we all should be, and for that I think they’re all fab.
I’m telling you, if you want a 100% honest opinion on whether your bum looks big in that – ask one of the syces, because I can assure you, they will tell you how it is, not what you want to hear perhaps, but the candid facts.
Damn, I should have popped down those stables long ago. I needed the wake up call of the fact that I’m a fat lazy git because unless someone gives it to me straight, my mind is a fabulous thing and can hide the good old honest truth from me for weeks with that thing going on in my head with the angelic part and the devil part and I’ll just hear what I want to hear!
My internal head conversations generally go something like;
Little Devil: “Christ Woman, look at the bleeding size of you, you fat git. Get off your backside and stop eating for goodness sake”
Little Angel: “Gosh, the big wardrobe* seems to be getting a little tight, I must look into changing our washing powder as this variety seems to shrink everything. Another chocolate biscuit anyone?”
*Just a quick note on ‘the big wardrobe’. It’s a phenomenon that occurs amongst most women that verifies the need for double the wardrobe space of any man, and it’s that we have ‘fat clothes’ and ‘thin clothes’. The thin clothes are for when you’re feeling thin, fit and fabulous and the fat clothes are for when you’re feeling bloated, irritable and downright bloody moody quite frankly. In my house the thin clothes haven’t had much of an outing recently, and even the fat ones are getting decidedly tight which means best I do exactly what the syces told me and stop eating crap, do some press ups and go for a run, because I cannot possibly justify, or for that matter afford, an even larger fat wardrobe right now just through the effects of my extreme laziness.
… Hmmmm,
“Chuck us those crisps will you, there’s a doll.”!!
