Trish C
Well-Known Member
1) Choosing a suitable day is essential. A day in the middle of a five-day music festival when you've had three hours sleep in the last two days and have a hangover that Amy Winehouse would be proud of, when the weather is lashing rain and a howling gale, should do nicely.
2) Prepare the yard. Make sure all available distractions are removed - put stallion in far field, make sure the Von Trapp family liveries are not around and traumatising their pony-shaped climbing frame, ensure dogs are otherwise occupied and shut knobber's arch-nemesis kitten in house.
3) Choose suitable footwear. Must be waterproof, able to withstand huge knobber-hooves but light enough to allow speedy movement when knobber does spinning-top impression.
4) Prepare buckets and leave out of knobber-reach.
5) Forget to account for knobber's evil genius abilities, sweep up worst of water spillage, refill buckets and leave further out of knobber-reach.
6) Prepare haynet. This is both to keep knobber occupied and to provide you with an alibi/excuse when knobber ignores beautiful sweet hay to eat pansies in YO's pride and joy brand-new hanging baskets.
7) Marvel at knobber's evil genius and refill buckets. Again.
8) Collect all required brushes/sponges/clothes. Turning your back for two seconds should be plenty of time for knobber to distribute said items to all four corners of the yard, using the final brush-fling to hit you in the back of the head. Again, marvel at supreme demonstration of knobberish skill.
9) Begin bathing. Remember that the proportion of water on knobber:water on bather will be approximately 1:20.
10) Refill bucket after momentary lapse of concentration in which arch-nemesis kitten appeared causing yet another display of knobberism.
11) Show incredible reaction speed (given hangover state) as stallion escapes from field, chased by dogs.
12) Refill the bucket that you abandoned just within knobber reach to shut stallion in stable.
13) Speedy reactions required again as wheelbarrow appears round corner wheeled by, and containg, von Trapp family children sporting full cowboy outfits.
14) Find new bottle of baby oil to replace the one knobber spilt during excessively balletic reaction to cowboy-wheelbarrow situation.
15) Continue bathing knobber (and yourself) until you're filthy and soaked, you've only missed three or four spots of dirt on him and knobber has managed to cover himself in more hay than when you started.
16) Oil hooves, remembering to leave oil on the shelf so that knobber can knock it off in most spectacular possible fashion.
17) Admire your lovely soft, beautifully shiny..... hands.... and curse your still filthy but distinctly smug looking knobber.
18) Ask YO, incredulously, where the wet paint is... y'know, the paint that, whilst you were admiring your hands, knobber has managed to get on his nose. Pause momentarily to consider possibilities (and marvel) when YO reveals that there is no wet paint anywhere on yard.
19) Quickly take photograph in the one instant that knobber, due to trick of the light, looks very slightly cleaner than when you started.
20) More knobber-genius marvelling when knobber finds a muddy-patch in a bone dry grassy field.
21) Examine before and after pictures... struggle to tell which one's which as there is little or no change in cleanliness of knobber.
22) Resign yourself to the fact that, whilst you can take the mud off the knobber, you can't take the knobber out of the mud
Before
After. Knobber no cleaner (but definitely more smug), owner and yard now absolutely filthy.
2) Prepare the yard. Make sure all available distractions are removed - put stallion in far field, make sure the Von Trapp family liveries are not around and traumatising their pony-shaped climbing frame, ensure dogs are otherwise occupied and shut knobber's arch-nemesis kitten in house.
3) Choose suitable footwear. Must be waterproof, able to withstand huge knobber-hooves but light enough to allow speedy movement when knobber does spinning-top impression.
4) Prepare buckets and leave out of knobber-reach.
5) Forget to account for knobber's evil genius abilities, sweep up worst of water spillage, refill buckets and leave further out of knobber-reach.
6) Prepare haynet. This is both to keep knobber occupied and to provide you with an alibi/excuse when knobber ignores beautiful sweet hay to eat pansies in YO's pride and joy brand-new hanging baskets.
7) Marvel at knobber's evil genius and refill buckets. Again.
8) Collect all required brushes/sponges/clothes. Turning your back for two seconds should be plenty of time for knobber to distribute said items to all four corners of the yard, using the final brush-fling to hit you in the back of the head. Again, marvel at supreme demonstration of knobberish skill.
9) Begin bathing. Remember that the proportion of water on knobber:water on bather will be approximately 1:20.
10) Refill bucket after momentary lapse of concentration in which arch-nemesis kitten appeared causing yet another display of knobberism.
11) Show incredible reaction speed (given hangover state) as stallion escapes from field, chased by dogs.
12) Refill the bucket that you abandoned just within knobber reach to shut stallion in stable.
13) Speedy reactions required again as wheelbarrow appears round corner wheeled by, and containg, von Trapp family children sporting full cowboy outfits.
14) Find new bottle of baby oil to replace the one knobber spilt during excessively balletic reaction to cowboy-wheelbarrow situation.
15) Continue bathing knobber (and yourself) until you're filthy and soaked, you've only missed three or four spots of dirt on him and knobber has managed to cover himself in more hay than when you started.
16) Oil hooves, remembering to leave oil on the shelf so that knobber can knock it off in most spectacular possible fashion.
17) Admire your lovely soft, beautifully shiny..... hands.... and curse your still filthy but distinctly smug looking knobber.
18) Ask YO, incredulously, where the wet paint is... y'know, the paint that, whilst you were admiring your hands, knobber has managed to get on his nose. Pause momentarily to consider possibilities (and marvel) when YO reveals that there is no wet paint anywhere on yard.
19) Quickly take photograph in the one instant that knobber, due to trick of the light, looks very slightly cleaner than when you started.
20) More knobber-genius marvelling when knobber finds a muddy-patch in a bone dry grassy field.
21) Examine before and after pictures... struggle to tell which one's which as there is little or no change in cleanliness of knobber.
22) Resign yourself to the fact that, whilst you can take the mud off the knobber, you can't take the knobber out of the mud
Before
After. Knobber no cleaner (but definitely more smug), owner and yard now absolutely filthy.
