Home is where The Horse is

These days, pride of place in our sitting room is given over to a large, blue ball. It’s made of thick, yielding rubber and is surprisingly warm to the touch. It’s also very responsive, and the slightest breath of air will cause it to roll around the room in the most jovial manner. I sometimes give it a gentle punt with my toe, just to see where it will end up. Most of the time, it seems to prefer a position near to my end of the sofa, about five feet from the front of the TV.

This one is our second. We didn’t keep the first one very long.

Neither of them, of course, was ever intended as a pet.

The ball is in fact one of those devices designed to flatten your abdominal muscles while requiring you to lie on the floor in the most undignified manner imaginable. There are several of them at the gym, and The Horse decided she wanted one for Christmas.

I should have known that Christmas morning would hardly be a languid affair. I was but a few pages into my book of quotations when the tacitly applied pressure became unbearable.

“OK, OK, I’ll blow it up.”

So there I was, festive cup of tea little more than a forlorn wish, sat on the bedroom rug wearing nothing but the slippers I’d unwrapped just 10 minutes previously. Inside the box, two plastic bags. One contained the ball, in crescent moon-shaped, deflated form. The other contained a little hand pump, its plunger ergonomically designed to do maximum damage to the palm of your hand. I inserted the nozzle into the hole in the crescent and gave an experimental push. The plunger performed its task with a sad, moribund sigh.

So I got down to work, the regularity of my action producing the sound of an asthmatic seal attempting conjugal relations.

Having pumped vigorously for about 10 minutes, I was rather dismayed to find that the ball was still no bigger than my bladder after three or four pints. This was clearly not going to be an easy job. Shaking my hand to alleviate to the pain, I set to once more.

The Horse came to join me on the rug, looking at the picture on the box and getting herself all excited.

Some four bouts of handshaking - and 25 minutes - later, and the ball resembled the friendly blue sphere depicted in the photograph. I was done in, ready to climb back into bed and forget about the Day altogether.

It was then, and only then, that we discovered that there was no stopper included in the box.

As I sat listening to the mocking, breathy whistle of escaping air, I don’t know which deflated faster, me or the ball.