Can I PLEASE just have 13 minutes? 13 measly minutes to myself to listen to The Archers?

[PseudoBadger]

Come and enjoy awkward dinner parties galore!

Ah I like Usha. And she is the lone voice of reason at last - someone has mentioned going to the Dr! Hooray!

And there we go! I was wrong and all you canny pregnancy spotters were right!

oh jill agrees

Completely agree about Kenton and Jolene making me feel nauseous

I have a friend who said pregnancy too and I was all 'oh no they've done that' Given that Jill is pretty infallible though......

I hope it's a girl. Emily Archer?

And Ruth was saying how happy she was with the kids all doing well and grown up...far from those nappy days and sleepless nights...

This is an opportunity for the Ambridge job fairy - Ruth is going to need more domestic help. Emma can have more hours as Brookfield mothers help - cook, clean and mind Miss Archer. I do hope she is up the duff. Pip will be unbearable!

Jennifer had quite a late baby as I recall. She was 40 something when Alice arrived.

43 in fact. According to the BBC web page Ruth is 45, 46 this year so well within the age of falling pregnant surprisingly

Might be twins, they're common in later pregnancies aren't they?

Could this be an abortion storyline with Ruth feeling she is too old to be going through the whole thing again?

& Alice was more than 25 years ago, when 40+ was older than it is now as far as pregnancy is concerned (iyswim)

loads of women have babies in their 40s these days, don't they

I'd be really surprised if they did another 40's pg storyline so soon after Vicky. I hope it's not a recurrence of the cancer though. So maybe it will be perimenopause.

Could this be an abortion storyline with Ruth feeling she is too old to be going through the whole thing again?

or because of some problem from doing lambing while pg as I mentioned earlier.

That was quite cleverly done. I thought while Ruth was talking to Usha it must be the menopause, then the story turns to pregnancy. I'm still unsure of the statistical likelihood of another 'late' baby so soon in a relatively small community. AND I hope fervently there'll be none of that awful couple talk between Ruth and Daveed about the utterly wonderful Hungarian sex that brought this about. Urgh! it also seems odd that a relatively happy married couple only have sex when they go away, or so it would seem if it was so clearly the Budapesht wot did for them.
It also seems weird that a similar story line will happen again - all the risk of a baby having Down's syndrome, and the will we, won't we stuff of testing and having the baby etc. Urgh yet again. Of course, if the baby did have DS, then there could eb some brilliant scenes involving Vickoi and a very special kind of competitive parenting. BTW, I know of wot I speak, I have 2 SN sons, and there are various irritating but ultimately quite funny scenarios in my memory bank.

I think abortion story too. Finding it gripping, not sure why!

Just a quicky, how old is Vickie?

Do you recall in the dim and distant past the family 'fall out' when Elizabeth had her pregnancy terminated? I can't recall Jill's view, but I remember Shula being very upset - she was going through IVF at the time and was very disturbed when Eliz didn't let her and Mark adopt the baby.

I think Vickoi was 46ish when Bethany was born. It's relatively rare for women over 45 to have babies, compared to early 40s. Without looking it up, the numbers do drop quite a lot after 45, I think. But, as a colleague once said about another colleague who lives on a remote island, I suppose there's less for them to do there. Maybe Ambridge is the same. Not to mention Budapest of course. The 'remote' friend and I had a good laugh about that one.

Just a quicky, how old is Vickie?

You're a poet and you don't know it!

I think it's rarer for a woman to have a first child late in her forties than it is for a woman who already has a number of children to have another. But I might just have made that up.
I know two women who had surprise third children aged 46 and another who was 43.

toomuch I read Helen's suggestion of the planner as living her bridezilla fantasies through poor old krusty, who'd be so.much happier with trestle tables and jamjars with meadowsweet to.decorate them. I feel sorry for her having to pretend she likes the flashy wedding and wrong dress.

Ruth def preggo - dizziness an early indicator for me, and it's 3 months since the anniversary bonkfest.

According to the BBC webpage again Vickie is in her 'late 40s' so probably older than Ruth.

Maybe Pip will come home pregnant and there will be a whole mother- daughter pregnancy thing going on? Very un- am bridge but you never know!

Oh I hope it doesn't speak like Pip.

I think Kingsley might be an exponent of the dark arts. As JDarling paces the intuitive pentangle, she will inadvertently summon Dark Forces which will SATTC. Nigel will come back from the dead and lurk in the treetop walk biting the heads off birds, John's restless spirit will take over Jim's sports car (the Massey Ferguson having been disposed of) and roar around the lanes terrorising the old ladies. Molly Button's head will spin round and round and she will declaim doggerel in the voice of Neet Froi. Eventually things will get so bad that the Reverend Bunter will be forced to stop writing his lovely sermons, take up bell, book and candle and exorcise the entire village.