Exeunt, pursued by a sow. And so on, for the next 60 years of The Archers.

[PseudoBadger]

It's all about the Sons at the moment. Tom is having an identity crisis, Dan is off to Sandhurst, and poor old Adam is working his socks off.
Follow the undulating Ambridge pastures here!

Bloody Ruth. David , all serious, Lyndy all militant and Shula all supportive. Ruth all wailing. Honestly she sounded ridiculous.

Indeed. Cue weeks of "Daavidd! and oooaah nooaah" ad nauseum.

Oh please please say they tarmac over Brookfield. It could only be better if they'd collectivised the farm and made the whole Brookfield clan labour on it.

If they could put Peep in the foundations of the new road too that'd be brilliant.

Just wondering about the status of Home Farm if a split opens further between the rest of the Borchester Land Board and Brian (over new road, Charlie etc)? Does it belong to the Aldridge's outright? Just thinking about the investment in that new kitchen....

AFAIK there's no intrinsic connection between the two - other than whatever financial investment Brian made into BL, and the fact that Home Farm carries out contract work for BL.

Brian arrived as a wealthy farmer and bought Home Farm. It has always appeared to thrive. They have the strawberries, arable land, over a thousand acres gainfully employed.... BL is a relatively new enterprise. (Do the deer belong to the Farm or BL?)

Presumably if they lost the contract it would have an adverse effect on the combined income - but I don't think it would ruin them. Unless of course Brian has thrown every penny into BL and is somehow diddled out of his share of profits.

Just wondering - surely if a road was coming through your farm you'd get some prior warning? I imagine compensation would be involved. I would have thought with David's council links he might have got wind of it before the meeting (not so dramatic of course and then Ruth's wails would have been totally unmuffled so I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies.)

if ruth is going to be emoting for weeks about the road i'm going to end up with a perforated ear drum

I'll be going full stop.

Well I'm pretty sure David and Ruth aren't going to end up residing in Meadow Rise - so I guess it will all be sorted out favourably sooner or later.

Unless they're planning to change the name of the show from "Emmerdale Farm" to just "Emmerdale" "The Archers" to "Some Random People Who live in and Around Ambridge"

... which is exactly why this kind of SL is so pointless really

would they be at risk from HS2? or are they too far west and fictional

They are too far west for HS2 but I feel that this SL is a nod to it.
It could be a long-running story if they do it properly. We had the 'will they/won't they' threat of a similar road scheme hanging over us for about 10 years. It caused awful blight on those wanting to sell property.

I really want to reach a point when Peggy is forced to admit that she's been utterly mistaken in her judgment of both Tom and Rob, and that therefore her judgment of Tony is equally wrong. She always sounds so bloody self-satisfied and convinced of her own wisdom.

Yes, I hate the way Rob, Tom and Hellin all blow smoke up her arse as if she was some nonogenarian Steve Jobs.

Her business experience seems to have consisted of being the landlady of a pub 50 odd years ago and of which her pisshead first husband was actually the licencee and then marrying someone stinkingly rich in old age.

I don't much care for Moany Tony and po-face Pat, but when Peggoi was dispensing unsolicited advice on how to run the farm they've worked on for 30 odd years (since when did she know two halves of fuck all about farming) I don't know how they didn't stick her in a threshing machine.

Two things:

Helen's simpering "oh Gran, isn't Rob LOVELY' when he revealed that he'd got Tom the job in Canada was utterly sickening. I did initially think that it was implausible - one minute she was as devastated as her parents that Tom had left, the next she was thanking Rob for arranging it behind her back - however it just shows how much she is under his spell. I was a bit confused why Peggy also seemed to think that Rob had Done Good since she is also supposed to be terribly upset about Tom's departure.

Ruth's wailing at the road announcement. A total cariacature of the character - we may as well have been listening to Dead Ringers. She is a professional woman - yes, it was a bit of a shock she but the situation clearly needed more explanation/investigation and she would be well aware that there would be all sorts of compensation offers and appeals processes to go through before the bulldozers arrived at the cattle crush. It wasn't even the only option presented! I can't accept that she'd have dissolved immediately into an undignified shrieking mess like that.

yes i wondered that in an earlier post re peggy - she knows about as much about farming as i do!

and we didn't even get to hear the third option for the road.

And the NIMBYish response to first option - "Ooooh, Penny Hasset. Yes, yes excellent plan"

As for Piggoi, she is the very embodiment of entitled

Oh damn, I missed Tuesday's ep and haven't caught up yet. Agree that Ruth's banshee howl yesterday was like nails on a blackboard . Had she maybe been coached by the same person who was behind Krusty's wedding-day yodel?

Alas, I'm sure there's plenty more of Ruth's emoting to come

Rob strikes me as an Iago, btw. Planting little darts of poison here and there, busily working away behind the scenes while presenting himself as a jolly good chap. Let's hope he gets a suitably Shakespearian comeuppance eventually.

Marking place - flipping holiday and DH at home this week - no peace to catch up properly grr

Bhatti writes excellently about the double-edged nature of inheritance...

Here's The Guardian's review of Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti's new play.

What d'you mean "you don't know who she is..."?

the interview on front row was very interesting

"there has never been any hard water in ambridge"

Yes! I liked what she said about not being great on farming technicalities but very much understanding the pull of the land...

I love Nimbies i'd be one too. I love the people in property shows who dismiss houses because of the road outside and how did they get to said house ? By car of course

Who else thinks Peggy will dies leaving everything to Rob and Helen before she realises what a cad he is? That's when Tom will return - possibly as a different actor.

Can someone remind me where this road is going to/from.
map of borsetshire