Continuing culvert conspiracies in Ambridge - discuss The Archers here

[PseudoBadger]

Won't someone please give Kenton a kick in the FA Cup Finals, and a link to Money Saving Expert?

They have form for this. Brian's relationship with Debbie has always been distinctly odd. Of course in that case he is her stepfather.

Don't you think the weird thing about the Helen-Knob EA story is that we only ever hear Helen being happy because she ahs no actual pals or anyone she can trust in her life. So if she has doubts about Rob already there is no real mechanism for us to hear so. In a sense it's clever as that is common in RL EA relationships. But it's quite frustrating. She does do her little pauses and so forth. She will never choose to confide in Pat now as Pat has made her doubts clear from the start. She'd have to be really desperate to do that, I think.

I did wonder if the nurse who was 'shouting' at HP is maybe an Archers listener and can't stand HP either.

YY the Pip/David dynamic is ultra-creepy. As is Pip's personality change.

Pip won't take the job. I'm sure someone else will have already said this but David is so dismissive of it. "So when are you starting this new job then?", instead of your new job, so belittling. HP will need Rooth to stay full time so Pipsqueak will stay forever. We're all doomed.

And who is parenting the other two Dopey children? Jill?

To be fair, Josh is nearly 18 and Ben must be well into his teens by now. They won't need much looking after beyond feeding, laundry and a cursory check on cleanliness/homework/have they left on time to get the school bus, will they?

If Pip doesn't take the job I will be absolutely furious. I hope they're just toying with us.

Too much to hope that Helen will have a heart to heart with Ian soon, I suppose. I agree we need that element in this story.

Aha, found you. The thread fell off TIO. I got 3/10 on that quiz Must try harder :o

This from one of the answers made me chuckle. And Lilian maintains her equilibrium with gin and shopping.

I don't think Helen thinks anything is bad about her relationship with rob.

Who's parenting the boys? David I'd hope, and Jill is housekeeping.

We've not heard Ben for a long time ( I guess he's having a silent period while his voice breaks and they find a young actor who sounds like Tom-Charlie to take the part) but maybe they should create some crisis for him just to pile a bit more stress onto the situation.

I am somewhat shocked that none of the others have actually gone to see "Granny Heather". Don't they realise she could die any minute?

Yes agree the stroke story is being done well, it seems that the drugs are making HP angry (it does happen). Poor Ruth is feeling shit.

Ref. Hell's friends, I think that she is sooo desperate to be like everyone else with a partner and family life\home that she's doing a good job of fooling herself and wouldn't confide in anyone. However close they were.

They all seem strangely incurious about the new neighbours at Willow Farm. I'm guessing the neighbours communicate through mime, like Lily.

Interpretive dance I think Icimoi!

Jessie Maybe Ruth hasn't hinted that HP is near death's door.

Icimoi Have the new people moved in? maybe not.

At this stage of HP's stroke, when she's still thinking about going home and others are on the page of care and rehab, they won't be thinking in terms of her imminently SOHMC. And indeed she almost certainly isn't - I'd expect a year or two of slow decline with more strokes and falls, and her gradually losing her physical and mental faculties.

Or weeks of rest, tests, medication and physiotherapy leading to her regaining enough of herself to be able to go home - perhaps to a slightly adapted building and certainly to some degree of home care - but she does appear to have had the sort of stroke from which a fair degree of recovery is possible. (If she doesn't suffer another one.)

Agree they are talking in terms of recovery but if it were my grandmother having had what they described previously as a " massive" stroke I would be aware of the risks of another one and making sure I actually went to see her...or in fact even if I didn't worry she might die I would be wanting to visit given how seriously ill she has been. I suppose pip may be needed on the farm but Josh has a car and can drive, or are AS levels not over yet?

Maybe just my own experience, my relatives are buggers for dying when they look like they might recover.

That's true Jessie Maybe HP will go into a hospice\convalescent type place. My mil died in one while we were looking at care homes for her.

Ah. Sorry Jessie I was so busy trying to magic Heather a full recovery I forgot to address your point! Yes of course they should all have made time to visit her. In David's position (going for Ruth's birthday) I'd have taken Ben at least, even on a school day. Pip and Josh do seem unnaturally detached from the situation.

But perhaps this is the result of the "let's move to Northumberland for Mum" story. All the SWs have compassion fatigue and couldn't care less who visits her.

I am so bored by the archers at the moment. Pip and Jill drunk. Hilarious. Not.

Do agree that after all the hoo har about having to be near granny heather there seems to be little ibterest in her now

The thing with the use of the term "massive stroke" is that it doesn't really seem to tie in with the description of how Heatherpet was shortly afterwards. When I hear that phrase I tend to think in terms of someone who is paralysed on at least one side and who has probably lost the ability to speak, whereas within a relatively short time HP seemed to be able to speak, albeit possibly on an impaired basis, and they seemed to getting her up and about a bit.

Also, are further strokes inevitable? Surely they put people on anticoagulants and heart regulating medication precisely so as to minimise the risk. My mother had a stroke four years ago which seems to have been comparable to HP's but maybe milder, and, touch wood, she seems to have been kept on a reasonably even keel healthwise ever since.

I guess (I'm not a farmer though) that it's difficult to leave a farm entirely rudderless.

Though Dave could've taken ONE of the boys I suppose. Maybe they didn't want to go.

Josh could have taken himself and Ben. It was Josh who went ( alone) to pick up HP last time she visited.

Not sure... of my DD's grandparents, I think 3 of them would have decidedly not wanted a youngster to visit them on a stroke or geriatric ward, and the other would at this stage have said wait till I'm out.

Icimoi, I agree, and anyway the term 'massive stroke' is a lay term, not medical. It actually describes very little of use. Of course it could be what Pip heard on the phone from either parent when HP had her stroke. And Ruth could easily have been in a bit of a flap and described it thus, esp. if she saw H. I've forgotten - was she in Prudhoe when it happened?

Often people do recover quite significantly in the early days/hours after a stroke - from an event that looks really severe and life-threatening to a situation where there are deficits that are life-changing but manageable in the longer term. Hence stroke rehab and so forth.

Errol, do sick people in hospital actually get a choice about visitors?