The Cheese Queen needs to tread Caerphilly. Camembert the tension? Join The Archers thread and hope it gets Feta from here on.

[PseudoBadger]

Sorry but I couldn't resist an opportunity for puns galore

Just signing in to this thread to see what you all make of Heather's totally unexpected demise...

For once the jolly upbeat theme tune wasn't an inappropriate follow-on to a death announcement. Mind you, my main reaction was mostly to shout "Oh, FFS, how bloody predictable can you get?".

I swear there's some sort of force field around Brookfield which prevents Archers from leaving and HP from staying. I wish more than ever that I'd had a chance to put my question to SOC at the Radio Times festival, it would have included a reference to the fact that all bloody knew that Brookfield wasn't going to be sold, Pip wasn't going to leave and neither was Jill.

I agree with Bertrand, I couldn't see anything heartless about David at the hospital. I suspect we've all done it when we've been hurrying to get somewhere and have encountered all sorts of obstacles - it's natural to arrive flustered and breathless, apologising for being late and mentioning the problems we've encountered. It delayed his inquiries about HP by all of around 5 seconds.

I agree a couple of weeks if drunking tea. Where would the harm have been.
Now Ruth has to feel awful for moving her mum even though her mum died happy.
David has to feel.awful for suggesting she might die and being right.
Jill has to coo like a pigeon of indecision. And feel.awful about being useless at LL ir awful fir moving back to Brookfueld and looking simultaneously heartless and ungrateful.

Misery all round.

Unless the SW will think everyone is going to go phew the Archers have all.stayed at beookfield and all is well with the world because for a minute there we all really thought they were going up north, thete was going to be a road through Ambridge, pip was leaving and jill moving out.

Be a right bloody laugh if they do build the road now and wreck the stupid farm. That at keast woukd be plausible - planners take normal length of time to make decusion that flies in face of common sense and ignores surveys/study findings.

D and R retire on compo and HPs house sale.

I don't think Ruth will be a nightmare. I think the whole purpose of this predictable plot twist is so that HP could die happy knowing she was going to Brookfield (which not long ago was so unappealing to her it was going to be sold), but that Ruth would not have to spend the foreseeable future in the farmhouse with her mam - a prospect she was dreading. This way any guilt she might have had has been assuaged by her few weeks in the north and also conveniently mean HPs house is packed and sorted so no need ever to return. It's all very neatly resolved in the way these things never are in real life. Pip has now been moved out to Rickyard to free her up for some romantic plot lines and Jill will probably stay at LL for a bit to see how Brookfield manage without her - SOC with his stick again (I love that image Gruach).
Threw in the towel at Trowell Will henceforth refer to HP's death in this way - possibly abbreviating to TITTAT.

Small "coo like a pigeon of indecision"!!! Bloody love that! I'm going to use that phrase in conversation at work today! And that's exactly what she sounds like

It'll be easy enough to get Jill back to Brookfield. Ruth will fall apart and/or be desperate to get back to farming to take her mind off things, Deeavid will end up begging Jill to come back to save the family from starvation and food poisoning and that will give Jill her excuse to get out of LL.

Those are for everyone on the thread. Onwards and upwards! There's lots of misery to come signalled by the increasingly unsubtle hints that Hazel is about to evict the Grundys from Keeper's Cottage. Never mind that we've already had a very traumatic eviction storyline involving the Grundys*. My theory (which is more of a wish, really) is that Caroline and Oliver decide not to come home from Tuscany and let the Grundys return to Grange Farm for Joe's last years.

Hoping to be able to earn the label MysticGasp0 from this one, in which case maybe MysticBore would let me carry her bag for her from time to time.

*Memo to Eddie's ferrets: get out while you can. Go and join Scruff in the woods.

Yes, MysticGasp0, my crystal ball concurs with your divinations and prognostications

It will all come as a complete surprise to everyone, just as the Grundys are packing up to move to Meadow Rise again and Joe is eyeing up the ferrets and reaching for his hammer.

Spooky cross-post!

Proof positive that we is mystic innit

Gah! didn't see the bit about the ferrets first time and thought you'd just posted, hence me wafflng about crossposts

So within 18 months we have resolved a lot of dead end stories that were ultimately time wasters and I don't think they will add to the long term story (there will be no special in fifty years about the day the archers nearly left Brookfield for example). It makes me fear that the Helrob sl will end and then everyone will get on as if it never happened.

So soc is in a quandary. For rob sl to be exciting for him he really needs to die in a dramatic way. But being a long running program and archers listeners being less forgiving of resurrections, it would be better for him to end up in prison so he can turn up in a horrobinesque way in five years or so.

We have managed to gain a lot of new characters. Most of them quite irritating.

Maybe H has a baby, sees light re Rib, dramatic denouement and divorce, he is hounded out of town but still has to remain in her life/the programme due to access to child? I really hope the story does not end with him dying, that's too over dramatic.

I am spending Ruth's inheritance already.
Either David nobly buys out Jill, Lizzie and Shula so all Kenton's debt lies with Brookfield (which will annoy him no end) or
David usurps JE and nobly stumps up for the newly re-named HP Memorial Village Hall.

I think that Rob is a great love-to-hate figure. It would be a waste to bin him. He should stick around, being a thorn in the flesh (note to SW: but without descending to pantomime baddie), for many years to come.

I don't think soc is capable of that type of long running sl. People get killed off so they don't have to deal with them and messy things like child access!

I'm not sure Helen is pg. I think knob may be infertile which is why he was so adamant Ethan could not be his and also why he is so keen to adopt Henry as his own.

I think she may be suffering from a return of her eating disorders due to the stress of life with knob.

I like that theory and I 2nd it Gaspode t'would be good, or they could buy\rent the newly tarted up Keepers Cottage for the Grundys.

ref. HP's death, these things happen, at least she was happy singing a good ole Cockney song

I don't think Helen's pregnant. That's a red herring. She's retreating into the eating disorder because she doesn't know what else to do.
(Who did the comedy voice announcing the arrival of the tagine at their table?)

Ruth could use her money to build a couple of affordable homes which the village needs. She needs to keep it as hers or Pip and David will spend it without consulting her.

Well done, MysticBore, well done indeed.

Not sure I can take x number of months of Ruth's grief but definitely looking forward to the opening of the HeatherPet Memorial Robotic Milking Parlour.

How would Rob know that he was infertile? If he and Jess had been trying for children, is it likely that Rob would have happily gone off for a sperm test, or isn't it more likely he would have put all the blame on Jess?

I don't think he was 100% sure he wasn't Ethans dad but took a gamble (perhaps they used condoms) which paid off.

I don't think he would be pressuring/raping her if he knew he was infertile. It is something he would never want Helen to know and if they went for fertility treatment it would become apparent.

I don't remember Hell having bulimia (maybe I'm wrong) I thought it was anorexia.

No IMO the SWs are definitely signposting pregnancy, she doesn't want knob to know though obviously (though she must be throwing up at home too , he must have heard her)

I think it was bulimia

I love the idea of the Grundys moving to Grange Farm! Please let that come true!! I am not looking forward to Joe dying though, I think that will make me sob.