Follow the subtle trail towards the Christmas storyline climaxes in Ambridge - discuss The Archers here

[PseudoBadger]

So many possibilities.... A visit from the Titcheners Snr? Baby of the wrong gender? A ruined wedding? Re-housed Grundys? RuthRex?

Just been listening to last night's and shouting at Ruth. FFS, she's allegedly been so busy that she couldn't even chuck clothes in the washing machine, she was planning to give herself the extra responsibility of looking after her mother, but Deeavid was supposed to have worked out three months ago that actually she was going to have plenty of time on her hands to do the AI. You bet if he'd asked her about it at the time, she would still have shouted at him for being so inconsiderate as to bother her with farm stuff when she was so busy with her mother.

I may have to join you on the over-infested bench, Bimble.

The village will rally round and everyone will spend Xmas day in the bull making tearful speeches and rounding it all off with knees up mother brown

LillianG sorry for my cross post (yet another one- I am so slow to type & post) I cried this morning after the one minute silence & La Marseillaise was sung (Radio5live)

Yes to the Archers being a welcome distraction in a world seemingly gone mad.

I cried when I saw Gruach's message yesterday. It was such a lovely, kind thought amid all the horror outside my flat. I love this thread - it's a great bit of escapism, but created by lovely, real-life people.

Oh, you poor thing.

I'm sure I wasn't the only person here whose thoughts went to you on Friday evening. But clearly no one wanted to enquire on the thread. I had no idea you were quite so close.

LillianG, I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like.

As you say, at least TA provides distraction, even if only to scream at Ruth.

And while I am on the subject of Ruth, are we supposed to be drawing some parallel between the Ruth in Calendar Girls (starts off doormat, becomes strong woman) and Ruth's "realisation" that David is incredibly entitled and always has been, and her transformation from downtrodden Archer slave to feisty, say it as it is, strong woman?

transformation from downtrodden Archer slave to feisty, say it as it is, strong woman

• Except that Ruth never was downtrodden, so it would be re-writing history if that's the parallel we're supposed to draw.

I have felt intermittent sympathy for Ruth up to now, but she is now being scripted as utterly unreasonable and a complete twat - in a way which, I have to say, is not consistent with my memories of her character up until fairly recently.

So ... This being Ambridgeland, where legalities are always rather vague, if Ruth decides on divorce will she take her inheritance with her, leaving Pip with an embarrassing bit of grass where the new cows ought to be?

Actually she can't have a divorce because we've just had Jess v Rob and Hayley v Roy must be happening in the background.

Was Kate married, I can't remember? Wouldn't Lucas want some formal dissolution of their relationship? Oh! Isn't she Kate Madikane on the character list? So married. That's another divorce coming. Speaking of which I'm still tapping my fingers impatiently, waiting for her S.A. children to arrive.

That must be getting on for a year since Kate last saw her kids. No matter how big her rift with Lucas, surely she's have made some attempt to get back over there for a visit??

Given that half of UK marriages end in divorce, there really ought to be more relationships breaking down in Ambridge.

Lillian, more for you.

Given that half of UK marriages end in divorce, there really ought to be more relationships breaking down in Ambridge.

Is it evenly spread across the country, though? Also, some people seem to be serial divorces. Of all the people I know - my and my parent's generations - I don't think it's as high as 50% (though can't be 100% sure without going through all my contacts and counting - which I won't be doing.) I grew up in a community not unlike Ambridge in many ways.

Stats-man is here!

Apparently 42% of marriages end in divorce in E&W, but that's the cumulative proportion over the lifetime of the marriage (until dissolved by death). Looking here, for marriages up to say their 15th anniversary, 2%ish per annum will get divorced, for longer marriages, the rate tails off, to a handful pa in every thousand (increasingly likely to end due to death).

Anyone got the stats for how many married couples there are in Ambridge? Given that many of the marriages in Ambridge have been going for a while, more than one divorce per year would seem unlikely.

But of course, Ambridge lives are driven by the power of narrative, not statistical likelihoods.

You know, I suspect the inheritance has possibly been introduced purely to add even more drama to the impending separation and divorce. There will be much wrangling over money for Pip as well as a desire for Ruth to have her share of all the growth/development she's put into the farm. Perhaps we'll end up with yet another sodding 'will they have to sell up from Brookfield' drama again and all the bloody anguish about the siblings undefined mysterious B-shares.

And of course it will transpire that Usha is actually a specialist in complex high net worth divorce cases and can handle the whole thing without the need for specialists, forensic accountants etc.

Glad we're providing a small bit of normality amongst the chaos LilG

Also meant to say that I could well believe 42% of marriages end in divorce; when we go through our wedding album (got married 18 years ago) it's alarming how many people there are now divorced .

Nah Rock Usaha 'll talk sense into grieving , menopausal ,annoying, bleedin' Ruth. And there'll be closure on her stupidity

Nice to be back everyone .

Sorry to hear about your losses Psued and thanks for the new thread.

OMG LilianG Being in Fr. in the provinces has been shocking enough.

The stats are skewed by second and third etc marriages which are more likely to end in divorce

ppeat! You've been gone so long I thought you must have name changed.

I really cannot contemplate Ruth walking away from all she's worked for. Perhaps The Road could come and carve two separate Brookfields ...

I should say I don't regard Ruth as being a downtrodden Archer slave, but it does seem to be how she sees herself at the moment, or at least how the SWs have decided she's going to appear.

Good point Squeaver - when did Kate last mention her other children? I think there was a reference from Phoebe to the fact she messaged Nollie (sp?) but that was months ago.

Ah sorry - forgot to refresh page, had long conversation with DS's girlfriend, and thread has moved on....

The CalendarGirls Ruth is supposed to become analogous for Helen isn't it, especially with Kirsty playing it? Kirsty is supposed to see the parallels in early CGRuth to Helen's situation and encourage Helen to get out?

Ruth could fund Kate for the yurt project, that would be a sound investment. [ sorry no tongue in cheek emoji]

Divorce stats must be very hard to make sense of now.

• Fewer people getting married, especially when very young

• More people co-habiting for a long time and then getting married

• Older people increasingly likely to get divorced - not keen to continue a relationship that's run its course all through those long years of retirement, with the children grown up and gone, no social taboo, finances not the bar they once were (two salaries/pensions, pension pots get divvied up on divorce, lots of equity in the house).

Gasp0de - I don't think what you say is entirely accurate. It seems that in recent years, marriage rates (including amongst the young) have been fairly stable. But historically you are right. E&W: 2011 249k marriages, 83k below 30 (33%); 1981 352k marriages, 240k below 30 (68%!).

Sorry - "below 30" means "below 30 years of age" if that wasn't clear.