Male or female, young or old - Bad Stuff can happen to you in The Archers. Discuss the perils of Ambridge life here.

[PseudoBadger]

Not exactly upbeat at the moment is it

Oh and Kenton - you fucking plum!

My post at 9.02 this AM was referring to Nic and cricket. Autocorrect let me down! You are all right, I'd forgotten Bert is an umpire. I felt a bit mean mentioning him anyway as he's fairly recently widowed - and village meetings would give him company. Poor Bert.

I did, quite unusually, feel a bit sorry for Elizabeth. But someone needs to tell her poor fatherless Freddie needs his uncles around, even Kenton.

Kenton's a twat. Could have put the school's safeguarding on the spot if Elizabeth hadn't gone along with it. Freddie is superb as the ideal, totally self-absorbed teen.

Is Kirsty being set up to crash and burn later on, As The Full Scale Of Her Loss Comes Home To Her? All the solicitous "are you sure?" from Helen.

Harrison did canvass Alistair's opinion on the cricket team thing, didn't he? ISTR Alistair telling him he had got nowhere and that he really needed to have some women on board before trying. It's not really Harrison's fault that he hasn't managed to recruit any.

I fear they are setting up Kirsty to crash, which I think is a real pity. I have a lot of sympathy for her wish to be left to carry on with her life and get back into work, having done more or less that after two miscarriages - admittedly at an earlier stage. Sitting around at home feeling miserable and having people constantly asking solicitously how I was really didn't help.

I'm sort of Team Miranda. No matter how horrible she might be, she is the person that Justin promised to love and honour, and giggling and plotting behind her back is just nasty. She obviously does care about his shenanigans and is going to be hurt when everything comes to light. I don't think being a hell of a snob really justifies that. If Justin doesn't want to be with her, at the very least he should have the decency to go for a divorce and resign himself to signing the cheques when it comes to property division and maintenance.

Yes, Kirsty will undoubtedly suffer for Not Grieving Properly. How very dare she be stoical and private.

Very pleased to see that I am not alone in Team Miranda, and I am considering changing my name to Arbuthnot.

Another one for Team Miranda. I think l can overlook her snobbishness in the circumstances. Justin is a mean bastard. He's like some of these exes you read about on MN, loaded but so so mean.

Maybe Miranda is the source of Justin's money, which is why he is keen to pretend to be a good husband? Although if that were the case, surely Miranda could just dump him...

Thing is, Bertrand, some people who deal stoically with difficult events don't always do themselves a favour, and it can come back and bite them in the rear end. It is not "punishing" Kirsty to make it hard to grieve with what happened. It is not a weakness, especially when so far along the pregnancy.

How very dare she be stoical and private.

Well for one thing, it wouldn't work very well on the radio!

And I said ages ago that it doesn't matter a jot what Miranda's like, Justin's a tosser. So no, you're not the only one Bertrand. Though I'm not 'team Miranda' so much as team 'divorce the man who has no respect for you'.

"How very dare she be stoical and private.

Well for one thing, it wouldn't work very well on the radio!"

Fair point

Kirsty's pregnancy and miscarriage are clearly a plot device to achieve what? I'm leaning more towards a reconciliation with Tom now - not because I want that to happen, but because that seems to be the way the plot is going. I feel so sorry for Kirsty, not just because of the misacarriage, but because no one will leave her alone long enough to let her find her own way to grieve. I know people mean well, but constantly being asked how you are and everyone pussyfooting around you is not necessarily helpful. Let her go back to work and think about something else if she wants, you can be aware of someone's vulnerability and cut them a bit of slack without making them feel they are the centre of attention. My own experience of grief is that it hits you when it hits you, but sometimes the most comforting thing is just to be allowed to think about something else for a bit and be allowed to get back to normal and the greatest comfort is in normal activities which you might never have appreciated before.
Agree with Vango re Justin - I can't think of a single redeeming feature. Miranda and Lillian should both ditch him.

I reckon it's a plot device to allow the actress playing Kirsty to go on to bigger and better things. I predict a film or a TV series........

Well what I did notice was yet another complaint about fast driven cars! Now is someone going to get run over? (At least it can't be Kirsty and hence the cliche of her losing the baby.) Is it a technique to bring the new by pass back into discussion? Or is there some other plot about to hatch?

Oh, and catching up with the thread, I'm totally 'Team Elizabeth'. Kenton has completely overstepped the mark. Colluding with Freddie's lying to Elizabeth, lying to the teacher....all wrong. He needs to understand boundaries!

And going way back (sorry!), I laughed out loud at Pip's slightly panicked voice when Harrison said he wanted a word with her .

Me too Vango, but there was another story you could see coming a mile off. Not sure I believe even Kenton would have been that stupid. The Grundies B and B plot is going the same way now they appear to poached one of Lynda's guests.

I have a lot of sympathy for her wish to be left to carry on with her life and get back into work

But if that happened in the programme wouldn't listeners just feel that the SWs were treating miscarriage at 21 weeks as 'no big deal' and complain that it was another storyline dropped?

I think they are covering all bases - trying to show how it is a big deal, but at the same time how difficult it can be to be constantly pestered by well-meaning well-wishers. A sort of damned if you do, damned if you don't all round. Can't remember much about how they dealt with Ruth's miscarriage, but in any case surely the point is that no two women are the same in either their circumstances or the way they deal with things. I do think in this situation Ruth might be a good person to talk to Kirsty though.

Can't remember much about how they dealt with Ruth's miscarriage

This touches on something that came up at the conference. They said how insular Brookfield is, it doesn't interact much with the village. Bridge Farm, OTOH, is related to Peggy's huge dynasty and employs the most people in the village (excepting Damara/Berrow). More people would be affected by Tom's Kirsty's miscarriage than Ruth's.
Also, Ruth's was a lot earlier in the pregnancy iirc. Not sure so many knew.

no two women are the same in either their circumstances or the way they deal with things.

Agreed, and the same person can have different reactions on different days. Cliche corner but you have to take each day as it comes