Brian is over a barrel, Alice has drained the barrel and Shula has given it to Alistair with both barrels - The Archers is not exactly a barrel of laughs at the moment.

[PseudoBadger]

Thanks to @LillianGish for the thread title.

Bleuuurgh about being able to hear the lovebirds masticating. By chance I listened to this for the first time ever on the BigComputerUpstairs with Bose speakers on 11. Won't do that again. Why isn't there a vomit emoticon when you need one?

There is no explanation it is the slow mundane end of a marriage. No affair, no big drama. It might be irritating but I actually think it's really good scriptwriting. I agree. But I think it would have been poor scriptwriting if Dan had just said ‘Fair enough’ and let them get on with it. I’m slightly surprised they brought him back for this actually - he’s so rarely around his reaction could easily have been reported from afar and it wouldn’t have seemed odd in the slightest.

? Beka

I think Will is one of the most annoying characters (as a fahm-lee....). Right up there with Shula, especially Shula at the moment.

@birdsdestiny yes, I get that this is how a marriage can slowly and mundanely end. But Shula, given her faith, shouldn't be one to end it like that.

I can see Pip turning out like her Aunt Shula.

But how on earth would it be more Christian to say the thought of spending 30 more years with you makes my teeth itch. Shula is going to hurt Alistair there is no avoiding it.

It would be more Christian/moral to say "I'm struggling with the marriage. I want to save it so can we go to couples counselling, please." It is ridiculous to say "I've been unhappy for years but didn't think to mention it."

It's one of those doesn't-make-sense storylines where you just have to grit your teeth and get through it.

Yes R4 As I said I reckon the SW's were\are hellbent on destroying a few marriages in TA for dramatic effect. Maybe they hadn't thought it through properly ? .

I can't help thinking that if the current SLs for Shula and Brian are to be their swan song, they are being badly let down.

Well she does keep saying 'It's hard for me too' so perhaps she's got some kind of internal struggle with her own views going on; and perhaps she'll break down and confide in the vicar at some point about why she's left him and how she's struggled along being unhappy for years because she knows that the Christian view is that marriage is for life and how she is required to love her neighbour (nevermind her husband).

It would be a much less annoying storyline if she'd mentioned some of this before, even if it was a bit of it confided to one person and a bit to another, but she's not given anyone any answers nor explained how she's feeling other than the 'it's hard for me too' without actually seeming upset!

I understood Shula's 'it's hard for me too' referring to her annoyance at people talking about her & to her about the separation when she would clearly rather just get it all over with with no comment. It doesn't seem to be that she's having any emotional difficulties just that it's hard for her to deal with the practical consequences.

*It would be more Christian/moral to say "I'm struggling with the marriage. I want to save it so can we go to couples counselling, please." It is ridiculous to say "I've been unhappy for years but didn't think to mention it."

It's one of those doesn't-make-sense storylines where you just have to grit your teeth and get through it.*

Except that is exactly how some marriages end. It's not something dramatic but a continue drip drip drip - that ends up with one person realising they just can't cope with it one more day.
I think we are supposed to "compare and contrast" Harrison and Fallon as a "sensible and needing excitement" couple who talk and work things out. With Alistair and Shula, who didn't talk/listen - and he didn't see her yearning for "more than this" as the big issue it was.

Will's make-up with Emma was very warmly spoken. Is this a cue that he will, in his grief, make a pass at her somewhere down the line?

Yes, Echt, I thought exactly the same thing. Have a nasty feeling they were signalling a rekindling of past passions. Oh. Dear.

Bek It's not much of a comparison between a relatively new partnership and a many years old marriage!

Also I noted that Alastair when swearing that he had been totally faithful to Shula in the conversation with Dan did not mention his flirtation with his stepson's early girlfriend !!.

I thought I could detect a hind of sunk cost/loss aversion in Shula's protestations that she was definitely certain, she MUST be (to Dan). Perhaps she feels she's got this far and now feels unable to reconsider because she's already invested emotionally so much in getting out of the marriage?
It does seem oxymoronic for her to protest that she will still have her faith - what happened to "those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder"? My messages here are always influenced by my own relative lack of life experience and perhaps being naive, but to me a marriage shouldn't be contingent on love or excitement or wanting something else. It is its own thing, and when you choose to commit to it, well, you choose to commit to it!

I imagine Shula would enjoy melting conversations with Alan about how she has struggled with her marriage. But if she were forced to be honest (and she is so very good at being dishonest and evasive) she'd have to say how her 'struggles' included a dog-in-the-manger possessiveness and school-girlish fantasising about Dr Locke, Philip the Builder, and the good vicar himself. I think it was R4 who said, very perceptively, that Shula idealises men: I suspect that no mere mortal could live up to her ideal picture, hence her discontent. There's a kind of childishness about this which, in Shula, comes out as a deeply unattractive peevishness about life. And her annoying 'wistfulness', as Daniel noticed. Alistair's well rid - I do hope he hooks up with some firm-thighed equestrian type, maybe younger than Shula by about 10 -12 years, resolutely secular, not a cream cardi in sight.

And her peevishness is covered up by a pretence at content - 'family, church, work, village life'. Snort! she's got all that in spades, always has, hasn't made her happy. Really, the writers have hit upon a truly excellent study in a particularly kind of self-deluding hypocrisy.

To go back to Will and Emma; Clarrie sweetly reminded\prompted Will to remember how good Emm has been with the children and he shouldn't ignore the fact, which he hasn't. Nothing more than that fgs.

He seems to have reached the more accepting part of grieving now. I'm glad they're going back to Greenwood Cottage .

Ah Jazzer.

Finally.

I sooooo want Jazzer to find love and happiness! Underneath all that pig shit there’s a heart of gold....

But, but Hannah can't have been 10 years ago surely?

Feeling old.

I rather think that Hannah may be intended for Tom.

Bit of a waste though.

ooh! Just had a look in Lowfield - Hannah turned up in Dec 2008 and, although Jazzer was very taken with her, she only had eyes for Chris Carter! He was not interested though as was mooning over Alice, who had just left for Uni.

Could get interesting

Although, would be nice if Jazzer found lurve and he and Hannah settled down and launched a pig empire.

I think Hannah is one of the few female characters in TA that I've ever liked. Hope she hasn't had a personality transplant.

Alistair might take a shine to her too...