Movin' on up (Ed and Emmur), Movin' on out (Brian and Jenny), Time to break free (Lily from Russ, we hope), Nothing can stop *The Archers* in 2019 - Thread 97 (Joe Grundy’s age!)

[Bittermints]

Many thanks to @LilianGish for the title and to @NotdeadyetBOING for being the last threadstarter. Further thanks due to @PseudoBadger for kicking of this long, long series of Archers threads and to @DadDadDad for being our resident statistician and keeping the ball rolling when Pseudo stepped back a bit.

All views on The Archers welcome here! New blood welcomed.

Spoilers: not on this thread, please. We don't wait for the omnibus to discuss the weeknight episodes, but we do try our best to avoid cross-contamination from www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3439443-keep-it-to-yourself-the-archers-spoilers-thread-4, where spoilers are positively welcomed!

I wonder where Brian and Jennifer will end up. I was very taken with the idea on the last thread that the mysterious Gills won't last very long and the house will be sold back to the Aldridges at a knockdown price.

My theory is that the Gills are turning the house into a brothel, hence hating JD's refained decor, and the NYE event was a swingers' party.

It's a theory saturday

Given that Adam and Ruaruruhririhi (which I always feel is how JD oh-so-carefully pronounces it) had to go out and surreptitiously clear away the detritus from the Gills' big NYE bash in case JD saw it, I presume the house isn't in a tucked-away position on the land which the Aldridge still own; in fact is slap-bang in the middle of it, and that everyone is pretty much certain to encounter the new people as a matter of course - making the continued vagueness about their identity completely bizarre.

Re the cigars....isn't it all the last dying remnants of the tedious 'clubbable' culture in which the ladies would retire and the 'gentlemen' would smoke and drink and chortle over their off-colour stories? Seems to me that Brian and Justin are just about old enough to cling on to the distant memories of this sort of nonsense - and come from a very male-dominated public school/boardroom ethos. The cigars probably cost a packet and you can bet they wouldn't have been offered to any of the women.

Re not meeting the Gills- They’ve explained that. Lynda said she had been round to “welcome” aka nose at them and had been greeted by builders who said that the Gills were not moving in until they had “sorted out the awful decor” or something to that effect. It’s consistent that they might have used the house for a rowdy party knowing they were going to gut it anyway.
As a PP predicted, Jenny is going to see her lovely kitchen in a skip very soon. Poor Jenny.

No Lilian The Gills are going to do the place up while it's empty. I can't remember who said it maybe Adam?

Yes,great minds, jessie it was Lynda who got the lowdown on the Gills.

I have real feelings about Jenny's kitchen! Save the kitchen!

(I wonder if anyone else will want it second-hand this time. If I had space, I'd be tempted!).

The SWs are going to great lengths to to maintain the mystery and build the suspense which would be great if it felt believable, but I simply do not believe that the Aldridges would not know who was buying the house that is in the middle of their very busy farm. At the very least something along the lines of "They are an older couple returning to live in the area after years working abroad" or "A local family who have won the lottery moving from Meadow Rise" or "They're from Aberdeen and relocating their business Borsetshire" or even "It's a celebrity who wants his identity kept a secret". I can't believe the estate agents/solicitors would have said "I can't tell you anything about them whatsoever we've only ever dealt with a PA" and that the Aldridges would have been happy with that - because however much they need the money they also need to keep farming the land around the house and won't want anything to make that more difficult than it it already is. And before anyone reminds me that it's not real I should add that I know it's not real, but I want to be able to pretend that it is

I also think that if Lynda had spoken to the builders she would have found out something about the Gills - who they are/where they are coming from/how many there are of them. Having lived in a street in London where it was entirely the norm for every new owner to rip out every vestige of the previous occupant and to renovate, extend and rebuild to the point why you wondered why they were bothering to move there in the first place, I've always found builders to be the best source of information about the new arrivals.

I know what you mean lilian The SWs have emphasised that Adam and Brian's newly built office is a long way from the house, Adam needed binoculars to see the writing on the vans that were unloading the party. It seems a bit odd.

we’ll I’d be mightily pissed off if my builders blabbed my personal business to a nosey neighbour. The Gills are probably paying through the nose for a slick, reputable building company who have professional standards that would prevent them from doing that.

In our village the big house was sold and it was all hush-hush but everyone knew as a tenant saw people arriving and was able to do some clever googling of registration plates. ‘Foreign’ accents were involved too and the cleaning and estate workers filled in that part of the intelligence needed. We probably knew the buyers had exchanged before they did.

Well the Gills didn't exactly worry about the state of the house and garden when their party finished did they?

I sold a flat in 2008. From the sale process I learned the name of the purchaser but not a single detail more-age, nationality, familybsetup, if they intended to rent it out or live in it. All that i was interested in was whether he had the funds in place to pay me.

Conversely, however, when we bought our current house we actually came round for a cup of tea with the sellers so they could talk us through all the plants in the garden. Just depends on circumstances I suppose.

Yes Abraide It's less easy to hide in a country\area or village than a town.

What do you mean ppeatfruit? Who said that the Gills did worry about the state of the house?

I've yet to meet a builder or someone who was working on site who wasn't happy to blab Jessie - they are usually only too happy to chat to a friendly neighbour when most people are complaining about noise/working hours/deliveries blocking the road and other inconveniences. Builders are the ones causing the inconvenience, pissing off the neighbours and taking the flak for it when the owner is nowhere to be seen - spilling the beans is all they have to offer in recompense.

We address that by mostly employing builders who don’t speak enough English to gossip!

Funnily when we moved to the country the previous owners held a party for us and the village to meet one another! It was sweet of them, they just forgot to tell us that half of the village didn't talk to the other half!! (I wondered why they were standing at opposite sides of the sitting room). The house was nearly empty btw!

I was thinking you meant they employed a slick reputable PARTY firm. Jessie they obviously didn't.

And before anyone reminds me that it's not real I should add that I know it's not real, but I want to be able to pretend that it is.
Amen.
(Is this an early bid for the next thread title? )

R4

they also need to keep farming the land around the house and won't want anything to make that more difficult than it it already is.

Now ... that should be fun once the mystery buyers do move in. Shock horror at moving to a farming environment and discovering that actual farming goes on there. I'm sure I've heard this story featured repeatedly on R4 news programmes.

And Adam will be exhausted, (perhaps with a sleepless infant?). So it'll be up to Ruairi to charm the incomers ...

Oops, I think it might have been me who said JD's kitchen would be in a skip before too long

I'm confused now. If the new office is so far away from the house that Adam and Brine needed binoculars to see them unloading the party supplies, why the extreme urgency to go and clear up in case Jenny saw the rubbish strewn about and got upset? Where exactly was it strewn and why would JD see it anyway?

Also....we know the farmhouse had lovely gardens because that was another thing JD was always being complimented on. I'm sure the garden would be quite generous. Why would the party rubbish be littered outside the confines of the garden?

I'm definitely overinfested now

I'm sure you're right about the lovely kitchen. Jenny will have gone for something a bit traditional and they'll want high gloss everything.

I still want to know where the NYE party guests slept, given there's no furniture and no moving van, or furniture delivery, was spotted!