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.

In all those wasted years when I drank semi skimmed milk, I hadn't realised that proper milk was being got rid of. When I came to my senses, I found that you couldn't get proper milk any more, only homogenised stuff. But I notice there are still niche supplies - the occasional non-homogenised milk, jersey/guernsey milk. So I wonder if that's why you're seeing more jersey cattle?

I love watching CountryFile because it often shows unusual breeds. There were some lovely black and white (in large stripes) smallish cattle on yesterday.

Belties? (Belted Galloway) They're tough cows, which are becoming used quite extensively in northern Britain for land management. If you find a cowpat somewhere you might not be expecting to see a cow, chances are there's a Beltie chomping through the undergrowth nearby.

I love watching CountryFile because it often shows unusual breeds. There were some lovely black and white (in large stripes) smallish cattle on yesterday.

Oh - there really are stripey cows? I just assumed ppeat had been watching TV in her wine cellar!

Stripey cows - yeah, they look like a cow version of saddleback pigs. Make me laugh.

"Conservation cattle" have become a thing - you have a herd which you arrange to graze on upland pastures which have been overstocked by sheep. Cattle simply go over the ground like a lawnmower, unlike sheep which delicately pick out the tasty bits, and that, together with the lower stocking levels, means that fairly featureless short grassland converts itself back to flower-rich grassland in a surprisingly short time. Takes a long time (years) for the meat to be ready - the herd I know about goes to organic baby food (so I was as unimpressed as anyone else about Tom's sudden "invention" of this idea)

Has Kirsty gone mad? The attacks on Brian about Brian repairing the fence were ridiculous. I felt sorry for Brian

I found the business of Kirsty having go about the noise ridiculous, she'd surely see he was repairing the fence and be bloody grateful. As for bleating about the birds being scared away by the noise..for as longs it takes the noise to stop, then they'll be back scoffing in this cold weather.

David was near venomous in his scoffing at the idea of borrowing from Ben: "borrowing from him. I see nothing in the plot lines ever to account for this level of contempt. On the other hand, nice to see the rental agreement coming to bite his arse as Ben takes rental holiday. Meanwhile Pip is fawned over. Has she ever told the whole truth about the cow escape?

Do you mean Josh echt?
Pip is marvellous isn’t she? Looking after her own baby like that.

Is it just me or is the Archers wittier than it used to be? It went through a very dull patch with turgid conversation, now I regularly find myself laughing out loud - new editor / SW?

Ad libbing here but this was breathtaking -
David: if you want a break, bring Rosie up to the house
Pip: oh Gran does enough

Pip's rapidly falling into Helen mode of fobbing the baby off onto any handy relative whenever she fancies a bit of time to herself. It's a matter of time before the Dopeys rip into Josh because he dares to put his business ahead of babysitting his sainted niece.

Uh...Pip didn't fob Rosie off onto the relatives did she? Toby is doing a reasonable share, that's all as far as I could see.

“Pip's rapidly falling into Helen mode of fobbing the baby off onto any handy relative whenever she fancies a bit of time to herself. ”
An odd way to describe a baby being looked after by her father while her mother does a bit of work...

I think it would be lovely to have grandparents, great grandparents, aunts and uncles who helped looking after your children. I'm quite envious of Pip and Helen.

Pip very clearly doesn't restrict her baby dumping to Toby.

I don’t think there is a single character in TA who isn’t able to drop their childcare duties when the plot requires it. The only person who has really been shown having a problem with this is Will after Nick died and even then Emma sorted out a rota for him - does anyone actually have to pay for childcare? That’s probably why the Dopeys display such wonder and amazement when Pip does any childcare whatsoever.

Pip very clearly doesn't restrict her baby dumping to Toby

But it's not dumping really, is it? It's sharing child care amongst loving family members. I loathe Pip as much as anyone but you're just using any excuse to take a pop at her.

I would always make time to see new born piglets!

The whole point of veg boxes is to force your produce on people, make them buy stuff that they would normally swerve

Both box schemes I've used offer the ability to swap a couple of items or to permanently exclude specific dislikes. Even the small local scheme DM uses allows this on the basis that its more cost effective than providing a big range of boxes with different fixed contents.

Pip very clearly doesn't restrict her baby dumping to Toby

I loathe Pip but see nothing weird about DGPs/family offering to help out with child care. I've never understood why Helen gets so much stick for accepting DGP help with childcare.

Re childminders - Helen has talked about her childminder quite often, and the fact that she shared a childminder slot with a friend.

Like PP I'm mystified at Pip's apparent long maternity leave - I've never come across a woman in a family business taking extended mat leave, even if the return to work is mostly paperwork and juggling around the baby.

Just once, I'd like to see Pip shut down when she bitches about her brothers and some actual support for Josh's business from his own family.

Yes, the baby dumping accusation is bizarre. Particularly when there are so many ways Pip is awful!

Ref. cattle breeds Quater It was my birthday when I saw these lovely black and white sriped 'belties' on Country file and I had had one glass of wine with my lunch but as I don't usually have any I wasn't 3 sheets to the wind .

Childcare sharing is the norm in Ambridge until such time as the child is old enough to be consigned to the cereal cupboard/boarding school.

The drama is all in the conception of the child and the birth of the child -what happens afterwards is usually a bit more difficult to sustain. In the case of poor Bethany she had to be moved to a different city and never spoken of again. Pip's baby is ultimately destined for the cereal cupboard until such time as she is old enough for someone bearing the name Grace Fairbrother to begin to be considered as the rightful inheritor of Brookfield. That is her destiny.

Mind you poor little Henry (who they give a voice to) got rather a lot of criticism just for sounding younger than he was.

I like turnips. There are plenty of veg I wouldn't like as much.