100 Archers threads! We are truly overinfested. Whether you need some help from a therapist in a tabard, or want to move your wife in with your FWB, there’s something in Ambridge for you!

[PseudoBadger]

Well hasn’t it been a fun few years! Thank you all for supporting the threads and sharing in love and critique of The Archers.

Delurking like many others to say congrats on thread 100!

Not sure I can cope with internet sensation Jolene saying OMG out loud. Kenton’s response to her tour and David makes me wonder if he knows something about their finances that Jolene doesn’t?

Feel that Alice scored a near miss in tackling Kate - it was totally Kate’s fault the family moved out of Home Farm but Alice swerved making the point and instead rebuked Kate for swanning off to SA! Argh!

Hoping for a more satisfying confrontation when Freddie finds CMR in his room, playing with his little soldier.

Evening all, far too far back now, but wanted to correct myself for the record. Geraldine was coping, I misspoke. I more meant that it was too much for her to manage alone, especially with Lizzie's obstructive behaviour and in what she failed to do. She handled such a lot and so brilliantly, but she had years of experience. I can't believe Glen can be even half as good in such a short time frame, but perhaps that's unfair of me. Businesses need new management all the time after all.

Hmmm, yes maybe Kenton is hoping Jolene's big payday will help resolve their financial woes. I can't remember why he owes David money?

Natasha steamrolling Tom into renting a flat they can't afford isn't going to end well. I'm not clear on why she thinks running the businesses successfully is dependent on the two of them living in a property with four(?) bedrooms and a big garden.

I like your logic Arpafeelie - do you think Tom and Natasha have talked about kids? He talks fondly of his nephews but is he ready to settle down and be a dad?

Ps - page 36, should new thread titles be under discussion?

I can't remember why he owes David money?

Does it go back to repairs after the flood?

It was something like that. But looking back on it why on earth would David lend Kenton money. He doesnt actually like Kenton and knows that Kenton is chronically unreliable.

But looking back on it why on earth would David lend Kenton money.
It goes back to the non-move oop north. If Brookfield was sold then the siblings would get a payout. Kenton, in typical fashion, spent his inheritance before it was actually in his bank account. Dave felt guilty for (a) aborting the sale and (b) not telling Kenton (on holiday-of-a-lifetime in Oz) sooner, to stop him spending money he hadn't got.
To make matters worse, impecunious Kenton was then hit with post-flood expenses. The family rallied round. IIRC, Shula lent money too.

To be fair to Susan, she didn't think she was imparting news to a random

It is so implausible that Natasha would not have asked about Henwee's and Jack's fathers. Not out of nosines but to avoid putting her foot in it.

There are more and more people who are worried about driving over the limit, and not wanting to use taxis. Alcohol and the effect of over doing it is becoming less and less acceptable

Not drinking and driving has been taken seriously for year but most people still expect if you're going out for dinner to have wine with the meal. Dry weddings are not the norm.

For weddings and conferences they could get round it by pointing guests in the direction of a wine warehouse and charging corkage (or not charging it but factoring it into the overall cost)

From the client point of view if they don't mind the hassle of organising buying and delivering their own booze there's a big saving.

On the other hand if you had a choice of venues is the one which had lost its licence going to be your first choice?

If they can mess up something so fundamental in the hospitality trade what else will they mess up?

Natasha steamrolling Tom into renting a flat they can't afford isn't going to end well.

She may have met Kirsty, but I don't think the matter of the wedding that wasn't and the house they ended up not buying will have been mentioned. Obviously Tom will have learnt from previous mistakes...

“t is so implausible that Natasha would not have asked about Henwee's and Jack's fathers. Not out of nosines but to avoid putting her foot in it.”

It wouldn’t be nosiness anyway-she’s joining the family, ffs! Of course she would have asked or Tom would have told her!

I thought Natasha WAS successful? Ok maybe not ever dragons' den style but more than starting out and needing to rent the flat above the village shop.

I like the emerging sense that it is she and not Tom who married in haste - he clearly registered his window for marrying her was going to shrink in proportion to her exposure to him.

I thought Natasha WAS successful?
Natasha is a salesperson. I think that she is good at BS putting on a front. We know that she doesn't own her orchard, it is only leased. The company is probably fairly virtual (relying on sub-contractors etc do do the actual work; comparable to supermarkets putting their logo on manufacturers' wares) and consists mainly of Natasha and her marketing charms. I don't think that I have ever heard any reference to employees.

I’m not sure what Natasha thinks they are going to be doing in the flat related to the business. Tom runs his at the moment from a shared rented house (or from Bridge Farm - which is the business) and Natasha ran her (supposedly very successful business) from a shared flat somewhere. The move from Will’s cottage is of necessity - living above the shop would be a good stop-gap while they find somewhere to buy/build of their own (rather like the Aldridges). Silly to chuck away three times the cash to rent somewhere farther away. I think they will take the bigger place because Tom seems to do whatever Natasha tells him which is goi g to be his/their downfall.

I read somewhere that Natasha is 38. The ticking of her biological clock must be deafening. I think we'll get a storyline in that direction soon. Let's not forget that Tom fairly recently lost the opportunity to become a father when Kirsty had a miscarriage....

“The ticking of her biological clock must be deafening. ”

Or maybe we could just once have a woman in the Archers not defined by her fertility?

The ticking of her biological clock must be deafening.

Hmm ... I was 38 once. I recall no such phenomenon ...

(Natasha's BBC birthdate is 8.3.82.)

I imagine they will go down that storyline with natasha as the inheritance of Bridge Farm is a topic that could run and run.

Really? With Johnny, Henry and Jack in the picture? Can’t we just have ONE woman who doesn’t descend into wifedom?

Ouch! Splinters ...

Because of course women shouldn't be defined by their fertility. But the continuation of the Archer clan is kind of the point of TA. So newly Archered women will be having their fronts scrutinised as closely as the newly royaled.

Non-Archer women are sometimes allowed to function otherwise. (Although the SWs can never resist deriding and pityng them ...)

Wifedom a fine state, Bert, doesn't have to mean diminution. Personally, I have found my horizons, inner and outer, much expanded since making a decent marriage. And in TA, marriage provides opportunities otherwise unobtainable:Ruth owning a farm, Lizzie running Lower Loxley ,Pat building a successful (ish) organic farm and business with Tony.

And fertility is a massive part of women's lives, even for those who choose not to have children. Feminism is necessary because of female fertility - abortion is the backstop to all other freedoms, for example, and the fact that men don't know whether a child is theirs or not is the founding condition for patriarchy. The world in which women are not defined by their fertility doesn't exist.

Right, better go and do some work!

I’m a year older and I can’t hear mine. Maybe I was deafened to that frequency by the first tick?

he clearly registered his window for marrying her was going to shrink in proportion to her exposure to him.

Alice doesn't want kids, and I can't imagine Hannah wanting them (yet, at least) either. But there are plenty of women who get to Natasha's age, who start panicking about having them, especially if they're not in a relationship. I've seen it enough on here.

And we know that Tom was looking forward to being a father.

“Alice doesn't want kids,”

Still being defined by her fertility, though, isn’t she?

TASWAMA.