💥 Archers thread #119: Has the Bull reopened? Will Ambridge pull through? We’ve all dozed off and haven't a clue. Moan about the monologues here!

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads.

All views on The Archers welcome here! New blood welcomed. We don't all agree on all points and most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you think we should have monologues all the time from now on, or other unusual views.

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/3853783--The-Archers-spoilers-thread-5-Cant-wait-for-7-02pm-Join-us-here, where spoilers are positively welcomed!

For newer listeners, lurkers or those who just have no idea what we're talking about, @DadDadDad has created this useful thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3557323-For-Archers-fans-a-guide-to-acronyms-on-the-long-running-discussion-threads-and-any-other-meta-thread-questions-you-may-have - BOOP point for him! (See thread for explanation.)

Thanks to PPE on the last thread for the title suggestion, which I tweaked a bit.

As for the current state of affairs: here's how it could have been done. www.youtube.com/channel/UCvRSVdfQWAjNhNu1AtABYjw Nigel Pargetter returns, albeit in spectral form. I loved these.

I don't love the current set up. Very, very hit and miss for me - but I am too much of an addict to give it up. Looking for a silver lining, maybe the rather clunky trot through the Aldridge family tree last night was helpful to newer listeners. It is rather convoluted. In 12.5 minutes they managed to explain that Adam and Debbie are Jennifer's children by different fathers, that Debbie's father Roger Travers-Macy adopted Adam, that after he and Jenny divorced she married Brian and that he (secretly) loves Adam and not nearly so secretly adores Debbie. I don't think they explicitly stated that Kate and Alice are Brian's children with Jenny, but they did manage to squeeze in a mention of Siobhan and Ruairi, and explain that Xander is Adam's son by a surrogate and has no genetic connection to either Brian or Xander's other father Ian. Phew!

It's not proof but we're talking about soapland here. I think she is and will need Emma more than ever.

A fair few farms round here and up the dale have wooden tea barns (with nice cake!), but I think they are part of the farm business, not run by others.

Re Tea Orchard. What about the weather?

I remember people speculating for months about Brenda being pregnant because she got a tummy bug and was sick one morning....

MikeUniformMike
There's a farm shop not far from me that also has an upcycled furniture barn.
I can't remember if there is a cafe as I'm not the sort who would stop for a tea and cake, but the combination would appeal to many I'm sure.

The one near us which also has an upcycled furniture barn, has a Country Garb and Guns shop as well. All very upmarket. Far too expensive, in fact, for the likes of me! The thing I go there for is the fish (and meat) shop, which is very good and not so mind-blowingly pricey.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime, it's not Emmetts by any chance?

That's the one.

Blimey! I don't live that near but...

I'm about 10 miles away.

The Orchard in Grantchester near Cambridge

Immediately thought of this place, used to love going when I was a student. It’s been around for donkey’s years, Rupert Brooke used to frequent it.

YY, along the lines of the infamous “an ace caff with quite a nice museum attached”

Yes exactly that! It seems to be the the default model for garden centres these days. Not sure why plants and tat naturally go together bt it seems a common combination.

Maybe the tat is the main seller during the winter months, especially in the run up to Christmas. That and the cafe probably keep many garden centres afloat. My parents love a trip to Dobbie's (sp) when they go to the mainland.

I avoid garden centres after about September as it hey seem to be full of things like gardener gifts, which aren't really what a gardener wants.

The garden centre just along the road from the farm shop (as mentioned above) has more and more tat and pets and stuff-that-isn't-gardening each time I go there, though the bit outside is mostly plants -- and garden furniture of all sorts, mustn't forget the statues and birdbaths and paving slabs and pond liners. It used to be where I went for plants, but no longer. In fact half my reason for going the six or so miles in that direction at all is more or less gone these days, unless I am on my way to somewhere the other side of the whole village.

more and more tat and pets and stuff-that-isn't-gardening each time I go there, though the bit outside is mostly plants -- and garden furniture of all sorts, mustn't forget the statues and birdbaths and paving slabs and pond liners. It used to be where I went for plants, but no longer.
I was in a garden centre the other day (for weedkiller) and thought I'd have a mooch whilst I was there. I have hosta but would like a variegated one so I looked at those. They were about £17. Yes £17! for something that grows like topsy. It's not surprising that they have to sell tat, because they can't sell many plants at prices like that.

I've driven past the garden centre Asking, and wondered about it. I prefer nursery or specialist type garden centres. The last good ones I went to were up towards St Albans (Burston G.C. and Aylett N.) but I'd need a reason to go all that way.

There are many plants that are easy to propagate, and unless I desperately wanted one, I would rather ask a friend. I wouldn't want to pay £17 for it.

I wonder what else they could do a The Fridge Barm Tea House. Did Emmur suggest hamsters? Rabbits would be better as they could be farmed.

They could sell local plants for local people!

Seriously: the best way to stock a garden when you move somewhere new is to keep an eye on the gardens round about you, and then beg for seeds or cuttings of the plants that are flourishing in the local conditions, or so I was always told. Trying to grow the lovely plant you saw on holiday over a hundred miles away is quite likely to break your heart.

My NDN has weeds, other side has roses in the front garden and grass and containers at the back. ND+1N has some prolific JK.

You are right of course Asking. I had a few mishaps with planting plants in the wrong place when I first moved in. Removing existing thugs (St John's wort, lilac and a conifer let a few thing flourish.

Grange Farm could try propagating some of the old cider apple trees.

I rather like having a Cox's Orange Pippin in my garden as originally it was locally cultivated.

I bloody love Dobbies. Who doesn’t love a place with sinks like this in the toilet?

When my brother was in intensive care for weeks there was a Dobbies very close to the hospital and it was my refuge. Great cafe and more floaty tunics than any middle -aged lady could ever dream of. But it was hundreds of miles from my garden so I wasn’t bothered about the plant selection.

We had a Cox's Orange Pippin tree when I was a child: amazing apples! We also had a James Grieve and one I have never seen anywhere else, an Emperor Alexander -- those were huge, we children used to split them between the three of us sometimes.

We had a Cox's and a Discovery and a peach tree IIRC, a damson tree and a Bramley tree. I think there was a pear tree at the bottom of the orchard but it never had any fruit. I didn't grow up around here.

The Cox's are big this year. Not many but they are whoppers.

CheetasOnFajitas you omitted a photo of said sinks.

Weirdly, when I was in my twenties, my then boyfriend and I spent endless blissful hours pottering around garden centres - browsing plants (before we had a garden), buying gifts and fully appreciating the pots of tea for two and "home made" coffee and walnut cake.

Now, in deep middle age, I'd hesitate to set foot in one without an elderly person in tow to provide an excuse.

Completely forgot what I meant to say - more TA on Feedback later. But it's sure to be as unsatisfactory as ever, with whoever the BBC puts up for questioning blandly declaiming that the listeners are fools and don't know what's good for them ...

I thought the Robert/Lynda miscommunication was well done: he thinking they were sitting in companionable silence, she thinking they had nothing to say to each other.

I know we have had a lot of 'why don't we ever here about X , Y or Z any more' but in case I've missed a vital plot point: what on earth happened to Carole Tregorran??

Eleanor Bron too expensive or busy, or one of the new Editors decided to dump CT?

It hadn't occurred to me that she might have been dumped - just assumed she was too busy and expensive. She's certainly been replaced by Leonard, as someone outside the family with whom Jill has important conversations.

She was renting Jill's house wasn't she? And there was a storyline to do with her lawyer daughter but I can't remember what- was it to do with Helen's case?