🧚‍♀️ Archers thread #120: Magic time. Dialogue! Good Fairy Lilian made Lynda’s wish come true. Will Phil vanish in a puff of smoke? Join the Magic Circle in Alice’s shed, where time is never called!

[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 hear more about the Naughty Milkman, 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 @Roysnewshirt for the excellent title suggestion, which I tweaked a bit.

I wonder how much dialogue we're going to get in the coming weeks. They're back to normal recording, I believe, albeit socially distanced. Also, when will we get our Friday and Sunday episodes back? I know I'm not the only regular to miss TA a lot more on Friday than on Sunday. The Sunday episode is still an incomer, of course, having only been introduced some 20 years ago, of course.

(My parents retired to a village and some features of Ambridge life are very familiar from their experience, the 'incomer' label being one.)

I hope she doesn't have the baby because of all the booze, and because she doesn't really want it.

I'm glad Robert won but I wish we'd been able to hear more of it!

Gosh, yes - all that second-hand reporting of the Virtual Flower & Produce Show was painful. Between Emma and Fallon's efforts and Robert and Lynda's rivalry there would have been more than enough to fill an episode; it made no sense at all just to tell us what happened.

Also, the LL plans for (presumably) Jill's birthday sound ghastly. I really think the entire global population of elderly women should rise up against the curse of genteel afternoon teas being forced upon them. (I do my best, in every possible gift thread, but I don't seem to have been able to stamp it out.) Are people just too mean to want to spend money on dinner and copious amounts of alcohol for their mothers, aunts and grandmothers?

I wonder if Alice will go ahead with the abortion and then tell Chris she miscarried. It would probably be the kindest way to finesse this awkward situation. But it’s quite a big secret to carry so she will need to leave him anyway.

@MikeUniformMike

Ooh is Leonard in it too? He gets around doesn't he.

He plays Maureen Lipman's 'gentleman friend'

I think it’s terrible of Alice to have led Chris on with 10 years of “maybe one day”. She should have been brutally honest years ago and given him the choice to stay with her and get a spaniel or split and find someone who wants the same as he does.

I'm not sure Alice does love Chris. He's very overprotective. She often sounds irritated by him, and she must be finding his current behaviour absolutely suffocating. I think she either will have a miscarriage (does heavy drinking early in pregnancy increase the risk? genuine question) or yes, she may have a termination and tell Chris it's a miscarriage. I can't see her telling him the truth, not right now anyway.

If she has a termination, one way or another the marriage is over, if not now, in the near future. My hunch is it's over anyway.

I think it’s terrible of Alice to have led Chris on with 10 years of “maybe one day

I don't think she has done that. She assumed she would want children at the right time, when she had made a certain amount of progress career wise. For here that time hasn't come and she hasn't made the progress, partly because she has turned down opportunities to stay in the area for Chris's business.

I'm not sure Alice does love Chris

I think she does - or at least believes she does. The problem is that Chris loves Chris even more and is incapable of seeing Alice other than in his own desired version.

I agree, they have grown apart. Not sure how the LSWs are going to play this one.

www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/alcohol-medicines-drugs-pregnant/ NHS page on alcohol and pregnancy

Drinking alcohol, especially in the first 3 months of pregnancy, increases the risk of miscarriage, premature birth and your baby having a low birthweight.

I can’t be too hard on Chris. He loves Alice and he thinks he’s doing the right thing by reassuring her that she’ll be a great mum. For him it resolves the problem of her not having a job and a ‘purpose’.

What is annoying me is that a while ago she got a horse and was talking about starting to compete again, which the scriptwriters seem to have forgotten about. A horse is a major commitment even if kept at Shula’s.

The SW could make this an interesting storyline. Alice is still young enough to think that if she takes the correct actions then the correct consequences will follow. She thinks that she can control life (get the right degree => career follows; take contraception => no babies). She could do with reminding that "life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans”.
They could develop it into motherhood not being a limiting, disastrous thing and also her career taking off at a tangent (into farm management, not engineering). She could talk to both DM and MIL and learn about life not going to plan but turning out OK despite.

I wouldn't want to discuss baby Chalice with JD or Radio Carter.

I fear it's inevitable that Susan will work it out and broadcast it to the whole of Borsetshire, thus exponentially increasing the pressure on Alice. If they want to make it really dramatic she'll get paralytically drunk and then lose the baby and Chris will blame her forever.

I can’t be too hard on Chris

I can! His offer of mezze and mocktails demonstrated that he barely knows his wife even after 10 years of marriage. I thought she contained her irritation with his attempt at ante-natal sophistication better than most. The SWs get a Boop! for tackling a SL about the complexities of being a modern woman who apparently - to some eg Emma - has it all yet yearns for something different.

But Alice is not being honest with him, about her drinking or her feelings about the baby. I agree he's getting it badly wrong.

• Yes, the contrast with Emma's hard-won (hand to mouth, NVQ, mobile-home on rented farm) happiness is beautifully articulated.

That episode has me welling up. Alice's feeling of being in a crowd, yet alone.
I thought Chris was going to say that she was being a bit hormonal earlier on in the episode but stopped himself. I'm not sure he'll be able to keep the secret from his mum for very long.

That episode has me welling up. Alice's feeling of being in a crowd, yet alone

Yes it fits with the drinking coming from the consequences of the mismatch between them and their growing in different ways rather than the problems arising from the drinking. Effectively Alice has limited her career and life to fit around Chris and Chris really doesn't recognise that because his life aspirations are very different. He has everything he wants except the baby.

He is going to spill the beans to Susan or Emma because he is incapable of understanding why Alice may not be delighted.

What's this twinkle in Elizabeth's eye that Jolene hinted at?

Not CMR I hope!

Kristiffur is making me feel suffocated.

I'm wondering why Elizabeth would be taking a woodland walk with a stranger.

@WheresThatCatGoneNow

What's this twinkle in Elizabeth's eye that Jolene hinted at?

Not CMR I hope!

I thought it was on line dating.

I got the impression, mainly from the discussion with the counsellor, that, as well as being unsure whether she wanted a baby in any case, what Alice didn’t think she would or could be able to give up was her drinking. She didn’t mention this to the counsellor but I felt the answer to the question she put to A about what she wanted was primarily a ‘proper’ drink. Along with other anxieties, A feels she’s in a situation where she has to go cold turkey - but with no support, as she’s never admitted (even to herself?) to a drink problem.

Are we meant to think that she has not touched a drop since she came out of hospital? If so, she’s already doing pretty well, would a genuine alcoholic have been able to get this far without support I wonder?

What was that urgent delivery she put down the phone on the counsellor to get into the house straight away?

I think maybe she is still drinking. She said sometimes she doesn’t care about anything, even the baby. I took that to mean that she hasn’t managed to ditch the booze for the baby?