🏘️ Archers thread #129: Casey, Macy, Lily, Alice – Decent types or full of malice? Discuss The Archers here.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Thank you, @PseudoBadger, for kicking off this long, long series of Archers threads, which has now passed 125,000 posts! (See below for further details.)

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 lust after Russ, or other unusual things.

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/4197199--The-Archers-spoilers-thread-6-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.)

For the thread title I was very tempted to go with @R4's title suggestion of Come follow the exploits of Brine, Lily, Elizabeth, Usha, Ruari, George and Helen. Know collectively as bleurgh. because on the last thread @DadDadDad, our invaluable statistician, identified a post from @ILoveShula as the 125,000th. Many of us felt it was fitting that the post simply said Bleurgh!.

However, feeling that was a bit niche for the casual listener, I adapted @MayIDestroyYou's title suggestion in the end. Thanks, MIDY!

Back to Ambridge this week, after our enjoyable sojourn at Lower Loxley last week! Will we go with Alice to rehab? (Hope not.) Will the petulant Adam make good his threat to leave Home Farm? (Hope so.) What will Jennifer say? (Lots, I hope, and preferably to Brian.) Will the fete be a triumph? (Of course it will.) Will we ever return to Brookfield, or have they all fallen unnoticed into the slurry pit? (Let's hope Pip did, anyway.) WHERE IS PAT? (Can't answer this one.)

Over to you!

But yes. Totally daft storyline. Shula hysterical because she's in LOVE with Neil FGS. And telling Alistair. Just nonsensical.

I live in a very strange place. The UK.

@EarringsandLipstick, just because you haven't seen it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Friend and I have a name for it.

Susan has been Shulad, or soon will be.

We use a woman's name as the verb. Not Shula.

A bit like being Wendied IYKWIM

@WhoppingBigBackside

I live in a very strange place. The UK.

Ok! Never ever seen anything close to this & I didn't think Ireland was that different.

@WhoppingBigBackside

just because you haven't seen it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

I know - I didn't say it did! I'd never seen it happen

I remember a 'divorcee' moving back to the village where I'm from. I was fairly young, and my parents said something along the lines of How long before there will be a straying husband.

Didn't take long.

I'm from a rural agricultural area that is a bit 'chapel'.

A widower with fairly young children had quite a few single women trying to cosy up.

That's mad Whopping. It sounds like a made-up stereotype of a particular type of rural English settling (I know it's not!). A bit like people telling a take of alcoholic Irish peasant farmers eating potatoes or something.

Small village but lots going on.

And if my vile-tongued friend from childhood is reading, we all know about youu too, and despite your idylling marriage, there are a few of us who could give you a dose of your own medicine.

We know who that one of them isn;t your hisbands, and we know who the father is.

idyllic , cross out a stray who. isn't, and husband's

@EarringsandLipstick, wash yer mouth out. How very dare you. UK is not England.

Dum ti dum. I'm supposed to be doing some work.

What is the significance of lasagne? Was it something Shula had in the freezer or something Susan cooked?

Was it piping hot?

Neil took it round.

Many layers?

It was something Susan cooked. Read into that what you will.

It was something Neil had cooked; he made some for Shula as well as for his own family.

Well, she said she’d ditched Alastair because she wanted more excitement in her life. Carrying on a clandestine affair with a married man while training to be a vicar should do the job. This made me laugh out loud - and when you put it like that, it really is a preposterous storyline. Equally preposterous was the fact that Neil apparently made the lasagne - because he was making one for them so he thought he might as well make another. Has he ever cooked anything before ?(AskingQuestions no doubt has a written note and a link to the recipe)

Not another shower scene please.

It's utterly absurd. It's more absurd than the Ian throwing a tantrum and Adam being stupid enough to tell a prospective employer that he's light fingered storyline.

Oh and top of that looks as if Alish is coming back. Boring.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

It was something Neil had cooked; he made some for Shula as well as for his own family.

Yeah, I found it extremely unconvincing that Neil, hitherto never before mentioned as having any cooking skill whatsoever, was suddenly making lasagne, of all things, from scratch and even more so that “it was no problem to make an extra one as I was doing one for the family anyway”.

I’m quite a competent cook and I find lasagne a right faff, and I’d be highly unlikely to have double portions of any of the ingredients just lying around unless I had deliberately shopped to make that quantity. I don’t know why they didn’t make it something more simple and scaleable like an Irish stew or a chicken casserole.

Shulas been lonely a long time. Tbf if a fella did my gardening then brought me lasagne around I'd develop a crush too. I bet neil has strong but sensitive hands, complete with calluses- lucky lucky Susan.

It is my experience as a fairly good cook that lasagne, like lemon meringue pie, is more of a faff than it's worth and most shop bought ones are just as good.

Spinach and ricotta lasagne is just about worth the effort but vegetable lasagne is wholly dispiriting.

At least he didn't take over a chilli!

@Cheesypea

At least he didn't take over a chilli!

Yes it is ridiculous and repetitive (they had a bit of a thing 50 years ago, is that right - but also can Shula not stay away from married/paired men??). Also seems incredibly u fair and disrespectful to Susan, Chris and Martha, and the Church of England!