🌱 Archers thread #131: A time to plant, a time to reap. Discuss The Archers 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 also have a few millions lying around you're not sure how to invest, or other unusual things.

Spoilers: not on this thread, please. We don't wait for the omnibus to discuss the week night 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.)

Thanks to @Roysnewshirt and @Edmontine for title suggestions, and apologies to anyone I’ve missed or forgotten. In the end, inspired by Edmontine's idea and a brief discussion at the end of the last thread, I remembered that it's autumn now and the Ambridge farmers are presumably sowing barley, winter wheat, potatoes etc, so I found myself recollecting Ecclesiastes 3 (King James version) - my Church of Scotland upbringing has a lot to answer for. This led me back to one of my favourite numbers by The Byrds (written by Pete Seeger):

Roysnewshirt suggested Prayer cards, rehab, a glass of scotch, a bowl of chilli or even a dish of lasagne…we offer a range of solutions here to help you solve any Ambridge problem - large or small etc etc, which is as good a point as any to start this thread. Do we think Neil and Susan are solid again? Will Alice relapse? Will Shula confess all to the Bishop?

Reflecting on last night's offering, Edmontine said I’m musing on Baby steps … - but we need the culmination of Alice’s story this week. We have a new nurse in training, a possibly resigning midwife settling in Ambridge, Xander, Martha, Alice somewhere trying to find her feet sans grog, Shula trying to find her saintly feet sans Neil …B(ill)eth & Ben. Lots and lots of newness. Stir in Three’s blood and jam …

The blood and jam made me laugh. A lot. Just as well, as the storyline that line inspired is pants.

Over to you!

But I worry about his nasty side, seen in the “joke” and when David first encountered his business practises when they had the abbatoir problems.

Rather different from Jack Woolley.

It was before my time, but I believe when Jack Woolley first arrived in Ambridge he was quite a tough businessman. Mellowed a lot with the passage of time.

I was just thinking I don’t remember a time when Jack wasn’t mostly a sweetie! (Though my recollection of events in the 60s is very hazy and selective. And my 70s listening was intermittent.)

@Darker

It’s not realistic that Vince would confide in Ben

It is if what he confided was a load of hogwash.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

It was before my time, but I believe when Jack Woolley first arrived in Ambridge he was quite a tough businessman. Mellowed a lot with the passage of time.

Jack Woolley had a reputation as a tough businessman but he was neither a shit nor a shyster, unlike Vince.

He also stuck to one wife until she walked out on him with her third or fourth lover, was a good (if over-doting) stepfather, and a genuine philanthropist, as well as being kind to people in distress as a matter of course.

@LillianGish

Is that layered with parsnip instead of pasta or with a parsnip sauce (instead of beef)?

Sounds revolting either way - and I love parsnips.

Jazzer doing a grand job there

I love Jazzer

Blake's going to move in with Jim and become the village handyman isn't he?

Sounded like a eulogy for Jazzer’s sojourn chez Jim.

Jazzer moves in with Tracy; Blake takes his place at Jim’s?

Dang!

Jazzer is so often The Answer! But why did he have to go all super-Glaswegian dialect for that conversation, because he was channeling the boy he once was?

I’m quite confused about Stella/Justine/Brine. And when did she tell Brine about knowing J, have I missed an episode?

I'd rather not eat parsnips, although they are ok in small amounts once in a blue moon.

Judging by the BL Board meeting, the SW's have "done agriculture" for the month.

Pheasant shoots started last weekend. I wonder how the (not very new at all, but not allowed to speak) gamekeeper is handling things without Jenny to do the catering.

@JanglyBeads

I’m quite confused about Stella/Justine/Brine. And when did she tell Brine about knowing J, have I missed an episode?

I think that must have been Friday's episode!

I don't think she did say how she had found out about his tentative idea to sell up. (As if you'd let that one out of the bag before thinking it through with so much at stake!). She just started shouting at him...

Presumably with so much going on at the moment (pigs, fuel, lorry drivers) the SWs can't do a topical insert for everything.

The NHS is haemorrhaging midwives too though, massive shortages, so that is accurate.

(Not listened to yesterday or tonight yet).

I'm sure I remember a wartime recipe for mock banana split, which was a boiled parsnip sprinkled with banana flavouring, filled with some kind of cream substitute.

We had this parsnip lasagne discussion some threads ago.

It was my idea to use strips of parsnip replacing the pasta. So there!!

Mind you, I haven't actually tried to make it. I suppose I'd better put my money where my mouth is, and give it a go

I did that with strips of courgette when I was low carbing, but they were too slithery to cohere when a slice was lifted out, they all streamed down like newts.

they all streamed down like newts
That is so graphic and so ...poignant, somehow.

Presumably with so much going on at the moment (pigs, fuel, lorry drivers) the SWs can't do a topical insert for everything

They could do those in one scene.
Adam is talking to Neil in the pub.
Adam (yawning) - I'm so tired, even though I can't get to my new job because I'm out of fuel, which is ironic because when I did have fuel the journey was really short because there were no HGV drivers on the road
Neil - tell me about it, no lorry drivers to take the pigs to the abbatoir, no workers in the abbatoir or the pork processing plant - I've got pigs coming out of me ears. Hmm, wonder if pork chilli con carne would work?
Adam (yawning) I'm so tired.

@WorriedWishingWell (a) for comment and (b) for your username.

Wonderful comment about the courgette lasagne. I assume you also forwent the bechamel sauce, which makes a lovely stable thick layer on the top of lasagne.

I have made moussake with layers of courgette (sliced longways) as well as aubergine (sliced crossways), but I usually put slices of potato in as well (as eaten decades ago in Jimmy's Greek Restaurant in Frith Street, which I used to love) and that increases the stability a lot. Very thick enriched bechamel on the top too.

@TheSilveryPussycat

We had this parsnip lasagne discussion some threads ago.

It was my idea to use strips of parsnip replacing the pasta. So there!!

Mind you, I haven't actually tried to make it. I suppose I'd better put my money where my mouth is, and give it a go

@TheSilveryPussycat, let us know how it goes.

The mock banana split sounds Bleurgh!