🌱 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!

@2Two

If Usha and Alastair pool their earnings I suspect there is more than enough money available to buy a bike.

Did I miss the bit about Usha and Alistair?

Man, but that would be cool!

Just imagine Shula’s saintly face!

(Although it would leave Alan free …)

Have I mentioned recently that I don't like Pip?

Pip was particularly unlikeable today.

Bog off, Stella.

Bleak is a bit easier to listen to now, as his stuttering seems to have diminished now he's less fearful.

@KimikosNightmare

Pip was particularly unlikeable today.

She is completely unlikeable

"Preaching to the choir"?!
Brian wouldn't utter such an Americanism. What's wrong with the time honoured 'converted'?
Are all the S/Ws under thirty now?

Well, under fifty or so; preaching to the choir dates from the early 1970s, doesn't it?

Still very un Brian.

I'm warming to Stella already.

I'm hoping Stella will become Pip's implacable nemesis.

@BurningTheToast not just you. I think it's not so much the SLs as such but that the whole thing is clunky and very very two dimensional.

What excuse did Pip have for her graceless behaviour this evening? That she might be expected to admit to her father having made an error?

She's a nasty little person.

Agree that Blake's speech is changing.

And as for Pip, she positively honked at Stella in a delivery Kate would have been proud of.

The Pip/Stella collision will be spectacular. I still think Stella's take on the farming arrangements, while she is the manager, is expressed in an unnecessarily rude manner.

Pip had been warned, by Brian on the phone, that Stella would come round to sort out the problem caused by the Brookfield sheep being in the wrong field; she had clearly decided already to be completely unhelpful and unfriendly.

I found it rather fascinating and refreshing to hear the intermingled Archers / Archer Aldridges set up, seen through the eyes of an outsider.

No doubt Pip and Stella will end up as very best friends.

The one thing to be said in favour of tonight's episode is that it has given us a steer on Stella's age. If Brian described the 28- year-old (strewth!) Pip to Stella as 'young' it seems fair to assume that Stella is at least ten years older. So +/- 40, which feels about right.
I do wish the competent, kind to animals and keen on little birdies, unassuming, grateful Blake would Sod Off. He is infinitely tedious and so is the message that keeping slaves is Terribly Naughty and we should all take a Long Hard Look At Ourselves. It was probably his overheating halo that ignited the fumes at GG in the first place.

And Alistair's conversation is the aural equivalent of 'Dad dancing'.

@BoreOfWhabylon

I'm hoping Stella will become Pip's implacable nemesis.

She is the only person I’ve ever heard say a bad word about her (aside from Josh). Clearly adam forgot to leave the pip Coolaid in his handover.

I don’t think Brian can resist slightly flirting with Stella. It’s in his DNA. He described Stella to Pip as ‘Top stuff’ with such great relish…It’s a shame he has had to age as a character. I think I have said before that I could imagine him making a play for Stella at the age of 68, but definitely not 78. But may be I’m wrong. Old, not dead is the relevant phrase here I believe…

I doubt Brian would be keen on having Jenny walk out on him at this stage of his life …

She has less to lose in 2021 than she did when Siobhan happened. There’s no farmhouse. The division of the spoils amongst her children and Ruairi has (apparently) been organised / finalised in a way she’s satisfied with. She doesn’t need to stay married now.

On the other hand, now that Brian is approaching an ancient state, she might just laugh at him if he tried chasing Stella around the farm office …

Well at least Bleak gave up trying to maintain that "this is me nervous and scared" accent for too long.

Why have none of the village been in touch with the local authority or modern slavery helpline to get the poor lad some assistance!

Why have none of the village been in touch with the local authority or modern slavery helpline to get the poor lad some assistance!

I’m quite surprised they are leaving him to doss in the hide. Surely that’s against hide rules? They are assuming he enjoyed living in a shed and that’s why he is enjoying al fresco living in the hide but that, to me feels like an assumption. I would have thought he would be much happier in proper accommodation and that’s exactly where the authorities would be able to help. Wasn’t he actually living in a hostel when Lee first apprehended him outside Kirsty’s house in Beechwood or did I make that up? Anyway now he is reduced to living in a hide. I hate to say it but he was better off when he was working for Philip from an accommodation point of view - at least he had a bed and a Play Station then. I’m not sure that is the conclusion the SWs want us to reach but freedom doesn’t seem to be working out that well for Blake.

I assumed it must be against the hide rules, but since Jim pretty much runs the hide …

I also assumed that no one thinks Blake’s current accommodation is anywhere near suitable, but the relevant people simply want him not to run away, and are hoping he’ll eventually trust them enough to allow them to help him to a better situation.

Did he not leave the hostel to stay with the Snells? So that option may not be available now. (I was surprised a place was found for him so speedily in the guest place.) And really, he’s so vulnerable, there’s no telling how soon he’d disappear without trace from an unsupervised hostel.

I’m trusting the SWs to have him warm and safe before the arctic weather we’re promised for November.

After Blake had been found by Kirsty, and in the first useful act of his entire policing career since entering the programme, Sergeant Burns found Blake a room in a hostel at no notice and in about half an hour. The Snells removed him from it after he went back there on his release from hospital, and I doubt it was kept open for him after that.

Even if it had been, he'd probably be afraid that since they know where it is, Lynda or Kirsty would turn up there and go on pushing him around.

( I was surprised a place was found for him so speedily in the first place.)

'It makes you wonder what she's going to get up to next'

What a dreadful closing line this evening. Really scraping the soap-opera-writing-for-beginners barrel with that one.