🌱 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!

Kenton/David bickering can be fun to listen to, but not on this occasion. Gosh, it's boring at the moment. I'd much rather hear more from the intern, to be honest.

Just under 150 posts left on this thread. Unless something exciting happens this week I would think we've got another ten days or so at least. Any ideas for next thread title?

Adam 'borrowing' £5k and Ian being so relaxed at him walking out of a job with no job to go to don't really correlate. Yes some bosses are psychopaths, you have to manage them and call their bluff not walk out at the first opportunity.

Bring me the voice of Anthony Head!

Hilarious anecdote Jill. It'll bring the house down.

What the jeff is going on? Such a strange episode. Is the village about to be swallowed up by an earthquake?

@CaptainMyCaptain

Hilarious anecdote Jill. It'll bring the house down.

What was the original anecdote? I was driving through a tunnel just when she got to the punchline about what the girl had said, something about the headteacher's outfit.

That was a weird, and long, reminiscing exchange between the Archer children. Is it supposed to presage some doom about to come?

And we were Headless in the end.

What was the original anecdote? I was driving through a tunnel just when she got to the punchline
Her friend whispered to her "Miss Williams is wearing her Harvest Festival bloomers: all is safely gathered in" and Jill snorted.

Bet you wish you'd arrived at the tunnel earlier and stayed down there longer.

@EdmontinaTiresofNameFlipping

What the jeff is going on? Such a strange episode. Is the village about to be swallowed up by an earthquake?

It's an upcoming dedding. Mark my words.

BoreOfWhabylon
It's an upcoming dedding. Mark my words.

I think you're right; but is it Bert or Jill? I'd be certain of Bert if it were not for the three Archers going on about the past so much.

OH says, "Perhaps he can jump into the Am, and his corpse float up to its source."

“How long has he lived in the village now?” That’s the death knell for Bert. Heart attack as Rex shows him round the rewilding.

But that speech was Jill’s swansong. They can’t have two heart attacks on the same day, not when ambulances are so hard to come by, so she’ll pass away peacefully in her sleep.

Something else that’s missing from TA - defibrillators. We have two within 100yds of our house, and there’s 5 that I know of within half a mile. Someone (probably Joy) would have been fundraising for one, maybe on the birdhide, and Blake would come to the rescue.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

OH says, "Perhaps he can jump into the Am, and his corpse float up to its source."

Corpses don’t work like that. They go the other way.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

BoreOfWhabylon It's an upcoming dedding. Mark my words.

I think you're right; but is it Bert or Jill? I'd be certain of Bert if it were not for the three Archers going on about the past so much.

The 🔮 has seen a casserole through the swirly mists. It says this is a portent.

Can’t find any fresh news on Eric Allan (who plays Bert) - though I wondered why he didn’t appear.

Nothing new on Patricia Greene, either.

How unsatisfactory that Shula couldn’t be included.

I’d have said Jill, for the shuffle. Though that would be an unjustifiably muted farewell.

Corpses don’t work like that. They go the other way

Did you listen to the week of the Grate Fludde, Mere? The Am is a bit bivalent as to which way it goes, to say the least. for Asking's OH.

Maybe the Am could flow the other way after it is cursed, like the Sillees river in County Fermanagh.

I wondered whether it was just written in the wake of Freedom Day in July and was just meant to mark the coming together of the Ambridge community and waving goodbye - somewhat prematurely IMHO - to Covid (the pandemic which cannot be named)?

That was a weird, and long, reminiscing exchange between the Archer children. Is it supposed to presage some doom about to come?

I hope so. I don't mind such sibling.

which sibling.

'Do you like your sibling?'
'I don't know, I've never sibbled'

@Ashdieback

Maybe the Am could flow the other way after it is cursed, like the Sillees river in County Fermanagh.

According to Adam the Am flows down to Hollerton; or at least, things on/in it get washed down to Hollerton.

The Am on the maps rises near Fawcett Magna, flows past Hollerton, down through Ambridge, and joins the River Perch at Borchester.

If any deading is going to happen, surely it's time for someone to get Covid?

Can’t find any fresh news on Eric Allan (who plays Bert) - though I wondered why he didn’t appear.

I assumed it was just a limit on the number of characters they can pay in a week.

Aunty Chris in the Laurels would be an obvious candidate for Covid.

Golly I must have dozed through more of it than I thought last night - I remember the bloomers anecdote and wondering why on earth Rex would want to be at the Harvest Supper even if he weren’t meeting (or not) his Dad for dinner (irl. I accept that in Ambridge everyone goes to everything). Then it’s a bit of a blur until the end, when I noticed that Jill hadn’t died mid-speech.

Is it worth LAing for the Archer siblings?