Archers thread #160: Ram a lamb a ding dong! To rate the mass wisteria in Ambridge, tap the feedback tablet 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, and of course we are always delighted to welcome back former or occasional listeners/posters. We don't all agree on all points, although we do mostly try to be civil about it. Most of us are posting tongue in cheek a lot of the time, so don't worry about revealing that you'd have given a home to Hilda the Hellcat, 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/4636789-the-archers-spoilers-thread-7-cant-wait-for-702pm-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 @MerryChristmasToYou, @OverArmour and @LillianGish for the thread title ideas.

This week is a bit better than last week, but the Brad/Adil/Lily stuff is very odd. Coming up to the anniversary of Jennifer's death (22nd January last year). We need a new matriarch - could that be Natasha? I find her quite an interesting character. Sometimes she's awful and then she has moments as last night where she utterly redeems herself.

Over to you!

If Hilda drew blood he should also get antibiotics if the bite is deep.

I don't think either of the actors will retire unless they have to.
Tony's tetanus won't be up-to-date but he'll probably get a same-day appointment at the friendly local GP surgery staffed by one underworked GP.

Poor Hildarogden. I did snigger a bit when Azra asked if Hilda was Brian's MIL.

SaffyRosie

I have no idea what happened there! Sorry.

Anyway:

SaffyRosie
Cat allergy. Brian's symptoms appear fairly mild. He may have been able to manage them with the antihistamines but he hasn't given them a chance to week. Also mild cat allergies often dissipates over time ... this happens with my husband. When we get home after a few weeks/ months travelling he often has allergy symptoms,. He takes antihistamines and within a couple of weeks he seems to develop some tolerance to the cats.

Yes, but why should Brian make a martyr of himself in aid of something he doesn't even want? If he wanted Hilda, then fine, but he doesn't. And antihistamines are not always without side effects and don't always work by any means.

I did snigger a bit when Azra asked if Hilda was Brian's MIL.

That line was almost worth suffering through the rest of the episode

I'd feel sorrier for him if he hadn't decided to hoard last year's lambs and take no profit from his sheep in 2023. If he didn't sell them by November, which he hadn't according to his nasty attack on Oliver for daring to sell Oliver's own property, he can't have made any money from them, can he. "Ed indignantly asks what about his Texels? Where are this lot going to be grazing, eh? Thirty ewes, fifty-two lambs!" is what it says in the synopsis for 6th November, 2023.

@SequentialAnalyst , I have nothing against the name, I think it's quite pretty, but the thought of Peggy and the cat having similar qualities.

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime , if they are pure bred Texels, he'd probably make more money keeping them for breeding from. He did not know that the land would not still be available for them.

If they were ram lambs then he'd be keeping them for selling as rams.

Oh, and in case anyone suggests that Ed already knew in November how many lambs each of his ewes was carrying and how many would survive, they were said by Brad to be herding "more than a hundred" sheep to the cricket field on Thursday, and 30 plus 52 isn't "more than a hundred". So that must have included last year's lambs as well as this year's.

The 30 ewes and 52 lambs were from last year. Some of the sheep have lambed. The ewes and shearlings and lambs could be 100+ in total.

The whole of the land wot Ed farms is a boggy site (nods to Tomasz Schafernaker ) and now they are grazing elsewhere where nobody has thought that they might be Ed's.

Yes, that was what I said. 30 ewes plus 52 last-year's-lambs plus however many this year's lambs.

So Ed chose to hang onto all last year's lambs and make no money from selling them. Why?

And since he is the only person in the area who has Texels, working out whose the squatters on the cricket field are won't be particularly difficult for anyone who actually looks at them.

Goodness me, they’re ugly things, aren’t they?

So Ed chose to hang onto all last year's lambs and make no money from selling them. Why?
In reality he'd have only kept the best ones.

Even if you didn't really know the first thing about sheep, you'd be able to do an image search, or spot that they had the farm's mark on them.

This is an example:

https://animal-human-relationship.pictures-of-cats.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Sheep-take-shelter-at-bus-stop-from-UK-storms-e1645171586379.jpeg

Can't see any markings on these; better let them go to the depot and sort it out there...

That sheep is not a Texel but this one is.
I think most of the farmers would recognise the breed, smit mark and be aware that Ed had a flock, and that Ed was looking for (cheap/free) grazing.

The images are off t'internet

And if Tony could see them from all the way over on the road between Bridge Farm and The Bull, they're not exactly very well concealed.

Those are lazy ones that have been grazing the Long Field. They should have ear tags. I don't know it they still notch ears.

You'd get a fair bit of meat from those texels.

A really good ram will fetch a lot of money, I've heard of ones selling for over £20K.
British Texel ram lamb sets a new world record sheep price - Sheep Central

now that is a ram a ram a ding dong

gosh. They’re like the xl bully of the sheep world

Didn’t someone (Eddie?) say Ed would be making money in August selling ram lambs? So maybe he keeps the ewes and sells the rams. Makes sense I suppose.

@ClickyHeels said
I have nothing against the name, I think it's quite pretty, but the thought of Peggy and the cat having similar qualities.

Exactly!
Peggy, Kate and Hilda Ogden the cat have similar natures, it seems. But Hilda is the only one I have any sympathy for. It's rather sad that Brian and she got on fine - he is a natural cat person, from the interactions we heard between them - but alas it cannot be (for the sake of another hilarious plot line).

If they are good ram lambs then yes. He'd need a new ram for any home grown lambs he was going to breed from though.
Realistically, he'd be keeping the flock to a manageable level, and it would make more sense for Emma and Keira, and George (probably for a fee), to be helping him with the lambing than poor Clarrieluv.

Not if he doesn't have enough pasture for a perpetually-growing flock of them it doesn't, though.

If he is keeping the ewes, why isn't he breeding from at least some of them, and why is he still calling them "lambs"? Texels could be bred from the age of seven months. In fact, since we know he keeps rams (he said that he did, when he wanted Brookfield to house the whole flock for him back in November) it might be quite hard not to breed from the ewes over that age unless he's got better fences than he seemed to have when the rams were getting out and having to be rounded up when he had planned a quiet night in with Emma....

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime The bus (or bws) shelter sheep are in Wales, aren't they? Maybe they do things differently there. The bus shelters seem to offer more shelter than ours - not such a big draught gap at the ankles.

@ClickyHeels A really good ram will fetch a lot of money, I've heard of ones selling for over £20K. That's the same ram that I posted a couple of posts back!

I serm to remember a previous storyline where Tony had tetanus/lockjaw?

1. they really are ugly aren't they-there were soe in a field near us, must have been recently shorn and I genuinely wasn't sure if they were actually sheep! although I wasn't sure what else they could be
2. for a recent soap tetanus story see last weeks Call the midwife- not a fatal case luckily (and correctly diagnosed by myself might I add- though it was heavily hinted at)

He did indeed, back in about 1980.