Archers thread #169: Denise rocks the boat in more than one way! Will Chris find a message in a cider bottle? Discuss The Archers here.

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Thanks to @LikeTalkingToLassie and @BrightYellowDaffodil for title inspiration. Is this the end for Denise and John? It does seem odd to introduce John now if he's going to disappear. He has a lovely voice.

Over to you!

I think on a personal level Denise should be the one to move. Both Alistair and Paul would be able to work better without her there (if Paul just kept to his promise of only speaking professionally and stopped with all the snark), whereas if Paul left then Jakob would still be working with a loved-up adulterous couple. It also would be much easier to persuade Denise that this is the right thing to do than to get Paul to agree to a move.

On a professional level, I thought the impression we were given was that Denise was the better nurse and that they had missed her in her absence. Wasn't that why she reached the finals of the World's Most Amazing Vet Nurse or whatever the award was called? And why she was seconded to supervise elsewhere.

As much as I love Jakob, and like Alistair, I am bored witless with the Deux-Knees and Ali-Stare affair. Paul's flouncing and sniping is unpleasant to listen to.
Please can Penise and Daul be moved to a Lovell James surgery in Cornwall or Essex or somewhere.

I strongly suspect that Paul is not capable of behaving professionally at this point; he has always been liable to hysterical outbursts and over-the-top ranting, and now that he has an actual grievance about which to grandstand he is not likely to let it go.

Kate is always very clear about her likes and dislikes and what she wants. Perhaps this is what he likes.

LikeTalkingToLassie
Please can Penise and Daul be moved to a Lovell James surgery in Cornwall or Essex or somewhere.

I think they should not be encouraged to work in the same place; the dynamic betweeen them is now utterly unhealthy and needs to be brought to an end.

Maybe the answer is for Alistair to ask for a temporary job swap with someone at another practice, leaving Denise and Paul to revel in their own drama. Then either:

(a) Jakob could get one or (better still) both of them transferred, on the basis that they were impossible to work with, and /or

(b) Alistair could find himself in Sunderland (or wherever it is), get back together with Shrewla (which would serve them both right) and never be heard of again.

It's intolerable, though, to play out your family drama at work. Who do they think they are - Archers?

I'm not sure that working with a parent is a good idea, but I know instances where it worked. The parent wasn't having an affair with the boss.

I still want to nkow who owns the actual building in which the Surgery is housed; Alistair sold the practice to LJ, but at the time he did it I think he and Shula had not yet got divorced, and it might be that Shula and Alistair own that building between them. In which case that is an added complication.

The Stables is owned by the Ambridge Property Fairy, innit.

Of course! Silly me.

But hang on: there is The Stables, and then there is The Stables Farmhouse, and then there is The Stables Veterinary Surgery, and they are different buildings.

Paul wasn’t in possession of all the facts when he begged Alastair to stay

anyway. This is a stupidly dull SL which was only made a little better last night by having Jakob give his opinion on it.

perhaps Shula will make a guest appearance to give her opinion?

I'm hoping Denise and Paul will disappear but perhaps we can keep John. So far he has been the least irritating of the 3 and maybe he can be paired off with one of the many single women in the village.

feel sorry for Jakob dealing with the in laws. Wonder if Kate will move in sooner rather than later

My apologies, @AskingQuestionsAllTheTime ,it is the vet surgery that is owned by the Ambridge Property Fairy.

I think it was Emma who was happily speculating what Shula would think about it all, recently, just as if it were anything to do with of Shula.

Shula divorced Alistair for being boring. He is her ex-husband. It is none of her business whom he fucks, any more than it is mine who is fucked by my ex-husband (and I'll be honest, I really don't care, except for vaguely hoping she can be happy with him as I was quite unable to be.)

Phew. That's a relief. Nice to have it all cleared up; thank you.

Ah but saint Shulas opinion is worth something isn’t it? Surely she would love to stick her tuppence in (unlike Jill who was clear that he is an ex son in law and therefore no comment needed)

Interesting that Denise is finding excuses not to see Alastair - I wonder if the woman he loves isn’t quite so keen (many similarities to Edward vii!)

The Stables house is owned by Shula. The Stables buildings and land is owned by Shula, Lillian and the dastardly Mr Elliot. (this is me trying to be all Jane Austeny and failing miserably).

Alistair was fine being rather dull but the Edward VIII routine doesn't ring true. If he had fallen in love with someone we cared about it would be different.

Edward VIII.
I've always thought that Prince Charles, as he was at the time of his engagement, got it right with the 'whatever in love means' comment.

Didn't he have an episode of breathlessness recently when Alice insisted he see a doctor?

Sorry to sound like a stuck record, but I just couldn't care less what happens at The Stables - I'd be happy for any, all or none of them to leave, it's all the same to me. Much more interesting is Brian trying to strong-arm Alice into pleading guilty to something we know she didn't do, just at the point when the person we know did it is getting ready to confess. It's looking more and more likely that Chris will be the one who saves her - he hasn't abandoned her and he still believes in her. Can we focus on this please and not some minor squabbling between relatively peripheral non-Archers.

He did, yes. And she did.

It turned out that the cause of his tight chest was that he was allergic to Hilda.

Friday 26th January, 2024

As he was ordered to do by Alice, Brian has gone to the doctor. He explains that what he has is not so much difficulty breathing as a tightening of the chest. She establishes that he has had that symptom for a week or so and is not out of breath, that he had an angina attack eighteen months ago but this doesn't feel the same, and that his wife having died a year ago this week may have heightened his daughter's anxiety. She also hears he is otherwise in good health and is sure his daughter is worrying over nothing. Azra feels one should take these things seriously, but hopes to rule out some things and get to the bottom of it all.
....
After doing an array of simple tests, Azra says Brian's chest sounds clear and his heart seems OK, his pulse is regular and his blood-pressure is within normal range, good even. Brian says his daughter has told him the same when she calls round to to check his own readings, and Azra says there is no need to check every day; Brian asks her to put that in writing for Alice. More questions establish that he gets no pain in neck or arm and no nausea, and nor is the tightness brought on by exertion; it fact he feels better when he is out and about. Azra leaps on that and asks if that is when he is outside; yes, he tells her, and then realises the feeling only happens when he is in the cottage. She asks if anything has changed at home recently, and he tells her his other daughter has moved in with him, and his mother-in-law has forced her cat on him. Azra tells him that his symptoms do all seem to fit with an allergy, and asks if he is allergic to anything: not that he knows of. She is going to book him in for a blood-test just to make sure, and prescribe him an inhaler and some anti-histamines in the mean time. Enlightened, he asks if it is all Hilda's fault then; Azra assumes Hilda is his mother-in-law.
....
Armed with this new information about being allergic to cats, Brian has taken Hilda and all her accoutrements over to Bridge Farm to hand over to Tony, who not only doesn't want her, but thinks Brian may not be telling the truth about his allergic reaction to her: he won't know for sure until the blood-tests come back.

Yes please, although there will be minor squabbling between me and Lilian.

I hope it was just a temporary chest infection and not something more serious causing CC to be breathless. Very common in the older person, though.

Hilda has much to answer for. How old is she?

She was an adult cat when Fabrice palmed her off onto Peggy on 2017, so at least nine years old now, I'd suggest.

She's always been strange, though; in 2019 she produced five kittens unexpectedly. Most "entire" queens come into season between February and October every year, at three-week intervals, with a lot of yowling and fuss going on around them, but not Hilda. Nothing for two years, then sudden kittens with no preliminary mating involved.

Why on earth should Paul be labelled a troublemaker and lose his professional reputation in this circumstance?

Because he is a troublemaker, and unprofessional?

Best all round would be for him to be transferred / fired / fatally gored by a rabid chinchilla and replaced by a heterosexual female vet nurse, slightly younger and hugely more attractive and more pleasant than Denise, with whom Alistair falls instantly and obviously in lerve, just as John serves Denise with divorce papers.