Archers thread #186: Eavesdropping on a home for the terminally confused. 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, 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 swipe right on Dane, the new Grey Gables manager, 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 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/radioaddicts/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/radioaddicts/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 @WitcheryDivine for the title inspiration. Over to you!

Has Clarrie got herself a job at the charging station, either working in the shop or perhaps inflating people's tyres (by sighing into them) while their batteries charge? Or <yawn> simply cleaning. In any event, I should think she's pissed off that Susan kept the Bridge Farm job while also (despite being a jailbird) getting paid as the postmistress.

I was about to say Clarrie’s got herself a job at the new shop!

Which will inevitably be seen as a rival to the village shop. That’s why she was avoiding her best mate …

Two mentions of Underwoods in a single week - the SWs have definitely been interrogating this thread …

I’m surprised it weathered the Covid slump - but Underwoods Local is a very fine idea. (And surely won’t be an actual rival to the village shop or the Bridge Farm shop. It sounds as if it will sell gift-y things to desperate people on their way to lunch or dinner with slightly smarter friends.)

Why Poppy and Jake going for tea at Grange Farm? Is Mia still at uni - or did the SW use the wrong name?

And Canada again? The SWs are obsessed with the place!

Arf @TottersBlithely - I'm now imagining bunches of plastic-wrapped flowers, boxes of Cadbury's chocolates and bottles of Moldovan wine! Not that there's anything wrong with Moldovan wine ... I tried a bottle from Morrisons and it was surprisingly palatable!

<on edit> I think most universities keep going until early/mid-June.

Cadburys can’t have crossed the threshold of Underwoods this century, surely?

I would love it if Clarrie ended up managing Underwoods local and being a great success!!

why would the lawyer tell all beneficiaries but not all?

If you meant why would the lawyer tell some beneficiaries but not all? then all beneficiaries probably have been told by now but the executors don't need to tell all the beneficiaries what everyone got.

On the question of grief, I grieve for and miss my cats more than my mother.

I've always visualised Underwoods as like Debenhams in its declining years. Lots of "posh" cosmetics counters, staffed by over-made-up women of a certain age (though younger than me!), but very little else to warrant a detour.

I pictured it more as a Peter Jones

@IHaveAlwaysLivedintheCastle On the question of grief, I grieve for and miss my cats more than my mother.

I obviously never knew your cats, but I understand and agree.

Has anyone been to Gloucester Services? That’s how i envisage the EV charging station.

Has Peggy left all her money to Lillian? Is this why she wants to leg it to Canada to avoid the resulting fall out?

Also, going back earlier this year, I may have missed a few episodes, but did the Gills ever ask why they had a new robot vacuum cleaner and why Lillian was seen on the CCTV falling around in their foliage?

You are right! They were trotting when they ought to have been walking, and they were still trotting when they ought to have been cantering. And the hoof noise was as though it were on hard ground, but too soft for hard ground, and not right for barefoot/booted, either. I'm also interested to note that it seems both Lillian and Alice have Arabians, judging by the names, or at least PBA (a friend has an Aziz, and there's an Amir on my yard). I wouldn't have figured Alice, as an ex-PC-Eventer, to go for an Arabian, but IIRC, it's not her own horse? Where'd he come from, again?

I think Alice was riding Justin’s horse?

There used to be a department store in Huddersfield - I can't remember the name of it - and I always picture Underwoods as being similar. Slightly old fashioned and the restaurant was used by posh ladies of a certain age who still wore hats at lunch. I liked it.

Ah, that would make sense then, that Lillian and Justin have "matching" horses. Somehow, I figured him for more of the Hunter type, but hey...

Justin owns what were his and Miranda's horses and are now his and Lilian's. There was quite a big fuss made about them being Arabs and of pure and noble breed.

I thought the 'horses' were very clearly coconut shells. Disbelief was not being suspended chez Gasp!

Ah, I must have missed that. Having participated in Endurance for years, I know tonnes of perfectly ordinary Arab-owning riders, so don't think of them as terribly posh.

I think Sunny Ormonde wants to retire.

Sunny Ormonde was on the BBC podcast the other week, didn't sound like she was going anywhere.

Harrison and Fallon should buy into the pub. Or EmNed.

It will probably be the Maliks though

There was a whole storyline about Justin buying the horses- didn't he get them off a mate who then enticed Anisha to Newmarket, as it's a bit better know for equestrianism than Borsetshire? Or have I misremembered?

They not really into alcohol, the Maliks, ut it could make for an interesting storyline.

Exactly!