Archers thread #202: How are you finding your visits to Ambridge? Fill in your feedback forms 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 think working as a hotel receptionist is a perfectly reasonable career choice for a graduate from a family with a stately home, 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/radio_addicts/4636789-the-archers-spoilers-thread-12-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.)

Over to you!

Naww nice to know I wasn't the only one who thought of Jerry and his inflatable full of his dead wife's breath.

Did anyone hear You and Yours today? They were talking about "september reset", whatever that is. They had a message from a listener called Amber who is heavily pregnant, and in full nesting mode as she is due to give birth in the next couple of weeks. It made me laugh, I wonder if it was genuine or someone was having a little joke 😄

My heart sank when I heard Mick but he was kind to Lynda about Monty so I coped.

I know Carol is old, in pain and frightened but I want her gone. One way or another

Just caught up on a whole week and I cannot BELIEVE blooming Joy is a jeweller as well. That woman.

Best moment was Jolene turfing PC Cockburns out of her pub.

Yes - is there nothing that Joy cannot turn her hand to - she must have had lots of past lives - next she will be the Celebrant at Pip & Stella’s wedding, or the emergency birthing partner for Amber or Harrison’s relationship guru

I wonder if Tony, Leonard, and now also, " Turn my hand at anything!", Joy, asked for a small donation, if people would stop bringing thier broken bits and bobs to be fixed. I think if you desperately wanted your old clock or anything fixed you wouldn't mind paying a bit to have it done.
They can then donate the money to the Church fund.
Talking of which, my hubby is off this week so we went to see St Albans Cathedral. We didn't know it was only open for Graduation for about two weeks.
Luckily we dont live far so we went to St Albans museum and St Michael's church.
The Church had the organist practicing so it was lovely and I love the church smell.
.

I'm only half joking. I just want something more spicy than playing scrabble and repair shops. Brian's the best bit of the archers and lily was a convenient womb. Don't come at me - harrison spotted it too 🤣

Joy and Leonard are basically the same person, perennially cheerful with any skill the scriptwriters can be bothered to think up.

I reallly thought the SWs had listened to us about Joy given her relative silence recently. But no.

I'm sorry because I obviously haven't been paying proper attention but I thought the repair shop concept was just for the fair or food and produce show or whatever it was*. Are we to think that they are now doing it permanently for free?

*Actually now I think about it I might have turned that episode off early, having no idea who Dom was and not being very interested.

My Joy-ful life
many decades ago I temped for an agency for a couple of years. Loved the variety, gained experience, met lots of people. Worked for anything from a week to a couple of months for an orthopaedic surgeon, a solicitor, a religious organisation, a union headquarters, amongst many others.
so if you want a hip replacement doing, your conveyancing done, a wedding or baptism, or a work dispute, I'm your woman!!!

FizzingAda

so if you want a hip replacement doing, your conveyancing done, a wedding or baptism, or a work dispute, I'm your woman!!!

Indeed 😄
It always tickles me when contestants on quiz shows say something like "I should know that - my mother was a chemist/tree surgeon/French teacher..." and the contestant themselves is a graphic designer or something.
I know nothing about engineering despite that being my father's job.

That's so sad. I've teared up. It says it all perfectly.

I know a couple of people involved in a Repair Cafe. They have lots of volunteers with different skills who offer their services for free but ask for a donation to cover rent for the premises, materials etc. Not two people doing everything.

Most Repair Shops/Cafés work on that basis, so I hope Tony and Leonard have had the sense to do the same. A friend of ours volunteers in one and really enjoys socialising with the other people who work there and the people who bring stuff, as well as tinkering around with bits of machinery. It seems to be quite a big operation in the local church hall, full records kept of what is brought in and what work they are doing, insurance, and tea/coffee/cakes on offer. Most people donate quite generously, presumably in recognition of the effort the volunteers are putting in and the fact that, if they couldn't get their stuff repaired, they'd probably have to spend more replacing it.

I am convinced that a non-qualified person mending a hair dryer guarantees the electrocution of the user.

As I've said before, the way Carol is behaving resonates uncomfortably with how my mother was after having a stroke. It wasn't the worst stroke but she was no longer able to write or deal with numbers, so she became much more dependent as she could no longer handle money or safely be left to cook for herself, take her medication etc. She was essentially very angry and frustrated about it all, and sometimes took it out on everyone else. It was much worse after an illness landed her in hospital, and some of her behaviour could be hideous - especially when her lack of inhibitions meant her inner racism came out.

However, last night I wanted to tell Anna that rehab is not the panacea she thinks it is. My mother went into rehab and basically it was useless. The physios came round once a day, and if she was asleep, or just feeling cantankerous and disinclined to co-operate, they went away again. The nurses were too busy to try to encourage her to exercise so she just lost the ability to walk, though there had been nothing wrong with her legs before she was hospitalised. She had always been a bit funny about food but it became close to an eating disorder, as she was always claiming she was full and if I wasn't there at mealtimes, no-one was encouraging her to eat. I suspect Carol would end up following a similar pattern.

I suspect a lot of the people doing that sort of work do have some sort of qualification or work experience; indeed, the insurance may well demand it. Certainly the lovely man who repaired my food mixer took endless trouble, had all the right tools and equipment, and clearly knew what he was doing.

However, last night I wanted to tell Anna that rehab is not the panacea she thinks it is.

Definitely true but also it seems possible that Carol has told the rehab team to sod off because she's going home and that's why she's desperate not to let Anna speak to them.
If she's anything like my mother or a neighbour of ours, who were both in a similar situation, she may have even lied and said her daughter/neighbours would be living with her to care for her or something.
Ime, they'll only be too happy to cross her name off an already overflowing list.

Eta Even if told that it's not true by the daughter/neighbours themselves!

We had a similar experience with an old kenwood mixer. Safely repaired at a repair cafe and still going at 40 years old.

How old is Anna?

The man who couldn't mend my cheapo kettle because what was wrong with it was that a plastic part (the inside of the on-off switch) had snapped with use and would be impossible to replace, worked as a small-appliance repair man in a shop as a day-job and contributed one morning a month to the community for people who wouldn't think of going to a shop for repairs, only for sales. (He drummed up trade quite incidentally, because of course now people know that shop exists they go there and buy stuff as well as hoping to pay for repairs, but I think he genuinely hadn't thought of that when he volunteered. He just hates waste and built-in obsolescence.)

Judging by the amount of specialist tools at the once a month café, most of the people doing repairs there are quite serious craftsmen of one sort and another.

Ann Tregorran's date of birth was 23rd September 1969.

I heard Carol saying she had been ignored by the physio and turned down for rehabilitation without any evidence that was true. She is lying because she just wants to go home and Anna needs to talk to the ward staff and the discharge coordinator to find out what is going on.

Is the repaired hairdryer signposting towards a Coronation Street style electrocution sometime soon? 😲

Hope it's not Lynda or Robert 🤞

Dog fields are "a thing" in my neck of the woods. They appear to need planning permission and neighbours get very upset about extra traffic and noise from the dogs. I've not read the local paper for a while, because the website is full of pop-up ads, but I think it is padel court planning applications that are getting the semi-rurals annoyed these days. Assuming it is still alive, Constanza ought to be feeling worried.

It is sad that Lynda and Robert are having to downsize (I seem to remember him saying that they didn't have much in the way of pensions a couple of weeks ago, but that was presumably to address listeners' observations that they should have retired years ago). They strike me as being the sort of people who would have had eco-tech fitted to Ambridge Hall, otherwise it must cost a bomb to heat and run a large B&B. Presumably the actors fancy retiring and they will be written out next year?