Jill lying and being a coward; another row at Home Farm; Usha being a beehatch in an unrealistic way; a new actor playing the yokel for Christopher, the whole point of whom was that he hob-nobbed with earls and had a more RP voice than the rest of his family.
sigh
Painful, wasnât it?
The only realistic thing about Usha was the leaping on a perceived âslightâ - sheâs always been somewhat thin-skinned. As if a woman of her age and professional standing - ok, just a Borchester legal hack rather than a âtop barristerâ, but even that requires more than two functioning braincells would be so idioticâŚ
And yes, they seem rather to have missed that point about Chris.
What was Jill lying about?
Pretending not to dislike the nasty herbal brew Carol has inflicted on her. Why on earth is the silly woman drinking it? At 86 itâs a little bluddy late to worry about the effect having consumed however many cups of tea a day for the last seventy years has already had on her skin, and not drinking it now is not going to make the least difference to anything. Apart possibly from her temper.
Ah. Thanks. Thought she just said wtte she was âgetting used to itâ rather than implying she liked the stuff. Is it nastier than peppermint tea, I wonder? That is like hot toothpaste. Bleagh.
There is a brew which smells rather like new-mown grass, tastes bitter and unpleasant, and is rather good as a pick-you-up after flu or (in three cases I have known) when you have chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).
We call it Refrain Tea because it is made up of equal parts of
vervain
nettle
borage
and balm
and you sing it to remember what is in it.
I have been known to get an ounce of each herb from Nealâs Yard, mix them well and fishfully drink my way through it at a rate of three mugs per day when I have become Very Low for some reason.
Whatever it is that is in the brew provided by the owd biddy, has Carol found out whether it interacts with levothyroxine or liothyronine, whichever it is that Jill has to take every day because of her malfunctioning thyroid? If she hasnât she is being very unethical.
Isnât that Ushaâs firm?
Gus, you are a patella after my own heart. I quite like many herby and fruity teas, but peppermint⌠yik.
Spent a while wondering how that potion you describe could possibly smell like new-mown grass until a synapse fired and I realised that you had specified vervain, not valerian. Valerian doesnât half pong. Cats go nuts for it. The particularly stinky valerian-filled grey plush rat has lost much of its potency now, but it took a whileâŚ
Isnât it equally up to Jill to check whether stuff she ingests interacts adversely with her prescribed medicines?
Most people donât think of it unless the medication specifically lists a herb in its leaflet, the way a lot of them have to list St Johnâs Wort since it became a well known panacea for no known illness, like ginseng.
That is why it is the business of the person prescribing a herbal infusion to check up on the matter, not just press their pet plants on people casual-like. It is called ânot being a poisonerâ by the unenlightened who know a bit about herbs but donât try to make anyone drink them if they donât know what they are doing.
If someone came along to me and said âyour food and drink habits are All Wrong, have these herbs that will fix everythingâ Iâd send them away with their herbs inserted. And Iâm not as old as Jill.
(I canât remember whether she knew Carol before Câs return, but I have had friends who drifted away and drifted back again a few years later with some strange new this-will-change-your-life enthusiasm.)
Such as the friend of 25 yearâs standing who Iâd supported through 2 divorces, single-motherhood, financial issues etc., who took counselling from a âprofessionalâ and was advised to shed herself of all the people of her past as they were anchors weighing her down.
So she boldly announced that she had to move on from all the deadweight. But canât understand 3 years later why people keep her at arms length now.
I wasnât listening during La Tobogganâs first stint in Ambridge. Doesnât matter what happened then, now they have always been close friends. Or âbessiesâ as plenty of people old enough to know better would have it.
Jill was the godmother to Carolâs daughter, so they probably got on OK.
Sheâs godmother now, sure, but was she then, thatâs the thing, or are godchildren like bedrooms?
According to The Book of The Archers, 1994, in the entry on Anna-Louise Tregorran (always known as Ann)
âHer proud godparents were Lady Isabel Lander, Jill Archer and Hugo Barnaby.â
Thank you, Fanta. I wasnât being 100% serious, but itâs good to know. Explains the board name HB, too - Iâd never heard of him.
Was starting a new thread but the Ghost in the Machine pointed out there was a âit was utter crap tonightâ thread already.
Dreadful, laboured and deeply unfunny episode tonight. Even Brian and Matt couldnât quite redeem it.
There is a sort of deathly hush in response to it, as well.
Hugh Barnaby was a cousin of John Tregorranâs who wrote his âspiritual lifeâ while he was living at Glebe Cottage in 1968 having rented it from Doris; he fancied Carol Tregorran. He bought Nightingale Farm in 1969 and turned it into a rural arts centre, he organised a tree survey of the area, and then, finding that he was getting nowhere with Carol, he buggered off to the States in 1971, got engaged, got unengaged, came back, still got nowhere with Carol, and left for good in 1976.
Hugo? And he had a caravan?
As far as I know he was van-free.