How’s it going to work? Most - all? - primary schools insist on a known adult (or sibling over 16) collecting younger children. They’re not going to hand them over to any random adult who strolls up to the gate.
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A fair point, well made. Indeed, it is so good I made it myself, elsewhere. Also, never knowing who is picking her up or where she is going probably isn’t quite what Poppy needs at the moment - and the historical WIll would be quite intelligent enough to realise that, even if the massed Ambridge stickybeaks, with Susan in the van, are not.
But Will is going down in the scales because they need a shrewish and improvident slut and a criminal fool to rise to prominence.
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They’re spoiled for choice there.
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They say “it takes a village”, but I’m not sure a village haphazardly coordinated by Susan was quite what anyone had in mind. Was sorry to hear Will go back on his original stance; this isn’t going to look good if it comes to court for custody of the older two.
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Only if it becomes clear he has made extensive use of the list. I’ve a feeling he’s going to get the hint that he has to come to some more permanent solution.
Speaking of the rota, I was amazed Ruth put herself down for two afternoons a week! I know it’s only being on call for emergencies, but she’s always been very reluctant to help with anything in the community, claiming, with some justification, business, though other busy people make time. More typical of Ruth was making it clear to Pip that she, Pip, would be in charge of her own baby, rather forgetting how she palmed her own children off on Jill.
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Ruth’s own children were planned and with a partner to whom she was married and with whom she was living, which may be why she feels slightly more positive about them than about Pip’s accident. And Jill was refusing not to not have them rather more than Ruth was palming them off, I think.
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Well, I wasn’t listening then, but what else were Ruth and David going to do with their children if Jill hadn’t wanted to care for them? And judging by the way the exploit her now … no matter how willing, bossy and managerial Jill is, it’s disgraceful that they haven’t hired someone to do the heavy work that Emma used to do. Because they know full well or should do by now that what is left undone by them will be done by Jill.
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Down t’pit!
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I agree about allowing Jill to work herself into the ground now. That is indeed disgraceful.
I think they were in the process of working out what to do about childcare when Jill stepped in and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll do it.” She had done the same to Shula, as far as I remember. In fact I think she was looking after Daniel and Pip at the same time, and used “I’m already looking after Daniel during the day so Pip won’t be any more trouble to me” as the way to get Pip.
I don’t think she was allowed to annex Josh or Ben in quite the same way, but I can’t off-hand remember what was done about them.
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Nor do the Dopeys!
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I don’t (apart from wishing that the deranged Hooter featured less by virtue of being planted in St Stephen’s).
She does cooking At them and no doubt housework At them too. The house must positively reek of burning martyr. Hmmm, perhaps it’s no suprise Shula turned out this way.
Sorry - Jill really, really annoys me. She infantilises Dayveed and enables Ruth’s uselessness. No one is indispensable, Jill, not even you. And not even if the flapjack tin would be tragically empty without you and a county-wide shortage of Lemon Drizzle ensues. And it is Not Your House, not any more.
Gah!
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Everything you say about Jill is true but I still condemn the Dopeys for allowing it to happen. It’s that feeble ‘ooh, you know what Mum’s like, no stopping her’ while enjoying the benefits of her labour that annoys me. They could get a cleaner for a start and do their own laundry.
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You are, of course, right. But martyrs hellbent on martyrdom can be very difficult to deflect.
The sheer improbability of a woman her age doing not only all the cooking for five adults (well, four and a bit) but also laundry and actual housework is not often enough ridiculed. I know my own dear Ma, round about Jill’s age (and a skilled and famed producer of Lemon Drizzle in her own right) has specific health problems and is no yardstick but - no. Perhaps not utterly impossible (ancient marathon runners etc) but so improbable as makes no odds.
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The woman’s clearly insane, Jill that is, not your sainted mama. We’ve heard her say she has to get on with the vacuuming or no one else will do it. We’ve heard her hanging out the sheets on the washing line. Even in the unlikely event that she is capable, why on earth would she want to? I can understand a woman her age who loves baking carrying on baking, but the rest …
I think the storywriters must have forgotten that Emma used to dig out the midden twice a week and that they’ve never replaced her. Nice little earner for Lexi?
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oh, I dunno… Get her on the subject of Margaret R___, for instance… They are on a Committee together and let’s just say it would be advisable for it only to meet in premises with tiled walls.
Lexi is already taken. She will abandon her nocturnal chicken-strangling endeavours and be the salvation of Greenwood Cottage. Pass the bucket, there’s a dere…
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