Plucking Disaster

Trevor Harrison (Eddie Grundy)

Clarrie broke her wrist, thus throwing the Grundy's Christmas into meltdown. "Who'll do the shopping, cook the food, wrap the presents and pluck the turkeys?" she said, plaintively. "You can rely on me and Dad" said Eddie, confidently. Yeah, right; rely on them to stuff it up completely.

Nic brought round a beef stew. "All you need to do is the potatoes," said Clarrie. "Potatoes?" replied a bemused Eddie, thus demonstrating his depth of farming knowledge. I don't know about you, but the description of Joe making pastry ruined my appetite for the whole day.

Actually, Nic is turning into a little treasure – much too good for William, who is running neck and neck with Tony in the "Ambridge's most miserable sod of the year" contest. When Will learns that Ed will be helping out at turkey plucking time and they will both be in the same building, he throws a moody and says he won't be there. Nic gives him a, sadly only metaphorical, knee in the goolies and tells him oh yes he will. I think we can safely assume that Will hasn't bought Ed's Christmas present yet. All this happened at the switch on of the Christmas lights – another great bit of radio.

Deck the Halls got into full swing this week, but not for Freddie and Lily, who were shackled to their desks, doing practice papers and probably being regularly thrashed. Jill voiced her misgivings at them being pushed so hard and even went as far as suggesting that Borchester Green school would be good enough for them. Shock! Horror!  For them maybe, but not for Nigel, who is turning into a cross between Ebenezer Scrooge and Pol Pot.

Nigel is beginning to get on my wick – he's the only person I know of who actually says "Bravo!" without trying to be ironic. "Gosh!" is another favourite. He's also a student of the school of stating the bleedin' obvious, saying to David "you must be feeling awful" when he learns about the hay robbery.

To happier matters: Harry and Fallon finally get to kiss in panto rehearsals and it will come as no surprise that he is excellent at it, with Fallon practically swooning. Nigel, in his tactful way, says "Bravo! That was quite a kiss!" and wants to know if Harry and Fallon are an item. "Fallon's way out of my league" Harry replies. Don't you believe it! The man can seemingly do anything and is so damn nice. Even when he comes home to find that Jazzer has installed an old fridge in the lounge (for chilling beer, of course) his tone is one of polite enquiry, rather than going ballistic.

Tony, on the other hand, seems to know his limitations; speaking about the staffing crisis in the dairy (Clarrie's broken wrist again) he says "I'm not Superman, you know". I bet that came as a surprise to Pat; especially as they were celebrating their 36th Wedding Anniversary later in the week. 36 years! You don't get that for murder, do you?

The staffing crisis could be solved by Vicky's volunteering to work in the dairy. As she rightly pointed out, it can't be that hard if Susan managed to pick it up. Vicky was nauseatingly twee over feeling Helen's bump and Helen told her that she is getting twinges and the baby is kicking (keep it up kid!). I suspect that they will have to drown Vicky in a vat of yoghurt to get her to stop nattering.

Sherlock Pip managed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the hay sample Eddie brought back from a dodgy market trader was pinched from Brookfield and David's phone call to the man confirmed it. Sadly, he realised that there was little he could do about it, but Pip seems determined to seek justice. What will she do? Go and live with the man? Surely that would come under the heading of 'cruel and unusual punishment'?

Kate managed to upset most people in the family by planning an early Christmas meal (cooked by Jennifer, of course, not by Kate) so that she could see Phoebe opening her presents. Of course, there were loads of presents for Phoebe and a token one for Ruari. "I think she's trying to buy off her guilty conscience" remarked Brian. Ha! That would take the entire stock of Hamley's!

It was at the pseudo-Christmas party that Phoebe learned that Kate would be away longer than originally planned (but still not long enough) and Phoebe goes off, saying unconvincingly "it's OK; don't worry about it." Jennifer is concerned and observes: "I think she's quite upset". Don't be ridiculous, woman – she's probably upstairs celebrating!