Emerald
O'Hanrahan (Emma Grundy)
The title this week refers
of course to Ambridge's little ray of sunshine, Emma Grundy. She's looking
forward to Susan's 50th birthday party, which sounds like it's going to be the
last word – the very last word – in sophistication. She has emptied the Pound
shop of its party poppers and Tracy has invited half of Borsetshire's
underworld and ex-cons. I don't know if they have been invited, but I suspect
that Brian and Jennifer are consulting their book of '100 excuses to avoid socialising
with peasants' and rapidly arranging something (anything) else.
Emma tells Ed that Nic is
going to take Poppy to see Joe, hoping that Ed will pooh-pooh the idea.
However, he thinks it's a brilliant move and will do Joe the world of good.
"It won't help his broken wrist" she sulks and, while admitting that
Poppy has little experience of orthopaedic surgery, Ed suggests that the visit
could raise granddad Joe's spirits.
And indeed it does, with
Joe being the most animated since his accident and making a fuss of the new
baby. Emma turns up with Keira and George in tow and presents Joe with a card
made by Keira ("she's always been advanced"). Sadly, however, stool
pigeon George tells everyone that "mummy made it, not Keira." No pudding
for you tonight, Georgie boy!
Emma took Nic to task for
complaining about the 976 baby-grows (most in lurid shades of pink and carrying
twee mottoes) given to her by Vicky. Nic feels ashamed, which probably made
Emma's day.
Emma has also tried to spike
Nic's plans of a children's calendar for the organ fund by coming up with the
idea of a cookbook, with everybody contributing recipes. The trouble is that
nobody really gives a toss and Emma has painted herself into a corner – she
desperately asks Clarrie to help with the printing and publishing, but Clarrie
says she's much too busy looking after Joe. As an example of the quality of
recipe we can expect, over at Brookfield, David suggests his secret ragu
recipe. Wow! A recipe for a kind of sauce! What else are we to expect –
instructions from Jazzer on how to open those little blue bags of salt found in
crisp packets?
Emma should lighten up a
bit and do something about those rather large chips on her shoulder. You could
be forgiven for thinking that she is linked genetically to Joe, who this week plumbed
new depths of being miserable and despondent. He won't eat and, when Eddie took
him to The Bull, he kept wanting to come home. Eddie is distraught and joins
son Ed in saying how old he looks. As I said last week, being 92 could have
something to do with it. The only time Joe was less than 100% miserable was
when Nic brought Poppy round. Mind you, God knows what the effect was on Poppy.
Eddie is even more distraught when he receives the offer of compensation from
Grey Gables - £1,500 – as he thinks that isn't enough for all Joe's suffering.
Joe doesn't care one way or the other but, with the Grundys' track record of
things going wrong, I'd have grabbed their hand off at £1,500.
Debbie is back from Hungary
and she and Brian have a gloat while standing in the mega-dairy, or Berrow Farm,
as they have disingenuously renamed what Rooooth calls 'the cow factory'.
On the romance front, Rob
has to rush back to Hampshire, where his father-in-law has taken a turn for the
worst. Helen is upset that he went after one phone call from Jess, but Kirsty
reminds her that Jess is still his wife. Talking of Kirsty, Pat seems dead set
on telling everyone that Kirsty and Tom are an item once more. Kirsty tells
Helen that they spent most of Sunday in bed and Tom brought her breakfast in
bed and has been cooking meals for them. What do you reckon – sausages or Ready
Meals?
Debbie also confides in
Helen that she is having a relationship with a tractor driver/engineer in
Hungary, saying that it is good to have some unadulterated fun for a change.
Helen forbears to tell her that she is having what might be described as
'adulterated fun' and goes all miserable when Rob sends Debbie a text, saying
he's got to stay in Hampshire for a few days.
And now to the 'blow me
down, guv, I never saw that coming' moment when Lynda suggests to Caroline that
Kathy could be a good temporary manager for the Health Club; especially as
she's done it before. For Caroline this is a Damascene moment and you could
practically see the light bulb come on. Kathy is interviewed, given the job and
put to work the same day, where she immediately introduces some improvements in
staffing rotas. The only question mark against Kathy is whether she is insane –
consider, when she was out having a meal with Pat (and being given the latest
details of Tom and Kirsty's love life) Pat mentions that Tony said how frail
and miserable Joe looked when he visited The Bull. "I hope he comes
through this" says Pat, to which Kathy replies "Me too – I think the
whole village wants Joe Grundy back." Ha! Go on then Kathy; name one, just
one, whose surname isn't Grundy.
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