Frightful Family Fun

Bharti Patel (Geraldine)

We haven’t heard much from Ben or Ruairi lately, but they come crashing in this week (literally) when Will catches them doing handbrake turns at Home Farm. He lectures them and threatens to tell their parents but lets them off when they admit they’ve been stupid and won’t do it again. However they’re not deterred and find somewhere else to practice, but to get there they need to drive on the road. They egg each other on and take risks with the speed until they hit something. It turns out to be a badger, so at least David will be pleased when he finds out. Brian’s not pleased though as it all comes out at the shoot where Ruairi is a beater. Ruairi takes the blame and Brian takes his fee to teach him a lesson, asking Will to donate it to a good cause, although the big softy gives it back later when he’s calmed down.

Elizabeth’s sounding very deflated this week. David’s called round to deliver some beef and is complimenting her on how well the preparations for ‘Spookalicious Gardens’ are coming on. She’s feeling low because the new barrister has joined the long list of legal professionals to turn Elizabeth down, not because he doesn’t think there’s a case to be made, but because the deadline has run out. Elizabeth’s going to be using David’s tele-thingy to raise the actors into the tree tops in her Spookalicious production and needs him to check the height. In the end he doesn’t get time but he and Josh reckon it will be tall enough, but there’s no time to rehearse it so the first time it will be used is in front of the crowds. Could Elizabeth be about to add a second inquest to Lower Loxley’s Tally? After all we’re only a couple of months away from the 8^thanniversary of Nigel’s death.

We’ve heard precious little from Geraldine since she was hired as Deputy Manager of Lower Loxley four years ago, but she seems to have come in to her own and kept the place going while Elizabeth’s been so preoccupied. Elizabeth really doesn’t have to do anything with the business at the moment so perhaps she should use this as an opportunity to take some time out and concentrate on her mental well being, because at this rate she’s heading for a breakdown. A stern word from David probably won’t cut it. On the other hand should we question why we’re suddenly hearing a lot from Geraldine? Her slogan for Spookalicious is ‘frightful family fun’ which isn’t bad and at least she didn’t say ‘something for everyone’ which would really have got my hackles up, but for the moment I’ll reserve judgement.

By the way, one of the silent characters I thought we’d ‘heard’ the last of has popped up this week. Edgar Titcombe, who was one of Nigel’s old retainers and stayed on to look after the grounds, is a living statue at Spookalicious. I suppose it’s too much to ask for him to suddenly break character and shout ‘BOO’ at a small child?

When it comes to it, it’s not quite inquest-worthy, but in the star attraction ‘Attack of the Mummy’ panic is spread throughout the crowd as the mummy falls 150 feet from the telehandler (probably more like 15 but you know what it’s like at Lower Loxley) and everyone is taken in by the illusion that it’s a real person. There’s not only panic but anger that Elizabeth didn’t know what the actors were going to do and it all kicks off in the car park. Elizabeth seems to think that it won’t be a problem until Kirsty tells her that she should be ashamed of herself, found the whole thing disgusting and promises to take it further.

Hannah and Tom are still at it by the way, and Hannah introduced me to a new saying this week – ‘keep your neb out’. I had to look it up and you’ll be relieved to know that neb is Yorkshire for nose. Tom tries to patch it up with Jazzer and joins him on his run. Jazzer tries to outrun him but Tom keeps up the pace until they both end the run completely exhausted. They talk the rivalry over Hannah through and agree they won’t fall out over her.

Josh has bought a bulk load of bakery waste to supplement the feed at Brookfield at a low cost and Pip’s furious at the thought of feeding a ‘rat’s banquet’ to the dairy herd as it goes against their ethos and could cause acidosis in the cattle. David grudgingly says it makes sense as a way to ease their cash flow but would have liked to have been consulted first. Roooooth works out a solution, which is to feed it to the Hereford’s mixed with straw and some silage, which will leave more of the high-protein silage to feed to the dairy herd. Josh heralds this as a ‘win-win’ while Pip’s take on it is ‘makes the best of a bad job’. I’m with Pip on this, in my book, anyone who uses the phrase ‘win-win’ retrospectively has forced the other party to compromise, has the upper hand and gets their behaviour reinforced. Which as it turns out, is exactly what Josh thinks.

Linda’s holding the first read-through of The Canterbury Tales on location in David’s barn, and the actors are seeing for the first time who else has been cast. Nathan Booth will be playing the blacksmith in The Miller’s Tale and one wonders whether we’ll finally hear him speak, but surprise everyone – the blacksmith is a silent part! Lynda’s not happy, of course, as the barn’s cold, damp and has cobwebs everywhere. What did you expect in a working barn, on a farm in November Lynda? She ropes David in as location manager, whose responsibility seems to be to transform his barn into an approximation of Pinewood Studios.

Someone else who’s not happy is Jim. He’s outraged that the play is written in modern English as he was hoping for some ‘intellectual fibre’. Really? In a Lynda Snell Christmas production? Just wait until he finds out that Roooooth playing Chaucer him/herself.

Finally, Henry’s gone to Lee’s karate class again and seems to be warming to him so much that he shoves another child out of the way in order to help Lee tidy things away. Lee has a gentle word with him about this but Henry gets upset, thinking Lee doesn’t like him just like his Daddy didn’t. If, as I suspect, Helen and Lee become an item, I wonder what Henry will make of that.