Shula To The Rescue

Patricia Hodge (Camilla Burnham)

We ended last week by speculating that Russ might drive Freddie over to Camilla’s. No need as she turns up at Lower Loxley and comes into the kitchen just as Elizabeth’s homemade broccoli and stilton soup is ready. Elizabeth is startled and most of the soup ends up over Camilla – it was good of Elizabeth to get her retaliation in first – she seems to be a nasty piece of work.

Elizabeth gives Camilla a tour of the house which, as Nigel’s sister, she grew up in, and she doesn’t sound bitter about it at all. Sorry, I’ll leave the sarcasm to Camilla who goes on to say that Elizabeth’s turned Lower Loxley into a ‘theme park for the hoi polloi’ and blames her for the way Freddie’s turns out, which she thinks isn’t surprising for someone of Elizabeth’s background – ‘one can’t help how one’s been brought up’! The tension has clearly escalated and when Lily appears she’s ordered in unison to go and fetch her brother.

Freddie’s not there because he’s gone off to say goodbye to his friends, which includes going to the cricket where he’s hoping to see Johnny. Johnny’s bowling so Freddie decides to wait but by the time Lily turns up he’s gone again – allegedly to the stables to see Shula.

While Lily’s gone we learn that Camilla is one of those ‘pull yourself together’ types when Elizabeth tells her about her depression. If I were Lizzie I’d decapitate her with a longsword from one of the suits of armour that litter the place and then tell her to ‘pull yourself together – it’s just a flesh wound’ (apologies to Monty Python for the mis-quote). Lily speaks for the nation when she calls Camilla an ‘ignorant spiteful old witch’ but doesn’t go as far as calling for her to be burned at the stake (shame) because she’s interrupted by Freddie turning up – with Shula.

It turns out that it’s actually Shula to the rescue as she’s persuaded Freddie to stay with her instead. Shula sums it up nicely when she tells Camilla “Elizabeth may have struggled with her emotions, but at least she has some. If anyone needs help then it’s you”.

This story aired at the end of Mental Health Awareness Week, which was surely no coincidence, and I’m glad Camilla was dealt with robustly. But please, can we hear no more of her in the future? Don’t even write her out – just let her fade away into obscurity. (If you must, then have her fall into a combine harvester or something - I know she lives near London so that’s probably unlikely but I can dream can’t I)?

Ok, I feel better now.

Ed’s getting it in the ear from Emma about working with Jazzer now that they’re besties again, when Will turns up unexpectedly. What’s the emergency? He can’t find Poppy’s PE kit, something I expect Mia used to sort out before she went to live with Andrew. He persuades Emma to look after Poppy that evening “all you’d have to do is give her tea and stick her in front of the telly”. How he’s never won Father of the Year is beyond me.

Will even gets Joe to look after Poppy, although all he seems to do is let her put lipstick on him and then fall asleep in the chair. Luckily Poppy’s also asleep when Clarrie gets home and she’s not happy, getting straight on the phone to Will to ask him to collect Poppy straight away. She tells him that Joe’s not getting any younger and what if he’d had an accident or something (very prescient of Clarrie there)? Will promises not to ask Joe again but the trouble is, he’s rapidly running out of people to ask and that evening decides to take Poppy with him to work (we’ll have to wait until next week to see how that turns out). 

Back to Ed, and Jazzer wants in on his work with Tim, but Ed wisely puts him off saying there’s not enough work for both of them – too right as it seems that Emma’s spending all the money on her dream living room. Jazzer spies Ed’s wad of notes and it’s obvious to him that something dodgy’s going on. I’m sure he’ll try again when he’s blown the £4k he’s getting from Tom, that is if Tim and Ed haven’t been nicked by then.

Something which has been bubbling under for a while is Jim’s reluctance to let Alistair organize a birthday party for him. Well, Alistair, Jazzer and Shula have been working behind the scenes to organize a not-a-birthday-party, or ‘tribute night’, and things are starting to come together; old photographs, old friends and tributes are to pouring in and it’s all starting to sound a bit This Is Your Life. Alistair thinks he’ll love it but I think Jim will be absolutely furious with his son. They’re almost caught out when Jim catches Alistair and Jazzer plotting, just after Alistair caught Jazzer necking a bottle of milk on the doorstep (a sound effect I never want to hear again). Alistair’s nearly caught out again when Jim overhears him telling someone on the phone that he’s really looking forward to seeing them again. Jim’s suspicious and Jazzer says it sounds like he’s got a girlfriend – a convenient cover story as it happens as Jim thinks it makes sense that Alistair must have ‘the urge’ again.

Natasha’s still nowhere to be seen and apparently only in email contact with Tom, and then only about their business. Roy’s commiserating with him and Tom states the bleedin’ obvious when he says “I feel as if I don’t really know her and she doesn’t really know me!” but he still loves her and he’s not giving up – yet. There will be further developments on the Tom and Natasha front later, “but what about the art project” I hear you ask? 

Well, Alan popped over to the stables to see Shula and mentions that the list of proposals has been published. Shula’s not interested and is off to Darrington on her horse Mulberry. Coincidentally Alan’s just been visiting an elderly lady there who apparently likes to complain about her neighbours – I wonder whether we’ll find out who they are and what storyline they’re about to crash into? There’s a meeting of the art project that night and Shula’s dreading it as they’re supposed to be narrowing down the entries to the best six. Freddie sums it up nicely by describing it as a perfect storm of difficult people and perhaps the winning project should just be Lynda and Russ fighting. Now that’s something I would pay to see.

Jill thinks she’s found a way to resolve the impasse between David and Kenton by giving Kenton a cheque for the money he owes. Jill wants Kenton to swallow his pride and accept the money for her sake but he’s adamant that he won’t accept it. He’ll give David his money back himself – “but only when I’m ready”. Leonard pops along to the Bull later to talk to Kenton as he’s worried about how unhappy Jill is over the brothers falling out. Kenton’s convinced that his mother sent him but Leonard denies this and says he was unaware of her offer to pay the debt. Kenton listens to Leonard as he tells him that having a big family nearby is special and all Jill is trying to do is keep it together.

Kenton seeks advice from Jolene who says that sometimes you just have to grasp the nettle (or money in this case) and the next we hear is Kenton turning up at Brookfield to see David. Jill and Leonard are both there and Kenton says that the money is being transferred into his account. David’s not prepared to forgive straight away as Kenton’s made him wait four years but Jill thinks that everything should now be sunshine and light in the Archer family. The boys start arguing but Jill steps in to make Kenton apologise for taking so long, which he does, and then makes David accept the apology, which he does. She’s on a roll now and gets them to shake hands and then hold out their little pinkies and say together “make friends, make friends, never ever break friends”. Ok, I made that last bit up, but it did drag on a bit.

Tracey’s throwing her weight around at the cricket. Even though they won their last match she thinks they can do better by being more aggressive and playing mind games with the other side and calls Harrison and Roy “wetter than an otter’s pocket” for wanting to play honourably. As team motivation goes “you don’t get to be a winner by sitting on your bum with your gob shut” might not be the most eloquent, but it persuades Chris to enter into a bet with Tracey to see who can go furthest at their next match. Harrison ramps up the pressure when he tells Chris it will be a good opportunity to show everyone why he should continue to be captain. Away from the pitch Harrison’s still hunting the bunting (no, not a countryside euphemism, it really is as tedious as it sounds) and thinks the perpetrator is taunting him by leaving a trail, a placeholder no doubt for this story to be ‘strung out’ further (sorry).

Back to Tom and Natasha, and Tom’s outside his website designer Leo’s office and Leo’s on the phone apologising for being late. Tom’s just getting round to saying that Natasha won’t be joining them when a call comes in from her, as breezy as you like, saying she’s on her way. She turns up in a car that Leo’s impressed with but Tom’s clearly never seen before. The car’s not the only thing he’s impressed with as he tells the couple what a pleasure it’s been working with them and how they work well as a team. To the informed listener the conversation in Leo’s office between Tom and Natasha is somewhat false, but when they get outside Natasha says she’s going to return to Ambridge.

They go for coffee on the way to talk, and Tom needs to know why she went away for so long and will she do it again. She admits that she was cruel and apologises, saying she needed to get away from all the expectations that she felt being Mrs. Archer brought with it, but now she wants to make the marriage work. They both agree that the last month has been to worst of their lives and Natasha tells Tom the reason she’s back on the scene is that Tony called her. We’re not told what he said but it was probably something like ‘do you still need that self-catering cottage for your honeymoon because Pat and I fancy a break?’

Talking about honeymoons, one of the things Natasha’s been doing whilst away is looking at alternative holiday destinations and she’s decided that Cuba is the place to go. Now call me cynical if you like (it’s ok – I’ve been called much, much worse) but I can’t help feeling that this has all been about getting her own way again. After all, it was the discovery that Tom had booked somewhere up the road that made her run away to her parents, and maybe getting a big exotic honeymoon called for a big dramatic action to pull Tom back in line. In that context, her final words of the week sounded a teeny bit threatening; “You’d better believe it – Tom Archer – because I’m here to stay!”