You Should Have Asked For An Advance, Eddie

Trevor Harrison (Eddie Grundy)

When it comes to attempting to take advantage, you cannot fault Eddie Grundy for trying. True, all his schemes tend to go down the toilet, but hope obviously springs eternal in the ferret-fancier’s breast, and you have to admire his speed of thought sometimes. Take last week; on Sunday he had only just heard about Tom and Natasha’s idea for Ambridge to become an orchard village and he was off to the cricket in a flash with the express aim of introducing himself to Natasha.

His story was that he wanted Natasha to do a makeover for Clarrie, but, strangely, Clarrie wasn’t at home. Never mind, Natasha says that she can come back another time and get Clarrie to give her a ring. This makes Eddie panic somewhat, as his idea is to engage Natasha in conversation about the orchard village, while trying to wangle some financial advantage for himself. In desperation, he says that the makeover was never meant for Clarrie, but for him. That’s different, and Natasha immediately slaps a face mask on him. This makes it awkward for him, as he wants to discuss the finer points of apple growing, with particular reference to the special micro climate around Ambridge, and it’s hard to enunciate words like ‘micro climate’ when you’re not allowed to move your lips.

Eddie’s story for his behaviour is that he wanted “to surprise the missus.” If that were so, then he should have offered to wash up - Clarrie would probably have fainted with the shock. Natasha, however, falls for this load of tripe and tells Tom about the ‘interesting expert’ she had been talking to and how impressed she was by his local knowledge and what he knows about fruit trees. Tom is puzzled - who is this expert and did he want any payment? Not payment up front, says Natasha and she is disconcerted when she mentions Eddie’s name and Tom bursts into howls of laughter. “Let me tell you about Eddie Grundy” Tom says, still laughing. His one regret was that he never got to see Eddie in a face mask. Anyway, it is a good job that Natasha didn’t sign any kind of agreement and I think we can assume that Eddie’s days as self-appointed Ambridge Apple Expert are numbered.

Sometimes I wonder about Natasha - she is supposed to be this high-flying businesswoman with a successful company behind her and then she falls for a scam which was, at best, both obvious and simplistic. And aren’t you surprised that nobody has taken her to one side and told her to watch out for the Grundys (at least the older ones) and, when you shake their hand, make sure that you count your number of fingers afterwards?

Lilian celebrated her 72^ndbirthday on Tuesday - or at least the first half of the evening was a celebration, as she had insisted that no family members should attend the thrash in The Bull (you can imagine how gutted Tony was to be told this). Lilian was just telling Toby what a great time she was having (it sounded like she was trying to drink a gin for every one of her years on this Earth) when Toby tried to draw her attention to something. That ’something’ was the arrival (unannounced and uninvited) of Peggy to the party, much to Lilian’s dismay.

Even worse, Peggy tells her daughter that she (Peggy) has been feeling bad because Lilian wasn’t included in the original family meeting about setting up the Trust for the £500k, but Peggy has sought to put this right by naming Lilian as the Trust Administrator and she’s sure that she’ll do a great job, now Peggy has to go and circulate among the guests and - by the way, doesn’t Lilian think that the music is a teeny bit too loud? Lilian realises that she has been done up like a kipper and handed what could turn out to be a poisoned chalice with a job she never wanted or, as she said tearfully to Toby “I’ve just been snookered.”

Contrary to the fears of some of our readers (and myself) Peppa Pig’s headless body was not found at Grange Farm, but the man who picked him up was late and an already-stressed Poppy was made even more anxious when the collector made a joke in front of the child about how the ram would make excellent lamb chops. Will (who else?) used this as an excuse to have a go at his brother, saying that this, as well as the illicit pesticide business, could lead to Poppy being taken away. Ed lies and says that he has finished doing business with Tim, but Will still chunters on. Honestly, how paranoid is Will? He seems to think that Bev (Poppy’s gran) is keeping an ever-watchful eye on Poppy and is just waiting for an excuse to whisk her away. Poppy should be so lucky.

Last week I intimated that the story about Jim and the abuse he suffered as a child was getting on my nerves, but I’d like to change my stance on this - it is now reallygetting on my nerves. He decides that he should go round the village, apologising for his previous rude behaviour but - and this is what I can’t understand - nobody seems to ask him why he behaved as he did. Actually, that’s not accurate, as his family (Fiona) and ex-family (Shula) have asked, only to be told that Alistair cannot tell them what was the problem. I believe that Jim even apologised to Susan and I find it inconceivable that she wouldn’t start digging into what lies behind the apology. Let’s face it, this whole scenario is tailor-made for someone for whom the epithet ‘nosey cow’ could have been coined.

Towards the end of the week, Fiona is getting pissed off with having her calls ignored by Jim, Alistair and (latterly) Jazzer and so she turns up in Ambridge, much to the consternation of the three inhabitants of Greenacres. To be honest, what else could they expect? There is obviously something amiss with Jim and he reinforces this idea by telling Alistair that it must remain their secret and he is sworn to secrecy. I was always told that ‘he who has a secret, must keep it secret that he has a secret to keep’ but this doesn’t appear to apply in Ambridge, as people are effectively saying ‘ok Jim, you had a meltdown and buggered off for ten days, then went awol from village life (and how likely is it that Susan would let that go?) but we don’t want to know the back story?’ 

Fiona turns up and, in effect, is told by Alistair that, yes, there is something wrong about Jim, but Alistair isn’t allowed to tell his sister what it is. Fiona tries hard, but is stonewalled - is Jim terminally ill? No, but I can’t say any more. Fortunately we are spared other speculation (are sheep involved, is Jazzer Jim’s bastard love child?) but this does nothing to settle Jim’s disturbed mind, nor does it help Alistair. 

It does not seem to have penetrated the cerebral mind of the professor that his daughter might be a tad uneasy about knowing that her dad has some deep - and obviously dark - secret, which he would be wise to impart to her. As things are, most likely giver-away of Jim’s secret will be Jazzer, who seems unable to keep a lid on the secret that he shares with the Lloyds (or some of them). He gets shirty with Shula after Fiona rings him (Jazzer doesn’t answer) telling her that he’s not involved in the Lloyd family and neither is she, so butt out.

Jazzer manages to upset a lot of people - he has a go at Alice, who describes her forthcoming presentation about the robot crop pickers as “the scariest thing I’ve ever done” as being total garbage. Scary, Jazzer tells her, is not having enough food or money to feed yourself, or suffering trauma when you are young. Alice is taken aback at Jazzer’s vehemence and Adam has to get him to apologise: not too bad for your second day at work, Jazzer.

There as a cute cameo when Susan and Emma are talking in the shop and Susan is outraged at what Jazzer said, expecting support from her daughter. Instead, Emma says something along the lines of ‘good; it’s about time someone put her in her place.’ Susan is scandalised; Alice is family, after all. “No she’s not; she’s Chris’s wife” an unrepentant Emma replies.

We can sum up other events in Ambridge in short order - Jim, as we have already said, - is going round apologising to everyone, while there is rivalry over a ‘best cooked dish’ for the village fete, for which Ian makes Adam eat cheese soufflé for breakfast as a trial run,

There is also another of the (to me) continuing mystifying ‘bucket list’ challenges for Adam and Ian - this time they have to undergo an all-nighter at a Gay club in Birmingham. Why? What is this bucket list challenge all about? I know I had a week or so off in the last few months, but I have no idea why these challenges are happening, nor why Ian and Adam aren’t just telling people to ‘sod off and get on with your lives/work’.

Toby took Rex (and where has Rex been for the past few months?) for a surprise birthday treat. Rex hates surprises and was even more apprehensive when Toby blindfolded him. His fears, however were allayed when it turned out that the treat was a picnic on Lakey Hill. Not only that, but Rosie was there - even more spectacular; she has started to walk. Rex was overcome, which means brownie points for, and a cheap birthday present from, Toby.

We learn some novel suggestions for the Village Fete from Ben and Ruairi, who seemed to think that it could be a babe magnet - or it might be if the wrinklies on the committee didn’t keep vetoing their ideas. So far, the only acceptable ideas are inflatable sumo wrestling and a culinary competition, pitching local cooks against each other, head to head.

Finally, last week was the second anniversary of the death of Caroline Sterling and Shula and Kirsty met by accident under the tree that was planted to commemorate Caroline‘s demise. Kirsty revealed that she has this burning ambition to make a difference with her life, while Shula admitted that she really missed Caroline and, despite the fact that Caroline is not buried in Ambridge (or even in the UK, for that matter) Shula still talks to her under her tree. It seems that we have a couple of tree-huggers for very different motives.