Are things starting to get back to normal in Ambridge? I ask this because last week we actually had two characters (Fallon and Emma) meeting and having a conversation of sorts, instead of a monologue or a phone conversation where we only hear one end. Perhaps the shape of things to come?
Before we talk about that, let’s start at the beginning of the week. Brian is out looking for Adam, whom he is going to meet as they are going to start combining the wheat. Adam is nowhere to be seen and Brian is annoyed. “During the whole Ruairi thing I never missed a day’s work” he says, rather self-righteously. From this we deduce that he only bonked Siobhan on his days off, or Bank Holidays and, given the choice, I cannot help thinking that Jennifer would have preferred her husband to have taken some time off, rather than suddenly present her with his love-child and pointing to his exemplary work attendance record.
But back to Adam, who is laying in a field, with a leg at a rather unnatural angle. We learn later that he left the handbrake off the Land Rover and, when it started to roll downhill, he tried to leap into it and stop it, with a singular lack of success, as it ran over his leg. Brian calls for an ambulance. At the hospital, they perform surgery on the ankle, plus Adam has snapped his cruciate ligaments. But Hey! Look on the bright side – he could have been run over by the combine harvester and that would have been so much worse.
Adam, trouper that he is, is worried about the harvest; who will do it? Well, it won’t be you, will it you Muppet? Brian says he can cope with the combining, but he will need help in the office – to whom can he turn? On Tuesday, Alice reveals that her father has asked her to take up the reins and she is not keen. “I have my own work” she pouts. True; those bottles of Pinot Grigio won’t remove their own corks you know, “Besides I’m not a farmer” she adds (this is all monologue, by the way) and she resolves to tell Brian ‘thanks, but no thanks’ later on.
Time for one of our famous digressions; I live in a village where the local pub is a meeting place for Young Farmers and, periodically, they descend like locusts. I have no doubt that they are hard-working sons (and daughters) of the soil, but they do have one outstanding talent and that is to get outside as many drinks as is humanly possible in whatever time is available. Their success in this ambition can be gauged by the steadily-rising level of background noise and occasional shrieks of laughter. I submit that Alice Carter would blend seamlessly with this environment. As such, she is probably as much of a farmer as at least half of the swarm who regularly block up our bar. She could even qualify for Regional Chair or whatever the higher-ranking officials are called.
Back to the story – Chris Carter is annoyed, as he has a tricky shoeing tomorrow and he wants to be at his best to counter the negative comments being put about by Thandi; a dissatisfied customer. Trouble is that Alice has decided that she needs some time to celebrate (celebrate what, for God’s sake?) and the noise they are making (see earlier regarding Young Farmers) is keeping him awake. Even worse, he and Alice have an agreement that there will be no drinking on weekday nights (I bet she had her fingers crossed when she agreed to that). As it is, she tells him that she was drinking tonic water, which is probably partly true.
Chris, Alice decides, is in danger of becoming boring and it will be cocoa and jigsaws before you know it. “Work can be fun” she tells herself, which begs the question ‘how would she know?’ Alice says that Chris cannot handle temptation, and so the logical thing to do is remove it from his sight. She, on the other hand, is in total control and “I can say that this will be my last vodka,” adding as she drinks it “If I wanted to.” To save Chris from temptation, she has found a disused shed in which to stash her stores of alcohol. Presumably she’s hoping that Chris won’t notice that the house is half-empty when he returns. Belatedly, Alice remembers that she was going to tell Brian ‘no thanks’ to the job and she starts to text him. Too late! Brian has pre-empted her and messaged that, as he had no answer, he assumed she agreed. Home Farm needs her, her father says.
She is hiding in her shed when Brian turns up, but he doesn’t find her. No matter – he sends her a message: “See you at farm 8am tomorrow. No excuses.” On reflection, she thinks that at least she will have use of Adam’s eco-office, which has got to be better than a shed (presumably it has a wine cooler). Wistfully, she remembers when she and Chris were on holiday in Valencia and sighs “I wish we were there now.” Bad idea, Alice; if you were, then on your return, you would both have to self-isolate for a fortnight, which would bugger up Chris’s work with the horses and mean no money coming in.
Alice’s first day proved to be quite successful – she managed to placate an irate customer who wondered where the combine was yesterday (by the time she’d finished explaining about Adam, the man was almost in tears and promised to send a card). The idea, Alice tells herself, is to appear to be in complete control (just like the drinking, then Alice?) or, as she puts it “Fake it till you make it.” You will not, I am sure, be surprised to hear that she celebrated her triumph with a drink.
Chris rang her at work to see how she got on and he says that he will cook something special for tonight. He even buys some sweet peas (I assume for decoration, rather than consumption). He wants to celebrate the successful delivery of Louis’s tree sculpture as well as Alice’s first day at work (the words ‘for quite some time’ remain unspoken).
Chris is wondering if it is too early to light the candle, when the phone rings. It is his wife, who says that she has got to work late and, when Chris asks if there’s anything he can do, Alice quickly says no. In truth, she has decided to arrange a celebration with mates – every time she files something correctly seems to be a cause for a party. “You haven’t done anything special, have you?” she asks, adding that she’ll get a sandwich when she gets home and see you later. Chris says to himself that he will leave it in the oven and leaves the table set for her, with the sweet peas in a wine glass near her plate. “She’ll like that” he says confidently. That’s as maybe Chris, but I’m willing to bet that she would prefer a nice, large Shiraz.
Having spent a lot of time on Alice’s drinking habits, I propose to rush through the story concerning Fallon and Emma, mostly because it’s bloody boring and concerns whose vision of a virtual Flower & Produce Show is the better idea. Girls, it really, really doesn’t matter and nobody really cares that much - you’d be better off finding something more important to talk about.
I Fallon’s case, this could conceivably be trying to stop the Ambridge Tea Shop from becoming the ‘Ambridge ex-Tea Shop’. Times are hard and Helen has told Fallon that the rent holiday that she has been enjoying (the ATS is sited at Bridge Farm, so Helen and Tom are technically its landlords) will have to come to an end soon. Fallon desperately needs to come up with a plan to save the business and Helen suggests that Fallon asks Natasha for some ideas (how about ‘can you give me some money Natasha?’) for one?
Fallon is narked because husband Sgt Burns found a winning scratch card blowing around the Green, but he is unwilling to cash it in, saying that it either goes to the rightful owner or to a community project. Just beat him over the head and cash it, Fallon – after all, the ATS should surely qualify as a community amenity? Just don’t mention it to Johnny, who, by an almost unbelievable coincidence, has lost a winning scratch card. Failing that, Sgt B could issue a notice and ask anyone who has lost a scratch card to form an orderly queue outside the police station, although I doubt that such a building exists in the village.
Natasha’s analysis of the ATS problem is succinct and full of marketing hype, not to mention clichés, and Fallon is less than impressed. We have heard from Emma how lucky she feels to have a job and with a boss with whom she is good friends. Emma says Fallon knows that she can rely on her – indeed, Emma is more of a partner than an employee.
Natasha has reminded Fallon that “there’s no room for sentiment in business” and Fallon is in a quandary – if she cannot negotiate a continuation in the rent reduction, then it looks very much that it will be ‘goodnight Emma’. Fallon sincerely wishes that Natasha had never stuck her oar in. This is especially true when Natasha recommends that they stop doing the upcycling – a business that is dear to Fallon’s heart, and one in which Sgt Burns invested some money before he and Fallon got together.
Let’s consider for a moment – pre covid 19, there was more than enough work for Fallon and Emma and, should things return to near normal, they will still have the same workload; not enough for two, perhaps, but more than enough for one. And this is ignoring the fact that they supply cakes etc for Ambridge Fresh; Tom and Natasha’s online business. Come on Natasha – cut them some slack; at least for a while – you’re hardly going to have to sell the farm, are you? Sometimes there is room for sentiment in business.
Let us finish where we began, with Brian, who is reflecting on what a successful day it has been. He congratulates himself on a good day’s combining and says that it was a masterstroke to install Alice in the Home Farm office - how he told Adam what a good job she has done, and how it will be good for Alice’s confidence too. He pours himself a drink, saying “I’ve earned this” You can see where Alice gets it from, can’t you?
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