Team Spirit in Ambridge.

                                          Strong Archer women in the kitchen....why not on the pitch?






At last....after the months of doom, gloom, fear and threats, bloodshed, personality disorders and legal complications The Archers get back to life's real issues, catering, extra-martial affairs and the inclusion of women in the village cricket team.
It's so good to see that there are places for the more mature ladies of this busy community in the areas of catering and extra-marital affairs, but it seems sad that apparently only the very young are being considered for cricket. Think how active Lilian is, in so many ways. Wouldn't she make a great wicket-keeper? Pat, with all her nervous energy, could be darting about all over the place, and Linda....well. Linda could do anything, any time, any where. What a loss of potential talent, and how the team could be revitalised, reorganised, reborn.

But perhaps this is all part of the great plan, and the many over-30 year old females of the cast will emerge in glory to save not only the day, but the weekends and the midweek practice sessions as well? And the men can take a turn at putting the kettle on and making the sandwiches.

I write as one who is not unfamiliar with cricket. At my all-girls' school, long, long ago, we padded up and waddled around the stumps with the best of them, and I spent many peaceful hours skulking near the boundary, watching the gentle play of light on the grass, only very occasionally being woken from my reverie by the yells of class-mates as a red leather ball hurtled past me into the shrubbery.
A peaceful time, unless one had the misfortune to be put in to bat. But then it was usually over very quickly.

Peaceful, but in the hands of skilled script-writers the sort of scenario that could become as fraught with tension and perils as any of the other Archer situations. Perhaps we have it coming? I do hope so, for as Miranda said to Justin last week: "The whole area's so barren. There's a dearth of restaurants, bars, cultures. What do people do all day?"

Play cricket....and watch the play of light on grass? It worked for me.


6th April: I'm glad I got that one right!

Nearly a Year Later........,

The heavy-duty extra-insulated vacuum flask I gave to my elder son the Christmas before last is still working well high in the mountains of Kazakhstan. My younger son, his wife and my two grandchildren are leading a busy life in South West England, and I am still here, appreciating my wood-stove and many other things in Middle England.

I'm not sure what happened a year ago, the point at which a very new grandchild was confirmed to be on his way, but it seemed appropriate to stop blogging and wait to see what happened next. It felt as if things would change for all of us, as indeed they have done.

Grandson was obliging from the start. He was on his way just at the point when I had finished baking for a planned visit to his home the next morning. I was to be there for his birth and luckily I was able to load hot cakes, pies and casserole into the car and set off down the motorway in a warm and fragrant cloud.
"It would be really good if you can come now," said my son. "I don't think we can leave it until morning."
He was so right.

Granddaughter and I had a mostly happy time while we were waiting for her brother, but it took another night and morning before he came home. Not-so-Little E dressed herself with care that morning. She said, "I want to look beautiful, so that Little Brother will like me." She chose football shorts, a tutu as a petticoat, a dress to top it all, and a flowery headband. I thought he would love her from the start.
Things changed, of course .The camper-van has been exchanged for a five-seater family car with a great big luggage space. The music studio has become a nursery. There's a baby gym on the floor again, a pram in the hall, a mountain of washing to be dried, and two cats who realise that just when they thought it was all over.......well, it isn't yet.

Good things, very good things happen, and sometimes it feels as if I'm on a calm(ish) plateau, looking back over my 77 years, and forward into the lives of my sons and grandchildren. Then I find that someone, somehow has hacked into my gas and electrical supplies and tried to change my suppliers.. Oh, how perilous the serenity.

So it's been nearly a year of much significance, of small events, irritations and happiness, and to anyone who revisits here I say thank you, and I've missed you (but I've been reading all the time).