There is a slight Vladimir/Estragon energy radiating from Justin and Jim these days, as they grumpily volunteer in the village shop together. Jim has been drawing rather pompously on the Black Panthers and Gandhi for his programme of resistance against the proposed electric-car charging station on the land that Brookfield Farm recently sold; he staged a weird protest from the chintzy B&B bedroom of Brookfield itself (online videos, a banner hung out of the window, nothing achieved save a subtle advert for Leonard’s interior-design skills). The pros of the electric-car charging station are, broadly, saving the planet, the cons, that it might involve the arrival of “retail units” and, shiver, a Costa (unnamed, but surely implicit in the phrase “chain coffee shop”). The twist is that the secret purchaser of the land is, in fact, Justin, or rather his mysterious private-equity company Damara, Borsetshire-wide symbol of capitalism at its most devouring. Jim isn’t going to be pleased. At all.
Paul, the veterinary nurse, who has teetered on the brink of being “too gay for Ambridge” during his placement at Alistair and Jakob’s practice, organised his own leaving do: an afternoon in an escape room. Ambridge itself is a kind of escape room, though even harder to leave. Still, Clarrie and Susan had a good go this month (“our Thelma and Louise moment”) when they went off to a festival without telling their husbands. They also returned safely to Ambridge – a missed opportunity for them to have a one-night-stand with Brad Pitt before driving themselves off the Grand Canyon.
Your who-lives-where spreadsheet will need updating: Lily Pargetter is moving from Lower Loxley (“the pile”) to the Stables in a houseshare with Josh Archer, soon to be joined by Paul, who’s not leaving after all. Brian is departing Willow Cottage for Blossom Hill Cottage. The latter is a house of fairly ill-repute (though obviously not in that way) since it’s where Helen Archer stabbed Evil Rob Titchener. This is Brian’s fresh start after his wife Jennifer’s death – a fresh start that has also involved giving away most of her clothes to a Women’s Institute bring-and-buy sale. It seems a bit soon, everyone protested feebly. After all, the scent of the beloved person lingers in the folds of a scarf long after she has died; a leather glove still holds the shape of the much-mourned hand; an old love letter might fall out of a coat long consigned to the back of the wardrobe. “They are just things,” said Brian. But are they?
