Owing to a dog that ate a sock, Alistair the vet and Denise the veterinary nurse spent 25 December performing emergency canine surgery. They missed Christmas lunch altogether. During the post-op fag and packet of brussels sprout crisps (OK I invented the fag, hardly anyone smokes in Ambridge with the exception of Lilian and maybe Bert Horrobin), Denise admitted, finally, that she and her husband are “having issues”, and, fateful words, “leading separate lives”. And so the way is left relatively clear for her romance, please god, with Alistair, who in his unspoken way utterly adores her. Though the fact that she and Alistair and her son Paul will all be working at the veterinary surgery will make an office romance an interesting prospect.
Talking of romance on the horizon for recovering addicts, Alice has told Rory Stewart, I mean Harry Chilcott, that she is an alcoholic. He’s been awfully understanding, and at the same time awfully patronising to Alice’s ex-husband, Chris, whom he employed to shoe his horse as a wildly overelaborated ruse to chat to him, man to man, about Alice. Despite being officially one of the hottest men in Ambridge (the other contender at this time being vet Jakob, at mention of whom Usha practically melted with desire), and despite, given his status as farrier, having little to worry about in the realm of masculinity, Chris became so unhinged as a result that he bought his and Alice’s daughter – Martha, not yet three – a pony for Christmas. Call me Dr Freud, but I think he’s trying to outhorse Horsey Harry.
Lilian has seemingly chucked Justin for his betrayal of her in the matter of the auction of 10 acres of Grange Farm land. In the event neither Justin nor Brian, the twin titans of Ambridgean capitalism, managed to outbid a mystery woman on the phone. In these cases one always suspects the malign influence of Hazel Woolley, or maybe it’s Julianne, Ruairi Donovan’s much older lover/employer, come to build an executive home out of the old barn. Or maybe it’s the mysterious The Owners of Grey Gables, or let’s face it, Les Soeurs Heureuses themselves for all I know.
Dramatically, Stella declared Jill Archer’s lemon drizzle cake a touch on the dry side, an act akin to desecrating Brookfield Farm’s household gods. Jill, the undisputed matriarch of Ambridge, now that Peggy is silently tottering off to the Laurels care home, binned the rest in a rage. I’m surprised she didn’t tear the whole farm down with her bare hands.
Jill’s gentleman friend, Leonard, says he likes nothing better than sitting down to listen to a good radio drama. What must he think of The Archers?
