Green Fields

Here are the kiddies at David and Tab's country house above Bath spa. Photo taken before dinner to catch the fading sun and believe-you-me there was some bribery involved - no photo? no desert! Finally Madeleine decides enough and off she goes followed by everybody else in one, disorganised charge.
So I am listening to The Archers as I write, and as often with the Archers, I have no general understanding of what the hell is going on. It is nice back-ground noise, you see - like Chopin. The Archers a radio program which airs on BBC Radio 4 as it has done since piloting May 29, 1950 - making it the world's longest running radio soap with more than 15,000 episodes broadcast (originally billed as an "everyday story of country folk"). Since 1998 there have been six episodes a week from Sunday to Friday, at around 19:02 (preceded by a news bulletin). All except the Friday evening episode are repeated the following day at 14:02. The last five years has seen scandal as the Archers have taken on abortion, infidelity and homosexuality ("the gays" they say here). I think most find its regularity soothing - like a nice bowl of bran cereal. This is one thing very English, and nobody can take it away from the old-age-pensioner nor the yuf having recently discovered the programming's charm.
The kids back to school this morning, and of course home-work left until last-minute including a book report for Madeleine. I mean, I procrastinated in college and recall a few unpleasant all-nighters and mediocre outcomes at Brown but, seriously, Eitan and Madeleine too young to put things off so. Each upset when we order their work to! be! done! and Madeleine reports on "Six Dinner Sid" which has been a staple in our house for like five years, ie, not particularly challenging. The book about a cat who canoodles six dinners from six families. Still, she goes at it with determination and tongue jutting out from the right-side of mouth like Charlie Brown. I ask for at least five pages - "five pages! Aw, dad - I cannot even read five pages" and settle for one+a picture of Sid with his food-bowls. Madeleine concludes, in writing: "Six Dinner Sid is a lovely book that I like and so will you!!!"