The disconcerting news from Ambridge – keep it to yourself – is that Helen Archer has decided to cut out the middle man and have artificial insemination.
This led to a good deal of obstetric detail, during which her father tended to leave the room. Admittedly, Helen's boyfriends have verged on the unsatisfactory. One blew his head off, one slept with her stepdaughter and another was a journalist but, as Osgood Fielding III said, "Nobody's perfect." I had some hopes of the new milkman, Harry ("Blond hair, blue eyes, bags of charm"), but Helen was adamant. "I've given up on guys. I want a baby by donor sperm." The feckless girl seems to have given no thought to the future of Sterling Gold, her prize-winning unpasteurised cheese, which we all enjoyed so much.
A close runner-up for the village gossips is an outbreak of dogging in the memorial gardens. Alan, our with-it vicar, is mortifying the flesh by sleeping rough for Lent ("I am planning to spend it under canvas in aid of Refugee Support International.") His wife, though Hindu, loyally tried to join him and brought a lilo. Blowing this up involved a certain amount of panting, which attracted the attention of Ambridge's idle youth. Disturbed by their helpless giggles and cries of "Oh, darling!", Usha went home.
Sometimes I seem to have wandered into a parallel rural universe.
Pip's new boyfriend, Jude ("I'm studying web design. It's where it's at"), came to tea. David, unwisely addressed as Dave, lowered his horns and pawed the ground ("Biscuits! He's not royalty!"), which led me to wonder what kind of biscuits I should offer the Queen if she ever drops in. Bonios, possibly. You'd think it impossible to eat a Garibaldi through gritted teeth, but Dave did it.
It's all been rather sexual this week, I'm afraid, Mildred. Something to do with the spring equinox, I expect.
This month's made-up-on-the-spur-of-the-moment old country saw: "Doan 'ee stand there like a spare pole on Mayday."
