Birthdays and The Archers

I have been listening to the Archers for more than 40 Birthdays now.  I'm probably an Archers Addict (there is a club but I'm not a member).  Increasingly, I have thought that the one of the writers must live in my home town, as little excerpts of my life, funny things I've read in the local paper or conversations I've overheard in the pub slip into the odd episode and I have found myself identifying with Lynda Snell.

If you haven't heard the Archers then let me describe Lynda to you.  She is an interfering busy body, who inspires love and hate in equal measures but whatever you think about her she certainly gets things done.  Even the actress who plays her doesn't like her very much.  She says of her, "Lynda's deeply deluded, big on self-regard, low on self-awareness, has no sense of humour and a deep-down insecurity"

Lynda Snell - a woman who knows about beige cardigans

However, I quite like her.  They're wrong about her sense of humour I'm sure.  It's just a dry wit.  You only had to hear her discussing the possiblity of menopause with Vicky Tucker to realise that. It turned out that Vicky was pregnant and obviously as she was old then her baby was born with Down's Syndrome.  Lynda likes gardening, is still regarded as an outsider even though she moved from Sunningdale in 1986, she has Llamas called Wolfgang, Contance, Sallieri (Mozart references), she puts on great shows in the village and keeps her husband under the thumb.  She has her finger on the pulse of everything cultural.  Grayson Perry (real person, although does his best to appear like a character) loves her and was very excited when she campaigned to get someone from Ambridge on the 4th Plinth.

This week she was banging on about Jane Austen and I was just waiting to hear some of my own recent rants.  I didn't hear any because she only wanted to have a Christmas Production of readings from Jane Austen, which I agree with everyone else would be amazingly dull but this week I was ranting that Alexander McCall Smith had been asked (by whom I'm not sure) to re-write Emma.  I know that Lynda would agree with me that this is absured.  Emma was perfectly well written by Jane Austen in the first place and the character wouldn't 'benefit being handled by a man'  I'm in favour of great literature inspiring others to write and Jane Austen has already inspired too many to mention (just as Shakespeare has) but it is a bit patronising for people to be asked to re-write her books.

I don't know how Lynda Snell spends her birthdays, when her birthday is or how old she is meant to be.  I like to think that she has an October birthday because all the best people are born in October and that like me she knows that age is just a number and has picked one she likes and stuck with it.  I am 42 and always will be, although I did like my son's suggestion that I was 40 plus VAT.  I expect Lynda is far too busy to stop and have a birthday.  She has to run Grey Gables almost single handedly, save the badgers, walk the footpaths to make sure Brian Aldridge hasn't blocked them again, find a cast for her latest production, remove the pollen from her garden and go to parish council meetings.

Today,  I turned down lunch with my mum (sorry mum) because I, like Lynda, was just too busy.  It was my own fault.  I had enjoyed the nice weather and been to the allotment, dug too much and then been unable to move over the weekend and so today (even though it's a day off) I simply had to do some work.  I have no lessons planned for this week and that is a dangerous position to be in in a class assembly week.

The problem is, I'm not like Lynda.  I'm not nearly as organised.  It was another sunny day.  I was in a good mood.  I had my hair cut, walked the dog, read lots of book (books are the greatest part of a birthday I think), and made myself a birthday cake.  It is the custom to take cakes into work for your birthday and so I decided to make myself a big cake to take in tomorrow.  An allotment cake seemed the obvious choice and I had so much fun doing it.  I kept thinking things like, "Oo, I could make strawberries.....no.....they're out of season."
It took me all day and it was great fun.  I don't think I've had a better birthday in years.

Allotment Cake inspired by Fiona Cairns - the Royal Wedding Baker

Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day at work.  I wonder how the children will respond if I say, "I'm sorry that I have nothing planned for today's lesson and I haven't marked last week's work but it was my birthday and so I made cake but you can't have any because I put it in the staff room at 8.30 and it was all gone by 11!" ?