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Listeners' Fantasies |
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Curd World
by Vicky S
 This contribution to the Fantasy Archers topic of neatly treads that difficult line between comedy and pathos.
Hello again to all our Curd World regulars and welcome to any new readers.
It's hard to realise it, but we are now only four issues away from celebrating our third - or should that be curd - birthday! Gavin and I can hardly believe that what started as a small leaflet to keep our loyal customers informed about our own Cheesey Endeavours here on Chedshire Farm, has now grown to be nearly the seventh largest cheese producer's magazine in the entire country. Wow!
As always, many thanks to Sylvie, Gavin's mum, for her sterling word processing and for keeping the mailing list up to date.
In this month's Curd World we have a new feature, "Celebrity Cheese Secrets", where a famous celebrity shares their joy of cheese. Remember Curly, the supermarket manager from Corrie, the one who married Raquelle who of course then went on to be very famous?
Well Curly, or Kevin as he prefers to be known these days, has said he might talk to us soon, but in the meantime our own local 'thesp' Brian Lupin of Ye Chedshire Players Companie has agreed to start us off, see page 2.
Those of us more used to seeing Brian slapping his thighs as Widow Twankey will be surprised at his revelations about the role blue cheese has played in his career.
We also have our usual discussion forum, "Curd's the Word!", a World Cheese Quiz for all the family and of course the rest of the news from the Cheese Making World that so sadly gets ignored by the mainstream media.
On a more serious note many of us have faced the vexed question of what to do with our effluent.
A regular reader and contributor, Helen Archer, owner/manager of Ambridge Organics and sole producer of the highly regarded Mankwold and Sterling ranges, has been 'pond' ering this very problem, and, with the help of another of our friends from the ever helpful cheese fraternity, the lovely Briony Simms, thinks she may have the solution. Over to you Helen! See page 3.
***
Helen re-read the article for the ninth time with a self satisfied smile on her face. On the whole she felt that she had got her points across succinctly.
Of course she'd had to play down the predictable parental attitude towards real environmental change, but reading between the lines, as she was sure many of her cheesemaking friends would do, it was very clear exactly who was the strong yet modest driving force behind Bridge Farm and Ambridge Organics.
And yes, she had been absolutely right to take out Tom's diatribe about supermarkets, it really had sounded woefully like something from a 6th Form debating society, and anyway it had detracted from the main purpose of the whole piece which was about dealing with the effluent from the farm so really about the dairy and Helen, not Tom and pigs.
Tom was so terribly immature. She'd tell him Gavin had blue-pencilled it because of space or something. Anyway, it was about time he learned that not everyone thought that the Tom Archer sausage represented the highest cultural achievement in western civilisation.
Helen thought it was a shame that Curd World had declined to use her photographs - although she could see the lagoons very distinctly in her mind's eye, she sometimes got the feeling that other people, Kirsty for example, didn't, and the photographs of where the lagoons would eventually be might have helped to make things a bit clearer.
It was all the more galling that Briony's existing lagoon pictures HAD been included. After all there was no reason for anyone to think that the Bridge Farm lagoons would look anything like Briony's lagoons. Especially since with the ideas Helen had planned they certainly wouldn't!
Still, she had superimposed her photos over Briony's very carefully and now it was photocopied no one would be able to tell the difference from looking at it in her scrapbook.
Helen smoothed the newly glued page down carefully. The scrapboook was getting full now, almost time to get a new one. She wondered if Susan sold them in the shop.
And then it happened.
The Idea.
Just like that. Immediately. The photos, the article, the scrapbook, her plans. Fused together in a flash of inspiration.
A book. A book about, well, Bridge Farm, her cheeses, her lagoons, the environment, her dreams, her ambitions, her life - parts of it - even a bit about her life with Greg. Or maybe a dedication to Greg would be more appropriate:
Greg, without whom.....
or maybe
Remembering GT Who Changed Everything....
Helen hugged the scrapbook closely. She hadn't felt like this since the night before they opened Ambridge Organics. Thoughts and ideas tumbled wildly through her brain. She laughed gently to herself, then realising that there was no-one to hear her she laughed louder, then louder still as the thought struck her.
Helen Archer, in her own flat, laughing out loud. Helen Archer, a woman with a purpose, in her own flat, laughing out loud.
So she went to the kitchen to find a ginger biscuit, just one, to celebrate.
More
Archers fantasies
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