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Cold Crumpet Farm - Part Four

by Little Dot

(If you're new to the story, start at Part One)

Flora was having trouble deciding which of the many dysfunctional Archers to tackle next. Luckily the decision was made for her when, on the very next morning, she found herself alone in the milking parlour with Phil. She had gone down after breakfast to watch the milking and was impressed by the skill with which Phil handled the cows, communicating far more effectively with these animals than with his own family.

On one hand Flora liked his old fashioned rustic gentleness, but his antiquarian attitudes were holding him, the farm, and the whole family back.

"C'mon me beauties," Phil coaxed, "C'mon Pointless, whoa there Bluebell." "They're very nice, umm, cows," Flora called out to him. "Yes," said Phil proudly, "They're my beauties." "Do they all have names?" Flora leaned on the gate, hesitant to come any closer. "Oh, yes," Phil looked more enthusiastic that Flora had seen him thus far. "This one's Pointless, that there's Bluebell, that one's Clover, this..."

Seeing the size of the herd Flora interupted: "So, which one's your favourite?" "This here," Phil indicated a rather sorry looking cow lurking at the back of the herd. "I call her Graceless," he said sadly, "to remind me..." he trailed off.

Oh dear, thought Flora. It's worse than I thought. Pseudo-insane elderly aunts she could cope with, but fifty-year-old repressed grief was trickier, especially in someone as uncommunicative as Phil. "Have you finished in here, Phil?" she asked. "Yes, Bert's taking them back out to the pasture," he answered. "Good," Flora took his arm. "There's something I want you to see."

In the farm office Flora booted up the computer and connected to the Internet, then she sat Phil down in front of the monitor. "Have you ever been online before?" she asked. "Well, David showed me the site where he bought his cows from and we looked at some photos that Kenton had email, but that's all," answered Phil. "I never really saw the point when you can do it all by post or in person so much more easily."

"Ah," said Flora, "but there are whole communities of people out there who've been through the same sort of things as you, and can understand what you're feeling." Phil hesitated, "I'm not very good at talking to people about my feelings," he said. "That's alright," Flora reassured him. "You don't have to talk, you can just listen in to conversations and contribute if you feel like it."

"Okay," said Phil, "what do I do?" "I've logged you in," answered Flora. "You're called FarmerPhil . If you want to reply to someone click the word 'reply' after their message. I'll leave you to it shall I?" "Alright,"

Phil turned back to the screen. "I like the colour," he said, "it's like a ripe cornfield."

More parodies - from Agatha Christie to Damon Runyon

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