Ken and
Deirdre return from Portugal and get down
to the business of burying Blanche. Deirdre's
snapping at Ken for going through
Blanche's things before she feels up
to it and when Ken finds an envelope with ?Open in the event of my
death' on it, in Blanche's drawer, she feels like Ken's taking
matters into his own hands. But once
she's had a fag, a cuppa and another cry, she apologises to
Ken. "I'm
sorry
for being a right
cow," she says. Well,
someone's got to take after Blanche. Deirdre opens the letter and
reads Blanche's instructions for making her
funeral the best it can be.
Unfortunately
for Deirdre,
Blanche's wish
list includes a
pipe band and all manner of bizarre and wonderful
things.
Fortunately
for Deirdre,
there's a second list with cheaper
options. She thought
of everything, that Blanche.
The funeral
goes smoothly with May Pen leading the delegation from the 1o'clock
club who've arrived with high hopes of a good day out with their
tartan flasks of hot tea.
Norris, Ken,
Peter, Dev, Ashley and Roy are Blanche's pollbearers of choice
although Norris tries to
get out of the task, blaming his
sciatica. Archie
Shuttleworth's on duty,
as you'd expect, Deirdre gets through a lot of fags and there's
tears at every turn. As the crowd
prepare to go into the church, Audrey arrives and
offers Deirdre a valium, just in case. Deirdre
declines it, saying she needs to have her wits about
her. But when
Tracy Barlow arrives, handcuffed to her prison warder, fresh out of
jail, Steve turns to Audrey: "Did I hear
you say summat about a valium?" he says.
The eulogy's
lovely, with Deirdre doing her best to get through her speech,
dedicated to "my mother" through her
tears. The Andrew
Sisters are belting out on the CD: ?Accentuate the Positive? but as
the mourners file out after the service,
Tracy loses her
cool and has a go at Becky over little
Amy. As Blanche's
coffin is lowered into the grave, Deirdre declines throwing ashes to
ashes, dust to dust and places yellow freesias on her mum's grave
instead. She later
takes more cream
coloured freesias to Blanche's room in a
vase. And so to the Rovers as the
ladies from the 1o'clock club help themselves to free food and stuff
sausage rolls into their handbags. Blanche would
have been proud. And finally,
a toast proposed by Ken to which everyone raises their glass: "To
Blanche".
Elsewhere in the Street, Norris natters on
to anyone who'll listen about his narrow escape from death at Mary's
hands in the country cottage. No-one cares, or wants to know, they
think Mary's perfectly normal. Ah, what little do they know. "Don't
turn me into a stalker" warns Mary to Norris when he tells her to
leave him alone.
In the Rovers,
Dawn the social worker pays Steve
and Becky a visit to assess their suitability
for adopting a
child. Becky gets a
make-under from Claire, wearing dull clothes, combing her hair and
putting her bra straps away. It doesn't fool the social
worker and
finally the McDonalds come clean about their past life of crime,
drugs, time inside and other shenanigans they've both been
through. So desperate
are the agencies for people to
adopt, the McDonalds are through to the next ring of the
game.
And Eddie and
Anna Windass have a visit from their social
worker regarding
their plan to adopt. They're
hoping for the same
friendly social worker as the one
who visited Becky and Steve but instead get a hatchet-faced harridan
called Hilary. Not even Eddie's three layer
chocolate cheesecake can woo this one, she's diabetic and refuses
the cake. "He's
half-Delia, half-Mick Hucknall," Anna
chirps. But Eddie rises to the
challenge and tells Hilary that next time she comes round, he'll
bake her a special diabetic-recipe cake, news which fair puts a
smile on her face.
There's a
World Cup footy storyline taking shape. Trevor's got some tickets
but the wives and girlfriends, for it is they, won't allow his mates
to go. So now he's trying to get some of the local lads to buy the
tickets and get a party together to head to
South
Africa later this
year. So far, there's Steve, Ashley, Peter and Tyrone in for the
deal but they're keeping it quiet from the females for now. "Not a
word to the ladies," Steve advises. What a bunch of
wusses.
In the Rovers,
Kirk arranges a second date with Izzy. He
borrows
David Platt's shirt
and sits with sweaty armpits as he chats Izzy up in the
pub.
And in other news this week, Sean decides to
search for his son, Dylan and pokes Dylan's mum Violet on
facebook.
Coronation Street
writers this week were Peter Whalley, Mark Wadlow, Jayne Hollinson
and Damon ?I buried Blanche Hunt? Rochefort and Chris
Fewtrell.
Find out
more about the
Coronation
Street writing
team.
http://coronationstreetupdates.blogspot.com/2008/11/exclusive-all-current-corrie-writers.html
Glenda
Young
--
Blogging away merrily at http://flamingnora.blogspot.com