14 December 1998

Characters: Clarrie, Eddie, Lizzie, Nigel, Tommy, Tony

• The turkeys are finally hanging in the Grange Farm living room and Clarrie’s already fed up with all the feathers she plucking.
• Pat’s been fussing with Tommy over going out to the Young Farmers do, not just because of drunken idiots on the roads, but because John DJed at last year’s. Tommy, though, is keen to investigate Eddie’s offer of taking up the slack – although Tony warns him off Eddie’s scams.
• Julia’s economising is still infuriatingly, almost unbelieveably, patchy. On the one hand she’s taking buses into Borchester (trying to use a £50 note to pay for her journey which, no matter how exhorbitant the fare, is unwelcome), but on the other, when the bus breaks down she gets a taxi home. Or rather she bumps into Clarrie, who mentions her embroidery, so she asks if Clarrie has any spare material, so the taxi goes via Grange Farm. Of course, she’s run out of cash and, because of the £100 she took from Nigel’s wallet, he has no money to reimburse Eddie for the taxi.
• And even Julia’s debt start to look small as one builder agrees to provide a very rough estimate without going away to cost it properly and comes up with a six figure sum.

Summarised by: Chris Harrison