Is Helen, at last, experiencing green shoots with regard to Rob? Fallon may well be having a change of heart.

Radio Times: Helen receives a surprise call, and PC Burns becomes a bit of a hero.

Characters: Elizabeth, Fallon, Harrison, Hayley, Helen, Rob, Roy, Ursula

• At Blossom Hill, Helen takes a call intended for Rob. It’s his mother, Ursula. She clearly had no idea who Helen was and when told that she was Rob’s fiancée and lived there, was suitably shocked. Helen was taken aback that Rob had not mentioned a word of her existence to his mother. Ursula asks that Helen tells Rob she has phoned. A sure fire certainty I would think.
• Haley is pitching her ideas for a children’s area at Loxfest to Elizabeth. She finds them rather unexceptional, and suggests rather more physical amusements. Roy breezes in, he had not expected to find Elizabeth at her desk and the emotional temperature drops by an almost imperceptible single degree. Roy and Haley leave to get Abbey ready for her ballet test. Roy closes the door on Elizabeth, who breather a heartfelt sigh of relief.
• Harrison calls in at Jaxx to check that his flowers had arrived for Fallon and to offer an apology and an explanation for the other night. Fallon won’t hear of it and tells him to “push off”. He pleads for just five minutes to put his case and his reasons for letting her down.
• Rob is home with stories of a cow with a retained placenta. After mentioning that Tina seems to be finding her feet very quickly, Helen wastes no time in turning to Ursula’s call. Following a brief awkward moment, Rob says that of course he was going to tell his mother of Helen, but at the right time, so that she wasn’t stressed and Helen’s position was not prejudiced right from the beginning. Helen replied, a little less convincingly than usual, that Rob knew best.
• Fallon puts five minutes on the clock for Harrison to explain his no-show. He does. A six year old child had gone missing and he just had to reply to the all hands on deck call. If his job and its responsibilities are too much for her, he will understand. A little later, Harrison offers some careers advice. Forget managing a bar, play to your strengths, make a business out of managing ‘Vintage’ events – perhaps something like tea and cakes at The Bull when they show the Wimbledon finals.
• At home, while he is checking his work emails, Haley asks Roy if all is well at work as there seemed to be an awkwardness between him and Elizabeth when he walked in. Is he being overworked? Roy reckons that Elizabeth may be feeling the strain of running Lower Loxley on her own. Hayley suggests he takes on a more hands on role with her. Meanwhile he should put his iPod away and come over and give her a cuddle.