A refusal often offends.

Radio Times: A refusal often offends.

Characters: Clarrie, Eddie, George, Julia, Lizzie, Nigel, William

• Thanks to Clarrie’s earnings, Grange Farm is just over the limit for family credit and the morning gets worse for Clarrie when the phone rings – it’s William headmaster to say that he’s not at school again today. His parents go off searching for him at Grey Gables, knowing he’d be up there helping with the keepering. He starts off by trying to pretend it’s an official day off, but when he realises he’s been rumbled he kicks off with his old routine about not needing an education. In private Eddie almost sees his point, but Clarrie certainly doesn’t and Eddie carts him off to school. Meanwhile George has appeared, knowing nothing about the situation (William had been helping Carl), but Clarrie tears him off a strip for encouraging the boy. It won’t happen again, though – she’s grounding him!
• The workman arrive at Lower Loxley and start erecting the scaffolding and Julia is most unimpressed at the disruption to her creativity. Lizzie’s more concerned with her forthcoming art exhibition but, thus far, no events have cancelled. Later, she admits to Nigel that she’s having trouble getting the money together for the next installment on her debt – due next month. It seems that the dirt she had on her friend Mercedes wasn’t worth a particularly large loan and she’d been banking on the thought that she’d have written enough of her novel to receive an advance. Nigel, though, is unmoved, he’s adamant that Julia is on her own and will have to find the balance herself.