Calves at Brookfield develop a cough.

Radio Times: Calves at Brookfield develop a cough.

Characters: Bert, David, Julia, Lizzie, Nigel, Phil, Ruth, Susan

• David’s dreaming of the previous golden age of big red working tractors and lucrative estate contracts as he’s mending some electrics on a clapped out older tractor and having another combat session with his father over the finances. David’s obviously annoyed with Phil’s contined references to the old days while Phil is pleased that David and Ruth are, at last, considering where economies are to come from.
• Lizzie mentions to Nigel that maybe, just maybe, they shouldn’t be too hasty in throwing away the letter from the timeshare company who wanted to buy Lower Loxley, but Nigel doesn’t even want to talk hypothetically. Julia overhears the end of the conversation and is equally forceful in not wanting them to sell the place.
• Meanwhile, Julia took Lizzie’s words that she shouldn’t touch the office computer again to heart. So she’s employing Susan as a secretary to do her typing and expects Nigel and Elizabeth to vacate their office at lunchtime and in the evenings so that she and Susan can work. Nigel is exasperated at her continued spending in the name of economy and Lizzie is willing to think about selling up as much to not have to share a roof (especially not a beetle infected one) with a mother-in-law.
• The contretemps meant that David forgot to check on some of the new calves that Bert was worried about, much later in the day Bert tells Ruth about them and she finally gets Alistair out to come and look at them, suspecting pneumonia, and lays the time wasted squarely at David’s door. He’s excuses himself citing his bustup with Phil, to which Ruth responds that maybe Phil’s right, after all, he has been right (and they wrong) quite a bit recently.