Kate’s feeling stifled and the end is nigh for Lizzie.

Radio Times: Sunday is the day.

Characters: Hayley, Kate, Lizzie, Nigel, Roy, Shula

• Nigel’s worried about Lizzie’s condition – both mental and physical – and Shula thinks that someone actually talking through the concerns with her, rather than avoiding them, might help. She visits her and they discuss the village news – Pip’s part as Mary in the nativity play and the debut of the new bells the weekend after next. While she’s there Lizzie has another turn, which is precisely why she’s in hospital!
• Roy’s worried about Kate, although Hayley doesn’t think she’s suicidal like a few years ago, she agrees that Kate’s mind is elsewhere even if Phoebe has brough out the responsible side that no-one knew existed. He pops in on Kate who is in a distinctly philosophical mood, citing a story by Sylvia Plath, “The Bell Jar”, in which the main character feels that she views life through a glass wall living in a jar with stale air, and that the trip to Morocco took her out and let her breathe free again. Only now she’s returned to confinement. She even feels Phoebe to be on the wrong side of the glass. Roy wants to help and she leaps at his offer to take Phoebe for a couple of days.
• Lizzie’s to undergo a caesarian section on Sunday morning, which has further loosened her sense of control on the process, but Nigel’s more concerned that the babies are born healthy – with a healthy mother and they’ll be proud parents by Sunday lunchtime!