Roy reaches breaking point. Brenda finds a role. Caroline puts her plans into action.

Radio Times: Roy gets back to normality.

Characters: Adam, Brenda, Caroline, Hayley, Ian, Mike, Roy

• While Mike and Brenda do the milk round, Hayley cooks breakfast. Mike is touched at her thoughtfulness, but breaks down when he realises the eggs aren’t done as Betty used to do them. Then Roy announces that he’s going into work. Hayley thinks it’s not a good idea, but he’s short with her and leaves without anything to eat.
• At Grey Gables, Ian is looking forward to a belated Christmas dinner with Adam later. He and Caroline are surprised to see Roy. Caroline does her best to persuade him to go home, without success. Once again, Roy is short when faced with any attempt to make him look after himself.
• Ian cooks guinea fowl with a truffle mash for Adam. They drink champagne and open presents. Ian’s heard from an old friend from Northern Ireland, and they decide to ask her to come and stay. Adam realises this is their last evening together for quite a while, now that lambing has started.
• Roy returns home unexpectedly, and almost orders Hayley to wash his shirt for the funeral. He tells her the surgery has got the Post Mortem report, and he needs to go down there. Hayley tries vainly to calm Roy down and to persuade him to let other people share the burden, but he won’t listen and loses his temper with her.
• Caroline has instructed Rodways to put the Dower House on the market, and has ordered Roy to go home. He’s clearly not coping with the job. She rings Ian, asking him to refer Roy back to her if he should contact Ian about the New Year’s Eve arrangements at Grey Gables.
• Brenda discovers Mike in tears. He wants to look his best for the funeral, and when he got his best suit out of the wardrobe, he instinctively turned to ask Betty if it would do. The realisation of his loss has really hit him. Gently, Brenda suggests a shopping trip for the two of them. She’ll make sure he does Betty proud.