Susan is pleased with the dinner for the Aldridges. Lizzie doesn’t want the twins to board next year.

Radio Times: Things get heated at Ambridge View and Elizabeth makes a confession.

Characters: Brian, Elizabeth, Jennifer, Neil, Nigel, Susan

• Susan has lots of last minute things to fret about, and the kitchen looks like a bomb’s hit it. Neil tells Susan to calm down, it’s the Aldridges, not Albert Pierrepoint, and puts on the Three Tenors, as instructed.
• Brian is in good form and the meal is going fine, although Jenny is struggling to find anything to say. She insists on helping Susan clear the table, and then to load the dishwasher, so that’s the blast-damaged kitchen on show. Brian, having praised the vegetable lasagne over the mediocre meals he gets on dining out, prods Neil about CAP reform. Neil, initially hesitant, gets into his stride. He’d like to see it scrapped and a level playing field without bureaucracy restored. They continue putting the world to rights.
• Elizabeth listens to Nigel’s arguments for allotments, help the community, encourage local food production, etc., and relents, he can research further.
• Brian thanks the hosts for a lovely evening, and Jenny asks for the recipe for the anchovy starter, or fish pepper starter thing as she describes it later. Susan thinks it went really well and Neil was fantastic as Brian respects someone who can give as good as he got. Jennifer says it was ghastly, Brian thinks that is nonsense, he had a whale of a time trading arguments with Neil. Still, duty done, they won’t have to sit through another evening like that for a very long time to come.
• Elizabeth tells Nigel she doesn’t want the twins to board next year. Nigel points out they will soon settle in and will gain so much, have so many advantages, and it is a Pargetter tradition. Lizzie insists, they already don’t always know what is worrying their children, so can’t help, and if they send them away she and Nigel will be on the periphery of their lives, and that’s not what being a parent means to her.