The village shop subcommittees are decided and Pat avoids having Susan on each one.

Radio Times: Brian gives Pat a lesson in diplomacy.

Characters: Brian, Jazzer, Kathy, Lynda, Mike, Pat, Susan

• The village shop committee meets, or most of them. Lynda tells Kathy that it’s been suggested she replace Derek as Chairman.
• First item, decide who’s on the subcommittees. Susan gets onto the Finance and Business Plan one, insisting she knows most about the shop’s finances, joining Pat, Richard Thwaite the accountant, Usha, and Brian.
• Susan thinks she should be on the Volunteers committee too, with Lynda and Kathy, as she wants to know who she’ll be working with “in my shop” but Pat puts her off with concerns over being thinly spread. When Pat suggests Lynda for the fund raising committee, given her experience, Susan throws a strop. It’s alright for Lynda to be thinly spread, on two committees, but not her? And with Lynda becoming parish council chairman too? It’s as if Pat doesn’t think Susan’s up to it and she’s being kept in her place.
• Pat’s attempt to explain don’t help and it takes a masterful Brian to flatter Susan that all her attention is required on the make-or-break business plan, not rattling collection tins or dealing with volunteers. Doesn’t Pat agree, asks Brian. A grateful Pat does. And Susan thinks it’s fine when “you put it like that”.
• Mike’s banging on about milk round expansion to Jazzer who’s not listening. Thinking he’s hung over he insists on taking him to the Bull for the hair of the dog. It’s there he realises Fallon’s the issue and Jazzer brings him up to date. Mike thinks Jazzer did really well in his response and pushes him again for help on the milk round expansion. Jazzer agrees, at 20% off his previous demands.