Titcombe reveals the torch that he carries for Mrs Pugsley.

Radio Times: Nigel plays Cupid.

Characters: David, Elizabeth, Jill, Nigel, Ruth, Sam

• Only one week into the school holidays and already the Brookfield children are restless; David thinks they should go back to the good old days when kids were set to work in the fields. Sam encourages Ruth to accompany him to look at the sheep.
• Nigel has been talking to Titcombe and has discovered the reason for his recent distraction: he is in love – secretly devoted to Mrs Pugsley. Now that she is a widow, he can contain his love no longer. Nigel intends to help him pierce her heart with poetry; Elizabeth thinks a meal would be better – and she should know, being a woman.
• The walk allows Sam and Ruth to catch up on a few things – Ed Grundy for example. Sam is full of praise for the way Ruth combines her role as mother and farmer. To provide the children with something to interest them, he suggests a tree-house; he and his sister had one.
• Elizabeth has been talking to an art specialist who thinks that the damaged painting by Uncle Rupert has another underneath by a different artist. They intend to have this checked out.
• David is now in a corner: the kids were so taken with Sam’s idea that he cannot avoid building a tree-house. However, it seems he will have help: Sam has been talking to the children and they want to know in which tree to build it.