Tomorrow Neil’s chickens will come home to roost; Scott’s won’t be long either.

Radio Times: Scott spins a line.

Characters: Brenda, Clarrie, Eddie, Joe, Neil, Pat, Scott

• The dairy is quiet again, with the radio off after Clarrie has heard Joe’s Jottings; the listeners seem to like his animal stories. Thanks to a fine effort by Tom, there are now 200 boxes ready to be filled for the box scheme. Clarrie is also able to report that Eddie’s latest venture, the garden ornaments, is doing well. He sold a lot at Lower Loxley yesterday. Even that one? Especially that one!
• Eddie is helping Neil prepare for the delivery of 250 speckled hens tomorrow. He is hoping that the electric fence they are erecting will keep the foxes at bay. Next week the Soil Association inspector will be paying a visit. Neil is worried about Emma and wishes she would take more after Brenda, who has stopped briefly for a chat. He doesn’t know the half.
• Scott is late for his rendezvous with Brenda: Lilian is being very clingy. Brenda does not like going behind her back but Scott assures her he will not let things drag on.
• Neil is enjoying a bacon sandwich at Keeper’s Cottage and thinking that he should be preparing one for Eddie after he helped with the chicken run. Payback time comes soon: Eddie wants some help overhauling his tractor. Joe returns from Radio Borsetshire, where he has had lots of “positive feedback”, to find a fan letter. It praises his simple animal stories and contrasts them with some of the nasty things in the world, notably the offensive garden ornaments they came across the other day at a car boot sale.
• Brenda is very important to Scott and he is going to tell Lilian so but he doesn’t want to see her hurt; she is a very lonely, vulnerable woman and she will be devastated. He assures Brenda that she will not have to be patient much longer but she must trust him and not push him any more. Brenda likes him all the more for his caring attitude. She laps it all up as only the besotted can.