Usha tells Ruth a few home truths. Bert looks to the future.

Radio Times: The penny drops for Usha.

Characters: Bert, David, Emma, Hayley, Phil, Ruth, Usha

• Phil calls at Brookfield, where he’ll lend a hand during Ruth’s ‘visit to a college friend’. When David suggests they should retire Bert on economic grounds, Phil’s taken aback and Ruth thinks they shouldn’t act too rashly. But then Bert shows up for work, with a terrible cough.
• Hayley confides to Emma that she’s worried about not becoming pregnant. She stopped taking the pill a year ago, without telling Roy, and she doesn’t know how to tell him this. Emma hasn’t much advice to offer, other than seeing a doctor.
• David follows Bert down to the ewes, and seizes the moment. Isn’t it time Bert slowed up a bit? To his great surprise, Bert agrees; Freda has already got their retirement planned, and he’ll be happy to go at Christmas. Meanwhile, David sends him to work indoors.
• Usha calls at Brookfield to see Ruth, and meets David, who says Ruth is off to see her college friend tomorrow. Usha immediately realises what is going on, and goes to find Ruth, just missing catching the guilty pair in the middle of a cowshed clinch. When Sam has gone, Usha rounds on Ruth, and tells her not to be such a fool; she’s throwing a good marriage away, and the children may well turn against her. But Ruth won’t listen. She loves Sam and he loves her. She just doesn’t care about anything else, and she’s going to Oxford with him tomorrow.