- Where’s Darrell been ‘til one in the morning?
- Tom drops a ‘no cow’ clanger
- Pip, the lamb killer
Where’s Darrell been ‘til one in the morning?
And he didn’t call Elona. So she waited up.
He eventually turned up looking like he’d been in an accident.
At first, he wouldn’t say where he had been out to:
[Elona] “Answer me, where have you been!?!”
Then he claims he was out drinking with some mates, who Elona wouldn’t know.
[Elona] “Where can you drink round here until one o’clock … Something’s not right … it’s not okay to lie to me, Darrell.”
Hmmm.
Was he letting that dodgy Des into Home Farm’s outbuildings?
Tom drops a ‘no cow’ clanger
Tom has had a new idea.
It’s a whopper.
[Pat] “Sell the herd? Are you out of your mind?”
[Helen] “Wow, I didn’t see that coming Tom.”
[Tony] “Is this a wind up?”
[Tom] “I’m not suggesting we shut down the dairy business …”
[Pat] “Well, that’s big of you …”
[Tom] “My idea would mean expansion of our dairy lines because we’d have more time.”
[Tony] “It’s bonkers.”
[Helen] “Where’s this come from?”
[Tony] “The back of a matchbox!”
Phew … let’s take a wee break there.
Tom has decided that they get rid of their dairy cows, and buy the milk in. He reckons he thought of it when Tony had his heart attack.
[Tony] “You’re using the excuse of my heart attack to slip in another hair brained idea!”
[Tom] “I know it’s huge but it hasn’t come from nowhere. I’ve thought it through, painstakingly.”
[Pat] “And all to suit yourself.”
Mais non … Tom claims he’s doing it for Helen, Henry and his forthcoming *shudder* kids.
[Tony] “Well, I hope they give you as many grey hairs as you’ve given me over the years.”
[Pat] “It really worries me that you can think about something so painstakingly, and the result is so bafflingly stupid.”
[Tom] “It’s okay Helen. They’re only being so defensive because it’s a lot to take in.”
[Tony] “Don’t talk to me and your mother like that!”
[Pat] “It’s you who needs to state your case. We’re a dairy farm, for heaven’s sake, we breed cows, how can we call ourselves that if there aren’t any … You just can’t be bothered with them, that’s the truth. You’ve just never had a feeling for them.”
[Tom] “Look, can you stop sniping for one minute. You want to hear my reasons, but you won’t even let me get to first base … The milking becomes this massive burden … you’ve heroically taken on some afternoons again … it's just so constraining … it eats up my time .. time I could use much more productively.”
[Tony] “What’s more productive than producing milk?”
[Tom] “Others can produce it, dad.”
[Pat] “That’s absurd. You want us to sell our best asset and buy in what we’ve just lost!”
So, Tom reckons they buy in just the right amount of milk they need. So less wastage. And by buying in, they can take advantage of milk prices, than be held hostage to them.
[Pat] “Where’s the authenticity. We lose all out integrity if we start buying in from goodness knows where.”
[Tony] “It would be a deceit. We’d be falsely promoting it as Ambridge Organics when it isn’t.”
[Pat] “Bit what about customer trust … we’ve just won it back after the E.coli.”
[Tom] “I don’t think people care as much as you do.”
So. No cows. No feed bills. No vet bills. No wages for dairymen.
[Tony] “No farm, in fact!”
[Helen] “It would free us up to produce more though.”
[Tom] “And instead of milking, I could be out there …”
[Pat] “Oh don’t tell me, conquering new worlds … I hate it, I just hate it!”
[Tony] “I'm still naïve enough to see myself as a farmer, not a business man.”
[Tom] “Look you have to plan a few steps ahead in business, faming, and that sometimes means thinking the unthinkable. It’s called vision.”
[Helen] “I think it was brave of Tom to bring us the idea.”
[Tony] “I wish he’d kept it to himself.”
Later on, Helen has a word with Tom alone. He reckons he should have discussed his idea with her first.
[Tom] “I just assumed you’d be against it.”
Though Helen was at least open to his idea, she reckons she hasn’t made her mind up either way.
[Helen] “It’s a lot to take in, Bridge Farm with no cows … whatever we decide, we should be a team, you and I. It’s not just you against the world, Tom.”
Oh Helen – side with Pat and Tony.
Tom’s an idiot, and will ruin everyone if he’s left to get his own way.
Pip, the lamb killer
[David] “Well, well, what do you know. The party animal slinks home.”
Pip’s tired and hungover, so David starts shouting at her to make her feel even worse.
[Pip] “Dad, you’re being weird.”
David asks her if she did properly check the ewes and the lambs yesterday. Pip claims she did.
[David] “And is that the live ones or the dead ones?”
I didn’t pick up on this yesterday, but the ewe’s lamb were dead, as well as the ewe itself.
Horrible.
[David] “You could have saved those two lambs if you’d checked them properly yesterday morning … The problem was you cared more about your social life than our animals.”
David reckons that the ewe must have been suffering for days, and the lambs starved to death.
[David] “You call yourself a stock woman! … Your carelessness is costing us money, Pip. Your mother and I are so disappointed in you.”
So … will dead lambs make Pip get to work?
Probably not.
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