- Gary nearly burnt the house down
- How was Neil’s Christmas?
- Susan convinces Bert
- Jill isn’t sentimental
- Debbie hasn’t won friends at Brookfield
Gary nearly burnt the house down
Seems he was cooking sausages when the phone rang. Susan later arrives to find the house stinking of smoke, and her dad trying to clean the burnt pan.
[Susan] “If you’ve got a frying pan on the stove, you don’t leave the room!”
Is Gary useless, or is he special?
[Susan] “I don’t know dad, you and Gary, you need someone to look after you full time”
Bert isn’t even sure if he’s had breakfast yet. So Clarrie does him some toast, while buttering him up for her crafty plan to be rid of Tracey and her kids.
How was Neil’s Christmas?
Asks Jill.
[Neil] “I’ve had more relaxing times with a yard full of hungry weaners!”
Susan convinces Bert
[Susan] “The point is, Tracey would like to stay in the village, not least so she can carry on looking after you and Gary, you’re not making much of a fist of looking after yourselves, are you? …What we thought was, wouldn’t it make sense for the Tracey and the kid to move into here”
[Bert] “Here … there isn’t room … there’s only the one bedroom spare”
Susan rightly points out that he and Ivy managed to bring up 6 Horrobins in the same house. And she tells him of Neil’s plan to turn the dining room into Bert’s bedroom, with the pantry as an en suite.
[Bert, horrified] “In the pantry!”
But he does see the sense in Tracey moving in. For his and Gary’s sake, as well as meaning Tracey can live back in Ambridge.
[Susan] “Be best coming from you, dad”
Neil’s happiness now depends on Bert convincing Tracey. Susan tells Neil:
[Susan] “I don’t think he’s all that keen on having Brad and Chelsea there … Dad reckons she’s not going to happy swapping this house for no. 6”
Not a very confident start.
Jill isn’t sentimental
She’s at Brookfield seeing a rather depressed David and Ruth.
The Environmental Agency has been in to examine the slurry lagoon. While they’ve confirmed that the lagoon has sufficient capacity to comply with new regulations, they’re also saying that it will need to be relined.
Which will cost a cool £20,000.
Or, Brookfield cold get a whole new system, involving a tank and a new way of dealing with waste water. But that would cost about the same amount.
But it’s all academic. Either which way they go, Brookfield doesn’t have £20,000. And with their current balance sheet, they might struggle to get a bank loan.
[David] “If those damn badgers hadn’t chosen to start their excavations now, we wouldn’t have had to do anything for a couple of years”
And now that Brookfield is on the radar of the Environmental Agency (who weren’t chuffed that their NVZ records were behind), they can expect a lot more checking and potential interference.
Jill remembers that Phil had problems with the lagoon. He used local clay to fix it, but seems it’s now deemed “insufficiently impermeable”.
[Ruth] “There’s no way we can do a DIY job on this one, I’m afraid”
[David] “I’m seriously wondering whether it’s worth it … should we cut out losses and sell the herd”
[Ruth] “It’s absolutely a last resort,. And it would break my heart … Brookfield without a dairy herd. What would Phil say?”
[Jill] “I think Phil would understand. He trusted your business sense … well, we can’t afford to be sentimental, can we?”
[Ruth] “I’m praying it doesn’t have to come to that. there’s got to be another way”
Debbie hasn’t won friends at Brookfield
Jill was telling Ruth and David that Debbie and Elizabeth have made up (and retold that they’d fallen out 9 years ago because Elizabeth knew about Brian and Siobhan’s affair).
[David] “So, if I wait for another 8 years, maybe Elizabeth will consider speaking to me again?”
Ruth is not a big fan of Debbie at the moment:
[Ruth] “So, she turns up here last night, and says I hear you might be going out of dairy, so would you like to reconsider our offer. As if supplying fodder to this glorified milk factory would in some way compensate for the loss of our precious cows. I mean, how insensitive can you get!”
