Ich Bin Nicht Lesbisch

Alison Dowling (Elizabeth Pargetter)

Elizabeth’s driving Freddie in to school for his geography exam and she’s giving him the third degree about whether he’s revised enough, slept enough, and whether his sister’s done the same. Freddie sticks up for Lily and goes along with her cover story of revising with someone called Meredith, and not bonking the deputy principle. He phones Lily to warn her but she doesn’t sound concerned, but it doesn’t take Elizabeth long to jump to the conclusion that the reason her daughter wants to spend so much time with Meredith is that they’re in a relationship, which Freddie finds hilarious. She later quizzes Jennifer about how she found out about Adam’s sexuality – was it a surprise when he come out or had she already guessed? Jennifer doesn’t ask why she wants to know and doesn’t seem to twig that she might be wondering about one of her children.

After his exam Freddie ‘helps’ Lily with her German revision by testing her vocabulary, and chucks in the phrase ‘eine lesba’. She’s horrified that her mother thinks that she’s a lesbian, but Freddie jokes that it’s the perfect cover as Elizabeth won’t want to intrude. However, no-one Elizabeth knows has heard of Meredith, and Christine and Jim saw Lily with Russ at an art exhibition when she should have been revising. Lily tries to convince her ‘Auntie Chris’ that it wasn’t her and then Christine reasons that it wasn’t as it looked more like a Father and Daughter together! Lily gets embarrassed and makes her excuses when Elizabeth starts talking about how friendships can develop into something more. Later on in the Bull they’re celebrating what would have been Nigel’s birthday, and Freddie keeps the torment going when they reminisce about the gay couple that often used to stay at Lower Loxley. Elizabeth says the business has always been inclusive of the LGBTQ community (the Q standing for Questioning) and Freddie goes on to talk about different kinds of relationships. It’s too much for Lily who shouts loudly for the bill.

Back at the house Elizabeth has a quiet word with her daughter about relationships and how she would support her whatever path she decided to take. Lily finds it excruciating of course, with Freddie giggling behind the door, and Elizabeth tells Lily that her ‘relationship’ with Meredith is fine. She also unwittingly warns her about the perils of getting involved with older men when she talks about her own past relationships. For her part, Lily is happy to let her mother believe that her and Meredith are an item.

Christine’s main storyline is does she or does she not have dementia. She pops over to the stables to collect some old paperwork and Harrison happens to be passing so gives her a lift home, which gives him a chance to make sure she’s alright after last week’s tea-room incident. Later on he confides in Peggy that she seems a bit confused lately, which gives Peggy food for thought, literally, when they’re sharing one of Christine’s quiches. I was expecting her to have left out the eggs, or the pastry, but no, Peggy is complimentary but asks her unsubtle questions about whether she can remember recent events. Chris catches on straight away and is greatly put out that people are openly questioning whether she’s ‘gaga’ or not.

Someone else who has been upset about people’s speculation about them is Alistair, who actually seems to be having a civilised evening with Shula. By coincidence they were both planning to have lasagne and garlic bread for dinner, so Shula offers to cook for them both. They’re having a nice evening, laughing about goat yoga and sharing a bottle of wine, before Shula goes and spoils it by implying she’s having second thoughts about seeking a divorce. Alistair checks, and no, she still doesn’t love him, which causes him to storm out.

Over to the organised chaos that living in Greenwood Cottage is at the moment, and Mia’s suddenly lost interest in playing football. She’s also started to struggle at school and one explanation could be that Poppy’s been sneaking into Mia’s room at night and keeping her awake so is tired all the time, but both Will and Emma have tried talking to her but are getting nowhere. She says she hates football (me too) but can it be that straightforward? Emma and Kirsty think the kid’s got too much on her plate and might be trying to take Nic’s place. I hope the village rota that’s supporting the Grundy’s holds up – that family need a break and I’d hate for any more misfortune to head their way.

Someone I’m happy to see misfortune make a beeline for is Brian Aldridge, and over at Home Farm they’re meeting about the Environment Agency’s latest bombshell. As we predicted last week they’re talking about selling more land, another 300 acres, but this time it will be ‘family’ land, not the recent acquisitions. They identify a parcel of 200 acres and another of 70, but need another 30 acres. The only practical solution won’t be a popular one, as it’s right next to Spiritual Home – and as usual Brian’s putting off delivering the bad news – this time to Kate. She’s been in Arizona learning about the aforementioned goat yoga and also something called ‘healing haircuts’, and Jenny explains about the contaminated groundwater on the way back from picking her up at the airport, but nothing more. Kate still thinks her biggest problem is the drop in business caused by the association with Home Farm’s contaminated land. 

That is until she takes Adam’s flask up to him in the polytunnels and they start talking about the sell off – and the small parcel of 30 acres in particular. Kate’s furious, to put it mildly, that it’s the fields that surround her yurts and goes straight to Brian, only to find out that he’s already shaken on the deal. Brian thinks that she’ll come round to the idea, but I suspect from the tone in Kate’s voice that the contamination will be a distant memory before that happens. And there’s another problemette waiting in the wings – access. Whoever’s going to farm the land will need to get their tractors to it and that would mean crossing Home Farm land. What’s the betting that Spiritual Home itself will be sacrificed and we’ll find Kate chained to a yurt as a bulldozer looms over her?