03/12/2025

Joy’s curious to see what Tony’s concocting in his workshop for the tractor run. She’s worried some people aren’t sticking to the Christmassy brief. She’s open to a broad interpretation, but she’d imagined something generally festive. Tony declares his theme is sea creatures – but he can definitely incorporate Christmas. Joy’s anxious; she doesn’t want it all to look random. But Tony thinks it’ll be fun to have some variation. He suggests everyone should relax. It will all work out fine in the end.

Eddie unveils his automatic turkey plucking machine ready for the big day. It looks promising though it makes a bit of a racket. Clarrie has errands to run before they start, and calls in on busy Pat and Tony. Pat notices Clarrie’s arthritis has flared up again and wonders how Clarrie will manage the turkey plucking. Clarrie reports Eddie’s enterprising creation – though she’s not counting her chickens! Sure enough there’s disaster later when the first turkey in the machine gets mangled. Clarrie concludes that they can’t risk ruining all of them – they’ll have to go back to the manual plucking method. Eddie’s deflated. He really wanted to save Clarrie’s hands. However Pat turns up in the nick of time [to save the day]. She rolls up her sleeves, and the plucking starts in earnest. Birds all done, Clarrie expresses her gratitude. Pat’s happy to help. They make a good team, and she misses Clarrie’s presence at Bridge Farm. They might not see one another at work anymore, but they agree they’re still always there for each other.