At Home Farm Adam and Ruairi are confident everything’s going well in Brian’s absence, when Adam gets a call from Xander’s school saying he may have broken his wrist. Then Ruairi calls Alice in a panic, telling her his tractor’s on fire. Unimpressed Alice heads to Home Farm and has a dig at him over his lack of farming experience. Confident Ruairi is undaunted, claiming he will be ready to take over as manager within a couple of years. Alice reckons he’s mad to think Adam will just retire gracefully when it suits Ruairi, who then reveals Brian has promised him the running of the farm one day. Alice counters that she’s been promised the same thing. Back at the Office Alice and Ruairi tell Adam about the promises Brian has made. Adam’s put out, maintaining he’s best qualified to run Home Farm but hasn’t been promised anything. What the hell is Brian playing at?
Tracy tells Jolene that Brad and Zainab have tracked down three of Oliver’s foster children to invite to his surprise birthday buffet. She’ll check with Oliver that he hasn’t made any other arrangements. Talk turns to George and Tracy offers to deal with Emma if she complains about him being barred. Later Oliver returns Tracy’s call saying he can’t face doing anything for his birthday, but Tracy quickly informs him that he’s coming to The Bull on Saturday for a whisky with her. Later though, Oliver rings back to cancel that plan – he’s booked a flight to New York to see his daughter instead.