One way or another it’s all about the land this week in Larky. Whether or not you can leave it behind, what you can produce from it, and what goes on in the bramble patch. The appearance in Candleford of Candleford’s very own policeman, who everyone seems thoroughly familiar with despite never have seen or spoken of him before this week, gives a clue to who will be at the heart of the drama. Yes, it’s PC Paterson. Also known as Cabbage. And his wife, who is on her seasonal deathbed.

“Seasonal” in that it comes round every year at around the time of the Candleford Harvest Festival and its attendant vegetable competition. Cabbage Patterson is wedded not only to his wife but also to his vegetables, and therein lies the problem. She’s a bit sick of vegetables. Not only eating them, but having to talk about them 24×7. So she takes to her bed in an effort to seduce some of her husband’s attention from the garden.

She fails. Instead he walks into the Pratts’ shop on hearing them attacking their latest murine intruder, takes one look at Pearl (whom he has presumably seen every day of his working life up until now) and falls instantly in lust. Perhaps it was her poker-wielding abilities that attracted him. Whatever the reason, a steady stream of vegetables and the odd dahlia begins to arrive at the shop. Ruby tucks in heartily but Pearl knows there’s an ulterior motive. Only she’s misinterpreted the object of Cabbage’s admiration. What was once distaste turns very quickly to reciprocation as Pearl takes a walk in the woods with Cabbage. A walk which turns into a romp in the brambles.

Meanwhile Alf Arless, who has learnt to read in a week, spots the poster announcing the vegetable competition and remembers his ma used to grow White Elephants in their garden. That’s a potato variety, in case you were thinking you could grow large and useless objects only fit for a bring-and-buy sale. Amazingly, the potato crop is still in good shape, despite not having been tended for an entire season and being completely choked with weeds and grass. Strictly speaking Alf isn’t allowed to trespass in the garden any longer, since he doesn’t live in the old house now, but that doesn’t stop him tidying up the garden lickety-split. This comes to the attention of Cabbage Patterson, but fortunately for Alf the plod has been mellowed by his brambling activities and treats Alf’s trespass as nothing more than healthy competition for his own heart-stoppingly large growths.

Mrs Cabbage notices her husband walking out with Miss Pearl on several occasions and instantly recovers from her deathbed, walks around her garden reminiscing in her nightdress for a few minutes and then sets off to have a pointed conversation with Miss Pearl. This being Candleford, everything is resolved amicably with a great deal of nodding and looking askance, and talking obliquely about “returning things which are yours and expecting you to do likewise.”

Alf’s experiences in his garden and the sight of his old home in a desperately run-down condition, added to Nan’s talk of their future together, are enough to make up his mind. It’s not as if he has a bright future as a mason anyway. He can’t even chip a small hole in a bit of stone without cracking it in half. So it’s the land for Alf. He’s been doing it since he was 12 and his heart is in it. Doesn’t look like it’ll be long before him and Nan are moving back into the old Arless place. You might even say it’s been waiting for them. There is, apparently, no-one else in Lark Rise requiring accommodation.

At the vegetable competition Cabbage wins the Cabbage prize (and coincidentally gets his wife back) and Alf wins the potato prize. A very fair distribution of honours. And since Mrs Paterson is apparently permanently cured of her annual deathbed ritual, I’d say that’s a perfect excuse for us never to see hide nor hair of the Pattersons ever again.