What’s this? Rain in Candleford? RAIN?? It seems the idyll of Lark Rise too does occasionally suffer from the weather. It’s not all lazily humming bees and the air is, rarely, devoid of dreamily floating dandelion seeds. On this occasion though, it’s merely a plot device. It enables Laura and her father to take refuge in the barn, and thereby catch Nan apparently in the middle of an assignation with the farmer’s son. This poor lad is another of those Lark Rise characters who goes through life without an actual name, but at least he gets to give Nan a surreptitious kiss, so that’s some compensation.

This puts Laura in a right tizzy. She still has (them thar) feelings for Alf and doesn’t want to see him hurt. Despite some good advice from her Ma, she goes poking her beak in, through the medium of a letter which Nan, being unable to read, hands to Alf so’s he can tell her what’s in it.

Oops.

Anyone familiar with Larky will have spotted right away that this was another storm in a teacup. Although since it’s Nan we’re talking about perhaps it would better be described as a mizzle in a milkchurn. Anyway they’re all far too nice around there to engage in illicit barnage. Truth of it was she’d bought Alf a present and couldn’t afford the shilling, so she offered Farmer’s Son a kiss instead. It was a porker she’d bought him, to cheer up the rest of the Arless brood. Bless. So next time you’re at the butcher’s, missus, and you find yourself a bit short…

The rain was also at the heart of another story this week – that of the mysterious letter. So smudged was the envelope by dint of exposure to the elements that Dorcas had to engage in some detailed detective work to discover it was intended for James and carried the surprising news that he has a ten-year-old son. From a brief liaison with an old flame who subsequently married well, enabling the boy to be educated at the finest private school. James decides the boy should remain where he is, having suffered enough upset, but Dorcas, whose sensitive nature has been picking up the sound of a crying child for several days, and having heard Margaret’s recollection of her brother’s miserable schooldays, is moved to find out more. When she discovers the “school” is in fact nothing better than a repository for unwanted children, James sets off to rescue the boy but is unhorsed when his mount is spooked by a jubilant Twister tossing his hat in the air on the other side of a wall.

And why is Twister so happy? Having taken the highest umbrage at Margaret’s decision to ask Robert Timmins to give her away at her forthcoming nuptials, and fired Thomas up to question that decision in light of her deceased father’s views on the master mason, there’s a brief squall in a saucer before Thomas comes to his senses and realises he’s been a bully, and he and Margaret find an alternative high-profile role for the proud Twister: that of ring-bearer. What Frodo will have to say about that is anyone’s guess.

We had a few pointed clues about Emma’s condition long before the reality was revealed. Her staring fixedly at the calendar and Queenie’s comment that she should be glad she stopped at five (children), to name but two. Having spent a week worrying how they’d fit another bed into their tiny house, or feed another baby, or cope with the extra demands for attention, the worry was over as quickly as you can say “period drama.” But the thought of a sixth child had by then got under Robert’s skin, or was it just the trying he was interested in?

Lark Rise to Candleford concludes next week, and will return for a third series next year.