Susan's mother Grace has swept into the Harper household to keep Susan company - and capitalise on the drinks cabinet - whilst Ben is away attending a week-long training course. Susan is already pretty well occupied, however, as she has returned to full-time work for the first since having children.
She's got a job at an art gallery, where she takes her mother to attend an art collector's event. Grace is chatted up by a charming elderly gentleman, and Susan is introduced to the wealthy collector James Garrod by her deeply unpleasant boss, Simone. Simone insists that as James is such an important client, Susan should do whatever she can to make sure he's happy.
Back at the house, Roger has been trying to ask Abi to marry him, without much success. The furthest he gets is "give me your hand..." before giving up and finishing with "bag". Once Abi has gone to bed, Alfie is able to offer some advice. He recommends poetry as the way to Abi's heart, but Roger is unconvinced.
Later, Susan is reading in bed when the phone rings: it's James. He wants to know if she will go to dinner with him. Just to please Simone, she accepts, but not before directing a few muffled screams of frustration into the duvet.
Michael is venting his own frustration the next day - by printing out digital photos of his ex-girlfriend and burning them. So he isn't really in the right frame of mind to help Roger find a way to propose to Abi. Janey is a lot more assertive though, offering to let him practice on her. Disastrously, Abi walks down the stairs just in time to see Roger apparently proposing to Janey.
That night, Susan goes on her non-date with James Garrod. She really doesn't want to be unfaithful to Ben and is on the lookout for any 'signals', refusing, eventually, even to look at James. When he asks if she'd like to try some of his chicken, she stands up and yells "I am NOT going to sleep with you". The whole restaurant hears.
But it turns out to be an excellent ice-breaker and, apart from one other outburst, Susan calms down. Together they discuss what has happened and realise they have been set up by Simone.
When Susan and James arrive at the Harpers (genuinely for coffee) the lounge is in quite a mess. Susan doubts it could have been Michael - he doesn't have any friends. Grace is, of course, the culprit. She's been 'entertaining' the elderly gentlemen she met at the art show, Lionel Garrod - James's father!
The next day at the surgery, Abi is furious with Roger and quits her job as receptionist. Roger is too caught up in his personal paradise of marriage to take any notice, however.
Susan is caught having to cover for her own mother's infidelity when Lionel brings her flowers at the Harper's house, while Grace is helping another 'friend', Martin, down the stairs. Susan attempts to stall Lionel, but Martin emerges from the kitchen into which he had been shooed, determined to stir things up. He isn't, he reveals, nearly as deaf as Grace had assumed and he knows exactly what she's been saying: that she's only nice to him for his disabled parking permit and flat in Eastbourne.
Lionel is not impressed and he and his son storm (well, strongly breeze) out of the house, James declaring offence on behalf of his father.
Susan and he mother have a face-off in the Kitchen when Grace prepares to leave, assuming that Susan will stop her from going. She doesn't, but Grace stays anyway - they are family after all.
Then Abi returns to confront Janey, followed by Roger, in the kitchen. But despite her anger, she does listen to Roger when he tries again to propose, though she's quiet a way off the mark when she finishes his sentence: yes she DOES want to be his FULL-TIME receptionist. Roger explains that he wants her not to be his receptionist, but his wife, and she faints.
Other Cast Members:
Roger - Keiron Self
Alfie - Rhodri Meilir
Grace - Rosemary Leach
James - Robert Bathurst
Simone - Lesley Vickerage
Lionel - Trevor Baxter
Martin - Hugh Lloyd
