Mildred is asked to babysit Tristram. The middle class Fourmiles are going out to see Tom Stoppard's play Jumpers. Mildred enjoys babysitting, so she and George try to adopt a child themselves. They are rejected, so George buys a female Yorkshire terrier, whom Mildred names Truffles.

George and Mildred attend his uncle's funeral. Mildred wants George to get life insurance. She asks a funeral director how much an average, run-of-the-mill funeral will cost. George is not happy when he realises that he is worth more dead than alive and he refuses to take out the insurance.

George is unhappy about Truffles seeming to get better treatment from Mildred than he does. He takes Truffles to the pub with him, leaves her outside, and she wanders off. Tristram wants a dog, but Fourmile does not, so he buys Tristram a toy dog. Fourmile finds Truffles and returns him to Mildred. George buys a Yorkshire terrier and pretends that it is Truffles, however, Mildred realises that it is not Truffles, due to being male. Mildred gives the new dog to Tristram, just before Fourmile arrives home with a Dalmatian.

George and Mildred visit the posh local pub The Genevieve.

Ethel arrives in her "new bottle green automatic Jaguar XJ6", to talk to Mildred about their mother who is becoming too old to be left on her own. George does not want her to live with them, Ethel and Humphrey are planning to convert their spare room into "a billiard room and sauna bath", and third sister Hilda has five (soon to be six) children. A family conference is called to decide the issue of who should look after her. Mildred's mother shows George a letter from her son Arthur in New Zealand, inviting her to live with him on his farm. George plans to invite her to move in with him, in order to gain Mildred's favour and to make the rest of her family look selfish, with the intent of sending her to live with Arthur soon afterwards. Humphrey and Mildred tell George that her living with Arthur would have been better, but he died in 1950.

George is bereaved when Oscar, his budgerigar, dies.

On the Ropers' 24th wedding anniversary, Mildred gives George a pipe and tobacco. George gives her a carriage clock, which he bought for £10 from a man in the pub. Jeffrey, Ann and Tristram arrive back from a golfing holiday to find they have been burgled. When the Fourmiles tell Mildred that one of the missing items is a carriage clock, she suspects that it is the same one that George gave her. The burglars are caught and all the Fourmiles' possessions are recovered.

George thinks he and Mildred could improve their finances by taking in a lodger. Mildred is initially opposed to the idea. She changes her mind when Edward Rogers (Derek Waring), a charming sales representative, knocks at their door looking to rent a room. The couple welcome him: George because of how much Mr Rogers is willing to pay, and Mildred because she is sexually attracted to him. George becomes suspicious and jealous when he realises that Mildred is attracted to Mr Rogers. She is disappointed when, after a month living there, Mr Rogers tells her that he is moving with his job and more so when he tells her that he is gay. At the pub, she sees Mr Rogers with a young woman, him telling her that he falsely claimed to Mildred that he is gay in order to deflect her advances.

Tristram wants a skateboard, which his father disapproves of as the latest 'fad'. He buys Tristram a skateboard, but before he gives it to him, he stops wanting one and wants a Star Wars robot instead.

Mildred's sister Ethel and her husband Humphrey are coming to dinner, so Mildred wants to cook poulet rôti. The Ropers' electricity supply is cut off because George failed to pay the bill. With the Fourmiles visiting his mother — and Ann having given Mildred a house key — George runs an extension lead from their electricity socket into his house. When they return, Fourmile pulls the lead, moving the Ropers' lamp. He then disconnects it, leaving the Ropers and their guests in the dark — and the dinner half-cooked. Humphrey decides to phone a hotel to book a table for dinner there. However, the phone does not work because it has been cut off due to George not having paid the phone bill.

While Mildred is cleaning, she finds an old case which contains many love letters written by George to somebody called Dorothy. He refuses to tell her who Dorothy is, so she takes George off for some relationship counselling. At the session, Mildred tells the counsellor about the letters, but he refuses to talk about them. At home, he admits to Mildred that they were written to Dorothy Lamour and that he never sent any of them.

Since the world is overpopulated, and he does not want any more children, Fourmile considers having a vasectomy. Ann is disappointed because she wants another child.

Jeffrey Fourmile is producing and directing the Hampton Wick Players' Christmas pantomime, Cinderella. A problem arises however, which leaves the production short of a second ugly sister. Mildred, who has been eager to take part in the play, is offered the role. She accepts, despite being cast in a role that is usually played by men. Ethel and Humphrey arrive for the evening of the performance, but by then, Mildred has fallen ill and lost her voice, leaving George to take her place. However, the taxi taking him there crashes into Ethel and Humphrey's car, so Fourmile plays the role instead.

Mildred invites people to her coffee morning, but the only guest who arrives is Ann, who is heavily pregnant.

Jerry tells George about a scheme to poach pigeons from Trafalgar Square to create a 'pigeon farm'. They would breed them, kill them, fry them and sell them in a chain of shops. George has very little money, so he thinks it a good idea to sell the house to raise the capital to back it. He goes to Fourmile to ask him to put the house on the market, which he gleefully does without charging any commission. Mildred is angry when she finds out from Ann that George tried to sell it, so it is taken off the market. Jerry tells George that he has another scheme — selling newts.

After their bed breaks when George sits on it, Mildred is determined that they buy a new one. However, their attempt to buy one in a shop fails because they do not have enough money and George is on a hire purchase blacklist. George bets on a horse race accumulator and wins, but when he comes to collect his winnings the bookmaker only gives him 85 pence, after deducting the money owed by George from previous losing bets.

Mildred receives a letter from an American, Lee Kennedy, with whom she had a fling during WW2 when he was a flight sergeant. She accepts his invitation to have dinner with him at the Dorchester Hotel. She is pleased to see him, but is soon disappointed when he tells her that he has also invited 18 other women, who soon arrive.

George phones Gloria Rumbold, with whom he had a five-year nonsexual relationship when she was young, slim and soft-spoken. He arranges to meet her in the pub. However, he leaves before meeting her when he sees that she is now a plump, outspoken, middle-aged woman who works in a massage parlour.

Mildred's brother-in-law Humphrey offers George a job, but the notoriously lazy George does not want it, despite Mildred's insistence. After learning that Humphrey is planning a weekend away in Jersey with his attractive young secretary Maggie, George tells Humphrey that he will not tell Ethel about his trip if he claims that there is no job at his firm for him. When Ethel finds the tickets for Jersey in Humphrey's jacket pocket, he claims that they are a present for George and Mildred and she gives the tickets to them. When George reveals that Humphrey's plan was to take his secretary, Humphrey rips up the tickets.

George takes a job from Fourmile — advertising his company by walking along the street wearing a sandwich board.

Ann goes into labour whilst Jeffrey is away at work in Birmingham. George takes her to the hospital in his sidecar. At the hospital, the staff wrongly assume that George is her husband — and he faints whilst watching the birth.

George's father moves into an old folks' home, then turns up at George and Mildred's house after claiming that he was thrown out of the home. Mildred phones the home's manager, who tells him that he was not evicted — he left because they would not allow him to keep his ferret there. At the house, it escapes. Fourmile accidentally kills it by running over it, then gives them a live one to replace it.

George is called to a job interview — the position vacant is that of traffic warden. George has no love for the "little Hitlers" as he sees them, but takes the job.

A 33-year-old man, Bill, approaches George in the pub and tells him that he is his son, conceived on VE Night in 1945 when Bill believes that George had a one-night stand with Bill's mother, Rosie — who died recently. George was drunk on the night in question and cannot remember if he had sex with Rosie. He is disappointed when he finds out that an acquaintance of his, Ernest, who was there with another woman, is the real father.

George resigns from his job as a traffic warden, but tries to figure a way of avoiding Mildred discovering it, as he does not want to incur her wrath. She finds out, and manages to persuade his manager to take him back, but George is reluctant to return.

George allows Jerry to store 40 bags of cement in the Ropers' garage. Mildred is horrified, because she has told Fourmile that he may use it to store his second car. Fourmile drives it into the garage, expecting it to be empty - and drives into the cement.

Jeffrey, Ann and Tristram Fourmile are attending a funeral, so they ask the Ropers to look after baby Tarquin for the day. Mildred is pleased, but George thinks it an imposition. When Mildred goes out, George is left in sole charge of Tarquin. The Fourmiles' car breaks down on their journey home and as a result they are delayed for a few hours. George takes Tarquin in his pram to a British Legion darts match. When George returns home, he realises that he left Tarquin at the pub. He retrieves Tarquin and hands him over to the Fourmiles, but Mildred is angry when she finds out.

Mildred wants Truffles, George and Mildred's Yorkshire terrier, to have puppies. George is happy with that, since he thinks there might be money in it. They decide to pair Truffles with Ethel's Yorkie, Pomeroy. Truffles has four puppies, but they were clearly sired by another dog.

Fourmile is annoyed at bindweed from the Ropers' garden growing into their garden.

Tristram has made friends with Tommy, a boy from the local council estate. This displeases Fourmile who thinks that their sort should have a separate playground and is annoyed at Tristram speaking in a downmarket way recently. Tommy's shop steward father visits, telling Fourmile that he does not want his son to be friends with Tristram, because Tommy has been speaking in an upmarket way since knowing him.

George finds a credit card. When he buys Mildred a fur coat from Oxfam as an anniversary present, she assumes that he paid with the card. The card's owner comes to the house, pleased that George handed the card in to the police. Mildred finds out from Oxfam that George paid for the coat with cash. She finds out from George that he stole the money for it from her.

Trevor Baxter, Roy Herrick, Ivor Roberts and Hal Dyer appear in this episode.

Mildred goes into hospital for suspected appendicitis. Jerry's landlord has ejected him for non-payment of rent, so he invites himself to stay at the Ropers', along with his 'niece' Gloria. When Mildred returns because she merely had indigestion, she angrily throws Jerry and Gloria out.

Tristram erects a tent to camp overnight in his garden. Soon after, he finds Jerry and Gloria in it.

Mildred leaves the house, saying that she is attending her twice-weekly keep-fit class with Ann. Mildred is actually having driving lessons, which she has kept secret due to not wanting George to teach her himself. When George says to Ann that he is surprised that she is not at the class, she tells him that the classes have stopped. When he sees Mildred in a car with a man, he suspects that she is having an affair. Mildred, Fourmile and Ann are amused at George's suspicion. Mildred decides to let him continue believing that, so that he pays more attention to her than usual. The driving instructor comes to the house and George questions him, leading to George finding out the truth.

George's brother Charlie (Peter Birrel) visits, and brings a letter addressed to G Roper that arrived in 1949, just after George had left home. The letter contains call-up papers which George and Mildred assume are for him. When they tell the Army, they inform him that the deserter is George's sister, Gloria.

An acquaintance of Fourmile's sells a stolen second-hand car to Mildred.

Mildred accidentally flushes George's pet goldfish, Moby, down the drain. After George searches the pipes under the garden for his beloved fish, Mildred buys him two homing pigeons, but they fly away two days later.

Mildred's mother (Gretchen Franklin), reveals to Mildred's sister Ethel that Mildred may be in possession of a valuable antique horse statue when one just like it appears in the Country Life magazine and is valued at £10,000. Ethel asks Mildred for it, claiming that she wants it to remember their father by. When Mildred shows it to Ann, she tells Mildred that a similar statue recently sold for £10,000. Mildred has it valued, and finds out that it is a cheap reproduction which was made in Birmingham in 1927 that is worth 30 shillings. George is proud of having bought three of them for £5 each — until Mildred tells him that they are cheap copies. Fourmile releases the family's pet mouse into the Ropers' garden. When Ethel next visits, Mildred sells her horse to her for £15. When George brings the mouse into the house, Ethel drops the horse and it breaks. Mildred points out that she has three more of them.