When nurse Ann Venables goes to Africa to help out with a disaster relief effort, she leaves her teenage children in the care of her ex Jimmy and her mother Diana. The kids try to exploit the fact that the easy going handyman and his posh ex-mother-in-law cross swords at every turn ultimately leading to be adults realisation thats to survive Ann's absence, the kids need them both.

Jimmy overcompensates for his previous failings as a father by letting his kids throw a party. Knowing Diana would completely disapprove of this, Jimmy agrees not to tell her and keep her away from the house on party night. Under the pretext of seeking advice on matters "too personal" to discuss around the kids, he invites her to dinner. At Diana's favourite restaurant, Jimmy discovers that while he and the kids have been sneaking around behind Diana's back, Diana has been sneaking around theirs.

After Jimmy's van and all its contents including his tools and his jacket with his keys in the pocket gets stolen, Diana insists they change all the locks. This leads to a stand off between Jimmy's laissez faire attitude and Diana's belief in the heat of battle about whose house this is, Diana reminds Jimmy that since she and her husband gave Ann the deposit on for the house, the place is partly hers.

Jimmy's money problems are getting out of hand and he has to nick the kids money on the sly, until he gets caught by Diana when he is in financial trouble at the bank,

When Alex's teacher writes home to say that "Alex is possibly gifted but we'll never know because he has the attention span of a gnat," Jimmy, surprised by this comment about his son, latches onto the "gifted" part while Diana's focus is on Alex's "not living up to his pontential". molly is delighted that alex is given all this attention which gives her the change to fly under the radar and do what she wants for a while.

Ann's partner Dr. Howard Banks come back from Africa to raise funds for the relief work. Jimmy instantly dislikes him, but the rest of the family like him. Howard tells Diana that he and Ann want Molly and Alex to go and live with them in Africa. Meanwhile, Molly has got a job working at a chip shop but she hates it and soon wants to leave