It is time for the annual match for the coits championship between Aidensfield and Holinsby. Jack Abbott is playing for the Holinsby team and at the same time having an affair with his team captain's wife Annie. When his own pregnant wife Jean finds out by accident, she drives off in their car, and Jack has to go home on the team bus. Donald Smethwick loses control of the bus, which runs off the road and down a slope. Ruby has managed to patch up the relationship between Nick and Jo, and Jo has decided it is time to introduce him to her parents. Jo's mother is not pleased to learn that Nick is a village bobby and a widower with a daughter.

Frances Elliott has just moved to Aidensfield, but is not very popular with her neighbours because she very much keeps herself to herself. When Joyce Jowett wants to talk to her about a sale she is organizing in aid of the Aidensfield toddler group she suspects that Miss Elliott is hiding a baby. Jowett also puts Aunt Peggy on the jumble stall of the sale without asking her first. Peggy rather wants so sell pictures of local sights - with a "small" share for herself of course to cover the costs. PC Walker has passed his sergeant's exam and has been accepted at a special training course with an automatic promotion. But he still has his doubts because it means that he will have to leave his colleagues and friends and especially a certain pretty district nurse with blonde hair and blue eyes.