Tom Ballard is put in Bayview Retirement Home by drunken daughter-in-law Marion and her weak husband Geoffrey. Many of the residents are very passive but not retired journalist Diana Trent, whose mission in life is to annoy 'the idiot Baines' - Harvey Baines, the home's manager. Initially she thinks Tom is rather dotty but when he tries to organise the residents into action against the home's poor food she knows she has found an ally.

Diana rows with chief carer Jane for calling her a senior citizen and Tom does his best to ignore Marion and Geoffrey. Diana's niece Sarah has left her Porsche at the home so Diana drives Tom to Brighton in it. Harvey Baines reports it missing and the couple are stopped by the police but explain that Diana has her niece's permission to use it and Harvey is threatened with arrest for wasting police time.

Tom really thinks that he won't have to wait for God much longer when he says he is dying and is rushed to hospital. He is discovered to have had a heart attack but he becomes very depressed and talks about suicide, writing 'die on Thursday' in his diary. In order to talk him out of what she believes to be his plan to end it all, Diana threatens to join him.

Tom is going to the christening of his nephew and wants Diana to accompany him but she is not keen because her arthritis is playing her up. Because she failed to declare it on her application form, Baines tries to get her evicted from the home. Tom doctors a 'naughty' photo of Baines to blackmail him into changing his mind but Diana uses her old press contacts to 'persuade' the committee to let her stay.

Jane wants to become a nun so Baines sacks her and brings in stern German matron Greta Mueller, who is a tyrant and tells Sarah where Diana hid the Porsche. Tom cons Baines into making him the head of the Residents' Association and organises a petition, which Baines thinks is to get rid of Diana, so he signs it. Actually it's to get rid of Greta, so he is forced to fire her and reinstate Jane.

Baines decides that if Diana and Tom are seen to be mentally incompetent it will give him power of attorney over them and end all his troubles, particularly as the home is in financial difficulties. So he refers them to psychiatrist Dr. Darrow, for whom they act out a well-rehearsed pantomime of odd behaviour, leading the doctor to conclude that they are not mad, just a touch eccentric, with unexpected help coming from Sarah.

With upcoming by-elections Councillor Ferguson is courting the grey vote and comes to the home. At the same time Diana, once a photo-journalist, takes Tom up in a helicopter to take aerial shots of local houses to sell to their owners. Among her shots is one of Ferguson and the Swedish nanny being very naughty on the lawn. This comes in very handy at scuppering Ferguson's plan to support a Japanese spare parts factory being built next to Bayview.