Following the death,alone, of a resident, Tom puts himself forward as a counsellor to aid and comfort the terminally ill. A new female resident arrives and has afternoon delight with old Basil. Some time later Basil seems to be dying and Tom rushers to counsel him but he is merely suffering from exertion after sex with the lady. However, the lady dies and Tom organizes a splendid send-off for her.

Tom is depressed because he is missing his late wife but Marion and Geoffrey are not keen to have him home on respite. He turns his attentions to Diana and suggests that they shack up together, a proposition that offends her so much that she has a partition built between their two rooms. Her mood is not helped by the arrival of new resident Daisy, who has a strong personality like herself and with whom she soon clashes, though Tom gets on well with her.

In order to cut costs Baines decides to employ illegal immigrant workers at Bayview. To Diana one incompetent foreigner, the gardener, is enough and, after the residents have staged a protest, order is restored. Tom has been overdoing physical exercise in his efforts to get as fit as Linford Christie and his collapse leads Diana to persuade him to slow down.

A combination of genuine feelings for Jane, whom he is used to having around, plus the desire to still join the golf club, causes Baines to become a priest of the Order of the Flaming Sword of Las Vegas - by post.

Tom 's belief that one should always tell the truth offends Jane, who has made herself look glamorous to appeal to Baines and Tom says she looks hideous. He also upsets Marion by telling her what he thinks of her, leading to a big row. Sarah introduces her boy-friend Sam, who is looking for investors for his proposed beauty salon franchise, but Diana and Tom suspect he is a con-man and Tom - to make his peace with Marion - 'persuades' Sam to let his daughter run her own beauty salon for free.

In addition to her alcoholism, Marion's fling with Bob becomes the last straw for Geoffrey, who finally decides to leave her. But where can he go? Answer, move in with his father at Bayview but Geoffrey is so boring that before long Diana and Tom are planning to get him back with Marion.

Diana and Jane are both taken aback by the bizarre ways of men, following their respective marriage proposals. Tom's proposal to Diana has brought on a shock and she collapses and is taken to hospital. Jane's decision that she will become a nun after all has tempted Harvey to consider joining the priesthood.

Depressed vicar Dennis Sparrow is conducting the funeral of ex-Bayview resident Jimmy, but is making heavy weather of the eulogy and later he tells Tom and Diana that he is losing his faith. Geoffrey is back with Marion but their life is far from being a bed of roses and it's suggested Dennis tries to help them sort out their marriage. Not long afterwards Geoffrey announces that Marion and the vicar are now living together in Wales. Baines, meanwhile, is looking for a wife - a plan which involves Jane, though, sadly for her, not as a possible candidate, but as a helper.

Living together is not the bed of roses that Tom and Diana were expecting. He criticizes her sloppiness and her funny little ways, such as feeding acorns to squirrels with a sling-shot. She decides to move out and goes to stay with Sarah to be a nanny to baby Diana but this is not her forte. Tom misses her, especially when Geoffrey decides to move in with him again.

When Tom and Diana's life drawing art classes at the local college are terminated and complaining yields no joy, they decide to instigate their own at Bayview. Baines is to be the model, posing as Julius Caesar, bare beneath his toga for authenticity (or so Diana tells him). When an inspector calls at Bayview, Diana undoes the knot holding the toga in place and leaving Baines publicly nude. As a result, he has to go to a clinic where Jane reports that he has had a breakdown.

Whilst planning his pre-nuptial agreement with an eager Jane, Baines is told that he is not a proper priest and that any attempts he makes to get money from his ordination will lead to fraud charges. Diana is of course delighted but she has more pressing matters - Tom's threatened bungee jump. She agrees to marry him if only to stop the jump from going ahead but insists on her own pre-nuptial conditions.

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.

A group of students comes to Bayview and Baines bribes Bob, one of them, into being seen in a compromising situation with Diana. This will enable him, under an old church covenant from the 1600's which was bestowed upon the home, to have her thrown out for immoral actions. As it happens Bob much prefers Marion and goes off with her instead.

To Jane's disapproval, Diana and Tom are now living in sin, or rather together, but already they start arguing, since they can't decide whose furniture they should be using. A new resident, Mrs. Kent from Gwent, arrives. She is withdrawn and nervous so Tom and Diana put on an act of being very happy together in order to bring her out of her shell. As it happens they do get a result - but only when she sees what they are really like.

A promotional video is being made to extol the virtues of Bayview and several residents are to have speaking parts, including Basil, who sees himself as the new James Bond, Tom and Jenny. The excitement is such that few will heed Diana's view that it is just another money-making scam by the idiot Baines - except Tom, who joins her in sabotaging the project by substituting footage of Marion and Geoffrey giving a rather more realistic look at life.

A strange reversal of fortune overtakes Bayview with the hospitalised Baines seen as the victim and Diana his tormentor. She is sent to Coventry and there are threats of staff strikes unless she goes. Help comes from a most unexpected source - Marion, whose pharmaceutical knowledge leads her to see that Baines is faking his condition. Diana is vindicated though Tom has made her apologize to Baines in order for her to be allowed to stay. He knew Baines was faking it but thought the humility would do her good.

Diana's foot shows no sign of healing and Tom is anxious for her to see a doctor. For all of her brash facade she is reluctant to seek medical advice in case she is given the worst possible scenario. However, she complies and is told that she has diabetes and must alter her diet. A relieved Tom proposes. Baines also proposes to Jane, in order to get his golf club membership, but she turns him down.

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.

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 gets up 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.

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.

Tom has a bet with Diana that she can't be nice to people for a work. Such untypical actions only lead to confusion. Baines wants to organize a glamorous grandmother contest for the old ladies in the home, the prize being a cruise for two. Since Basil wants to marry Betty, Tom approaches his son-in-law Geoffrey, whose firm are sponsoring the contest to let Betty win, but when Betty gets cold feet and refuses to enter, Diana, having made sure a journalist friend is present to expose any 'fixing' the contest; replaces her and wins. She lets Betty and Basil have the prize.

Diana is horrified to find that she is unaccountably in the red and goes up to London to cause a fuss, only to discover that all her investments have gone into receivership. Back in Bayview, Tom's room is suffering from severe rising damp so Tom comes up with a solution that will sort things out for them both. They will live together in one large room. Diana accepts this but draws the line at being carried over the threshold.

Geoffrey is getting on Tom's nerves with his obsession with shelves, which he keeps putting up all over the unit and it's a blessing when he gets a call from Marion, asking him to get back with her. Tom is not the only resident missing Diana as she is seen as a source of advice, but Diana herself, a thoroughly incompetent nanny, is missing Bayview and, after ruining a fashion show goes 'home' to Tom.

Baines is hiring Mr. Nakamura, a Japanese hotel consultant, to advise on the building of a new,space-saving wing to be built at Bayview - thereby enabling him to pack in more residents. Tom starts the Bayview Conservation Society, eventually enlisting Diana, to demonstrate that any such building would damage the wildlife and the natural environment, thus stopping the plan from going ahead.

A letter from the mayor's office suggests that a royal personage will be gracing Bayview with a visit. Diana, already even more crotchety than ever, due to a painfully swollen foot, does not share Tom's monarchist views and holds forth on the pointlessness of the royals. Just as predictably the royal visit turns out to be very much less 'royal' than expected.