Val comes home to find Roger in an agitated state. She has left that evening's meal, a pack of fish fingers and some frozen peas, in his plant fridge in the conservatory. Thus begins a chain of rows, each one seemingly all about fish fingers.

Val arrives home with the freshly laundered dining room curtains and hears that Roger has had yet another clash with Phil, his non-plant-loving boss. The dining room has just been decorated and Roger and Val must summon up the energy to put the curtains back up - will they manage to do so? We also learn that Roger's father is dying and discover that in this house all is not quite as it seems.

Roger's dad is slipping away. His cousin Cathy is arriving with her loner husband Bob to bid his father farewell, and Val has been panicked into inviting them to stay in their spare room. No one has ever stayed there before. Now they must go into it and get it ready for guests.

Roger lies almost mute in bed in the spare room. Val tries hard to reach him, but there's more to this crisis than the recent news about his father. Roger reveals that, alone in the house, he has followed grief counselling advice and written out an idealised self-image; however he has mistakenly emailed it to his management team at work.

Val returns to the house to see how Roger's tribunal at work has gone. She reveals she is going to a dinner which Ian - a former colleague who fell in love with her and moved to New Zealand - is attending. Roger cynically reviews all things New Zealand has offered and points out the ignored plight of Sherpa Tenzing next to the celebrated Edmund Hillary.