Rita has come to stay but announces her intention to go back home on Christmas Eve. In order to persuade her to stay and help him look after Else Alf falls off a ladder and claims to have injured his leg. However,whilst Rita does stay,the knees up at the Christmas Day party goes so well that Alf's enthusiastic participation soon exposes his supposedly bad leg as nothing more than a ruse.

Alf returns from the funeral of Else, his long-suffering wife. Having lost her disability allowance of E30 and half the pension, life ahead is not too rosy.

When Rita wins a winter sun holiday abroad, Alf complains about having to spend Christmas alone.

When Alf is given a cordless telephone, it turns out to be more of hindrance than help.

On a boiling hot summer day, Alf goes to Social Security to complain that he should've had more money in last winter's heating allowance to no avail. Back home, he joins his friends watching cricket on television and falls asleep, loudly dreaming that he has been knighted for his services to the game.

Alf is spending Christmas in hospital for a hip replacement but his visitors' scare stories of what could go wrong propel him into fleeing from the ward dressed as a woman - which incurs a drunk's unwanted attention. Back at the house he is outraged when Mrs Hollingbery's sister turns up after his room,being told that he is not expected to live but all is forgiven when Mrs Hollingbery invites everybody upstairs for a Christmas party. Unfortunately he has forgotten the loose stair rod and ends up back in the hospital.

Encouraged by Arthur, Alf continues to pursue Camille, even getting down on one knee to propose though she wants time to think. After a night at the pub, a surprise engagement party is thrown for the still undecided couple, but when Camille learns that, as husband and wife, they could buy the house for a fifth of its worth, she's quick to accept.