When Melanie finds herself single again after years of being one half of a couple, her friends predict loneliness, frustration, disaster and her parents are convinced she's a failure in life. But Melanie is overwhelmingly excited to be able to do her own thing - she plans a programme of behaving badly, after a lifetime of behaving properly. With her daughter off to university and ex-husband Roger married off at last - to his lamentably young girlfriend - she has a Free House, and she intends to make the most of it. But is the single life quite all it's cracked up to be?