No, Thanks! I’m Quite Happy Standing!: Marie Sharp 4

Marie is turning 69 this year, but there are no signs of her slowing down - she has a new male lodger (very into conspiracy theories), an intractable iPhone to wrestle with, and a trip to India to plan!

As usual the year brings plenty of challenges as well as opportunities. Marie is burgled, which sends the street into uproar. Ex-husband David is still around and getting rather too close for comfort. Marie’s cat Pouncer is starting to look rather peaky (her conspiracy-theorist lodger is convinced someone is poisoning him), and probably worst of all, it seems her grandson Gene is getting too old to want to hang out with his granny any more. Maybe learning to graffiti and speak street slang will help win him back?

Full of Virginia Ironside’s inimitable wit and featuring plenty of popular characters from this series, this is a hilarious and touching look at getting older from one of Britain’s best observers of relationships.