Martin Ellingham is still avoiding Louisa after his faux pas at the hospital. Meanwhile an old friend of auntie Joan's appears to be suffering from dementia, and fisherman Eddie has a possible broken rib after a mugging.

Dr Martin Ellingham is still as clumsy as ever when it comes to forming relationships with the opposite sex. Just when things were beginning to look rosily romantic between him and pretty school teacher Louisa Glasson, he made a terrible faux pas. Jealousy rears its ugly head when an old flame of Louisa's, suave architect Danny Steel arrives in Portwenn, apparently intent on romancing her again.

Danny has come to visit his mother Muriel, and is furious to discover that thanks to the doctor's intervention his mother can no longer go into the nursing home, as he had arranged.

Meanwhile, local fisherman Eddie Rix comes to see the Doc with severe abdominal bruising and a possible broken rib. When he later falls off his boat in the harbour, Martin recommends a full set of brain scans at the hospital in Truro - but neither Eddie nor his wife seem keen...