Miranda%

Miranda bumps into her old friend Gary, who is working in the restaurant next door as the new chef. When he asks her out for a drink, she gets overexcited by the prospect of her first real date and decides it's time to try to be more girly. She goes shopping for a new outfit to impress Gary, but her makeover doesn't go quite to plan.

Miranda is rather British when it comes to sex, or shenanigans as she likes to call it. Trying to overcome her hang-ups she decides the way forward with Gary would be to create a romantic moment so he'll see her in a sexual light. Stevie persuades her to join an evening class to learn French, the language of love. She goes, only to discover it's run by her old school teacher Mr Clayton, who Stevie then starts dating, much to Miranda's disgust. Miranda then thinks that a tango class would be more romantic for her and Gary, but again things don't quite go to plan.

Miranda's mother Penny is constantly disappointed that Miranda runs a joke shop rather than having a proper job. Penny bumps into one of Miranda's old school friends, Tilly, and lies that Miranda has a great new job, so Miranda decides to prove everyone wrong and find a new career. After getting caught by Tilly when helping out as a waitress, she finally decides to come clean and be proud of her real job, but, thanks to Gary, Tilly jumps to a surprising conclusion about Miranda's employment.

Miranda knows she is not exactly cool, but being young, free and single has its advantages, like jetting off to Thailand on holiday for a few days. Although when it comes down to it, she would rather not bother with the hassle of going quite so far, so she books herself into a hotel across the road instead. She thoroughly enjoys the hotel, and even makes new friends with helpful porter Jason and conference organiser Colin. As her stay goes on, she becomes a new woman.

Miranda has spent most of her life avoiding being set up by her mother Penny. Old school pal Tilly sets her up on a blind date with an army doctor friend, Dreamboat Charlie. The date doesn't go quite to plan and so Penny insists on throwing a party to introduce Miranda to a suitable man. Miranda is notoriously bad at coming up with excuses, but when she sees a photo of her intended date he's so bad that the only option left is to lie and come out to her mother.

When a handsome guy leaves his wallet in the shop, Miranda and Stevie think it could be a sign, especially when they discover he's called Robert Husband. They become highly competitive and try to find out who he'd prefer to take to dinner if he had to choose one of them. Meanwhile, Tilly has invited Miranda to Henley Regatta under the strict proviso that she doesn't embarrass her. Miranda is determined to be able to cope at a tricky social occasion just once

Since Gary left for Hong Kong, and her chance at a relationship with him gone, Miranda has been watching telly all day in her pyjamas with a packet of biscuits for company. However, Stevie eventually persuades her to stop wallowing and Miranda decides to move on, start a new regime and become the new her, like we all attempt to do every New Year. She will get fit, loose weight and become the type of woman her boarding school nemesis Tilly, and hard to please mother, Penny, would be proud of. She goes for lunch with the girls and meets the new chef, Danny, but her attempt at re-invention goes horribly wrong. Well, Sushi restaurants are hard to deal with and Miranda has never coped around attractive men. All not helped by the fact that Penny has left Miranda's father and moved in with her. You are never going to feel good when your mother tells everyone she is washing your control pants. She nearly gives up when she meets a woman who fills her with a new 'girl power' confidence. Can she get the new chef and maintain the new her?

Miranda is a clumsy woman but falling in a grave at the end of a funeral service was something not even she was expecting. The experience gets her thinking about what people will say at her funeral and she wants it to be good, so she signs up a for a charity parachute jump, reads to the elderly and helps her mother Penny and her boarding school nemesis Tilly organise a charity wine tasting event. Hilariously, her good deeds do not go as well as planned.

Things look up for Miranda's love life after she finds herself with two dates - one with the best man of Tilly's fiance, the other with a charming acquaintance of Stevie. She is especially thrilled by the unusually smooth running of her rendezvous with the latter - but problems arise when she attracts even more attention from an unwanted source.

Miranda and Stevie compete to be best friends with the new waitress at the restaurant, Tamara. The trouble is Tamara is 22 and they both find keeping up with an energetic 20 something surprisingly tiring. Their age becomes an issue after an art class, followed by all night karaoke, followed by a swimming experience that puts Miranda face to face with her nudity issues.

Miranda and Penny are forced into therapy for an assessment. How will they cope when trapped in a room together for a half hour session with an unnervingly silent therapist? All they have to do is sit quietly and control themselves. Testing times for any mother and daughter, let alone Miranda and Penny.

It's Christmas and Miranda would like a relaxing and fun time without her parents After Penny's Best Christmas Jumper Party on the 23rd of December (it's even more humiliating than it sounds) Miranda and Stevie try to spend Christmas at the shop with Gary, Clive and Tilly. What could possibly go wrong? Well, after the online present shopping doesn't arrive, the infuriating encounter at the post office (is there anything more annoying than a 'we tried to deliver but you were out' card?), a run-in with some carol singers and a couple of arguments with friends, maybe Christmas would be better with her family.