44 Scotland Street: Episodes 56-60

Published on Friday 15 April 2011 19:00

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Love, Pat MacGregor's father always told her, is never instantaneous: when people talk about love at first sight, what they are really talking about is infatuation. It's understandable really: we are attracted both to beauty and to people who look like us. These are instincts deep in the brain and we cannot do much about them no matter how hard we try. And in the case of that uber-narcissist Bruce, who has asked her out on a date, Pat isn't trying particularly hard, even though she knows full well that she ought to do so.

Meanwhile, life with the triplets is getting a lot easier for Matthew and Elspeth, thanks to their super-efficient Danish au pair, Anna. It's in their interests to do everything they can to keep Anna happy – and so when she returns home, slightly perturbed by an accidental and very brief encounter with the notorious Moray Place nudists, Matthew resolves to ask them to desist from their activities – at least as far as central Edinburgh is concerned. When he calls round to make this point, however, he is mistaken for a (clothed) nudist himself and invited in to their meeting. The slide show he finds himself watching of the club's trip to Buachaille Etive Mhor turns out to be quite inoffensive, the large numbers of Scottish midges having turned up on nudist-deterring duties on the day in question.

But even though the nudists promise to behave themselves in central Edinburgh, Elspeth decides that she's not really happy in Moray Place. Really, she tells Matthew, she wishes they'd stayed in India Street. Passing by the next day, Matthew notices that their old flat there is for sale.