The Gumby Gang plunge into action again, but as usual their good ideas never turn out as they should! Steve, Debbie, Howie, and Bet decide to go and cheer up an old lady who's in hospital. Their visit is a great success, but on their way out they discover they've been entertaining the wrong old lady! When a Bird Show is held in their village, the gang borrow a parrot and enter it in the 'Most Talkative Bird' competition, with hilarious results. Then there's the day the river floods...
In Venice, Frances Croy is working to leave the previous year behind: another novel published to little success, a scathing review she can't quite manage to forget, and, most of all, the real reason behind her self-imposed exile from London: the incident at the Savoy. Sequestered within an aging palazzo, Frankie finds comfort in the emptiness of Venice in winter, in the absence of others. And then Gilly appears.