Meet Ellie. She's been married to Jack for seven years, has two occasionally-adorable-but-mostly-demanding children and is about to open a café with her friend, Tilda. But Jack is a soap actor whose long-running character has been killed off, leaving him hanging around the house and getting under the feet of Petra, an au pair too glamorous for her own good - even if she is a dab hand with glitter and glue.

Meanwhile Ellie's excitement about the café is making her marriage seem dreary in comparison and when the gorgeous Mark moves in next door (with a wife in tow, admittedly) she asks herself when she and Jack went past their sell-by-date.

How can she put the sizzle back into her love life without breaking the rules? And is there really something better out there - or is she just scratching a classic seven year itch?

Kate Morris