One Foot in the Grave running joke is her beating Victor at board-games, including Trivial Pursuit and chess, while having a conversation with someone else. Doreen Mantle described her character as "wanting to do the right thing but always finding out that it was the wrong thing". Patrick Trench (Angus Deayton) – Patrick and his wife Pippa live next door to Victor, and often catches Victor engrossed in seemingly preposterous situations, all of which in context are perfectly innocuous. The couple's relationship with their neighbours begins badly after Victor mistakes Patrick and Pippa for distant relations when they arrive outside with three suitcasesnot realising that
One Foot in the Grave dry-cleaners, only for her to return with a gorilla costume. Another occasion saw her persuading Victor to take on a dog whose owner had just died. Victor spent time building a kennel in the garden and when Mrs Warboys arrives with the dog, she forgets to mention that the dog is stuffed - much to Victor and Margaret's consternation. On another occasion she won a competition where the prize was either to earn £500 or to have a life-size waxwork model made of herself, which had to be delivered to the Meldrews' house; she chose the waxwork. As it turned