A coruscating drama, based on an award winning novel, which explores the troubled relationships between the various members of an English family over a long summer when Eleanor, the stroke-afflicted old mother decides to give away her beautiful house in Provence to a New Age Foundation run by an Irish charlatan rather than to her own son and his young family. The story is told from the point-of-view firstly of Robert, an eight year old boy, then his increasingly drunken father, Patrick and also finally Mary, his long-suffering mother as they all struggle to come to terms with the loss of something they love desperately but increasingly realize will soon be gone forever. It is both a funny and moving tale of family discord.