Constance Harding's comfortable corner of the Home Counties is her own little piece of heaven. Her time is spent party-planning (disastrous), matchmaking for her startlingly well-dressed son Rupert (catastrophic), and dreaming of the hat aisles at John Lewis. But she's about to learn that her perfect home conceals scandal that would make the vicar blush.

Her Lithuanian housekeeper's polyester underwear keeps appearing in her husband's study, her parrot has gained a troubling new vocabulary and her daughter is turning into a Lycra-clad gap-year strumpet. As her family falls apart, Constance embarks on an extraordinary journey. From tripping in Ibiza to riding with a handsome Argentinean gaucho whose only English words are 'Britney' and 'Spears', Constance discovers a wider world she thought it was too late to find . . .