Episode list

Natalie Harris has a comfortable life in the country. She has a big house, a businessman husband and children who attend a private school. Little does she realize what's to come when she takes her kids to school in the car one wet morning. For when she accidentally splashes Sonia, a single mother with children living in a council house, Sonia in return curses Natalie under her breath. But whether intentional or otherwise, after that Natalie's world comes crashing down as she discovers that her husband hasn't turned up for work today. Indeed, he seems to of also emptied the company bank accounts and run off with a former local beauty queen, leaving Natalie in a very fine mess indeed.

Most of the village now know that Harry Harris has absconded with the company funds and another woman, leaving a trail of debt for Natalie to deal with. Faced with the hard reality, Natalie decides to sell her dog to the local shopkeeper to pay off one debt and pull her children out of the private school and send them to the local comprehensive instead, much to their horror. But worse is to come when she learns that the house is to be sold from under her and the three of them facing homelessness. She is forced to ask for help from Social Security after alienating former lover Arthur Wandle, but learns that getting help from the state is not as easy as it looks. Little does she know that there is another admirer in the village, who wants to take full advantage of her situation.

Having rejected Angus Patrick after Social Security turn up unexpectedly at her home, and later made homeless by spite from her former lovers, Natalie and her children Ben and Alice end up having to stay with Sonia, the woman she inadvertently splashed in her car that fateful morning at her council home with her children. The situation though is not ideal, with Sonia developing an unhealthy attachment to her, and Natalie balking at the complications of claiming on Social Security. Going to the Job Centre, she eventually finds a job at a haulage firm for little money, but her children are hating their new life. She finds that Angus Patrick is not a man to easily give up his pursuit of her, but is thrown when an unexpected visitor pays a visit to Sonia's home one night with an unpalatable proposition.

Natalie is now in new lodgings, a luxury apartment after submitting to Angus' proposition. As well as being a kept woman, he gets her a job on the local carnival float which is due to take place in the village at the end of the year. But the continued presence of Sonia at the apartment threatens to unsettle her and her children, who want to move to Spain after their father's offer. Meanwhile Flora makes a valuable discovery in the local rubbish dump as her and Bernard plan marriage, but little does the village realize what fate has in store for them as the carnival ends in unexpected tragedy.