Holly and Mark Jepson have always spent Christmas helping Uncle Reg with the guests in his holiday chalets on a muddy part of the Somerset coast. But this year, they long to do something different - until Reg has to go into hospital, and they are obliged to put aside their plans for a quiet Christmas by themselves. Instead they prepare to welcome the motley assortment of guests young old Òa€“ couples, children and old ladies, an eccentric artist and his handsome daughter (but is she really his daughter, the others wonder?), a young married couple expecting their first baby, to the secret envy of the childless Holly, and a wife escaping from a violent past. They are all, in their separate ways, to play a part in the unexpected, and at times shattering, events which take place before the new millennium dawns.As the first fireworks of the year 2000 fall into the sea in a shower of silver stars, both guests and hosts at this wintry gathering look forward to a new and better world.