Far from the madding crowd

Beef stew should be cooking in an orange pot in the old gas cooker.

We should be putting down the firewood and brushing the twigs from our rugged but stylish woolly jumpers.

We – you, me and a couple of others – we should look at our watches and the loudly-ticking kitchen clock and decide we’ve time for that pint, time to walk the two-mile walk to the Farmers Arms.

Night’s fallen but the moon’s not yet out.

The path isn’t too muddy and we vault the stiles in style.

The landlord’s cheerful but not too friendly.

It’s warm in the saloon. They have Victory on tap, a pint of mahogany brown ale. And for the others there’s The Rattler cider.

We’ll have a second pint. It would be rude not to.

Then we should walk back, colder now with a bit of moon.

We can smell the stew through a gap in the window, and we should remember to put the crumble in before we do anything else.

And put the dumplings in with the stew.

We should have a quick game of cards before dinner. Or read that F Scott Fitzgerald book if you prefer.

You’ve nearly finished it, and then you’ve got to read it all again.

And we should just think of those poor bastards at work.

They’ll be sat at their workstations still. Still digesting a microwave meal that looked good in Tesco but tasted like sick at their desk.

Their backs will hurt and they’ll try for the 10th time today to get their chair right. Move the back up and the bottom out.

There. Is that right? No. Not high enough.

And their eyes will be dry and their shoulders will be hunched.

They probably won’t leave for another hour.

All of them rushed, hurried, bored and stressed.

Then the Jubilee line will be down.

So they’ll get the DLR. And the DLR will stop outside Shadwell and sit, and go, and stop, and go, and stop again.

And they won’t get to Bank till 8.30pm. And they won’t be home till gone 9. And there’ll be nothing on the telly.

And their washing won’t have dried. And they’ll go to bed thinking about work.

And they’ll get up thinking about work. And they’ll go to work.

Well thank God we’re here. That stew’s done, I reckon.

Find similar nonsense at blogs.mirror.co.uk/opposite-of-work