It looks like the opposite of work. Work as a staring into space. But it’s vital: like dreaming and REM sleep is to wakeful health. If you don’t get this opportunity to disengage and reflect, you mightn’t do all of the important work that happens way before you actually sit down to write or type.

There was a chance to make some visits to contemporary workplaces, so we decided to go for somewhere historical that had since re-invented itself into a heritage site (that was the Anderton Boat Lift in Cheshire, where the Weaver Navigation meets the Trent and Mersey canal); a place where work is constant and crucial (so, we visited the power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar: I was especially excited because Auden mentions this part of the world in ‘The Dog Beneath the Skin’: ‘as at Trent Junction where the Soar comes gliding…’ though in the event we only saw the Trent diverted, as a cooling agent); and finally an apple farm in deepest Kent, where we found seasonal workers following the ripening hard fruits. I’ve just finished writing short pieces provoked by each visit, and am glad to see how workers’ phrases have found their way into the writing; things I could never have imagined or seen coming. I enjoyed meeting with and talking to all kinds of people on these visits, though God knows what they’ll have made of me. But most people are curious, interested.