On his 40th birthday, Tom Good gives up his job as a draftsman in a company that makes plastic toys for breakfast cereal packets as he is no longer able to take his job seriously. Their house is fully paid for, so he and his wife Barbara make a decision to live a sustainable, simple and self-sufficient lifestyle while staying in their beloved home in The Avenue, Surbuton. In pursuit of this good life, they dig up their front and back gardens and convert them into allotments, growing soft fruit and vegetables.They introduce chickens, pigs, a goat and a cockerel. They generate their own electricity, using methane from animal waste, and they even attempt to make their own clothes. They also work at selling or bartering surplus crops for essentials which they cannot make themselves. They try to cut their monetary requirements to the minimum with varying success. Their actions horrify their kindly but conventional next-door neighbors. Yet Tom and Barbara are not only content they are happy as they work together - a couple united for a single cause.
Fictional?! Of course! Life always seems possible and so solvable in a 30 minute sitcom. If only we could hire writers to compose our lives - problems with solutions, family and friends who are vital and always present ready to support us and laugh along with us, and jobs that seem to take so little of our energy and time yet provide the financial means to live beyond our means and live life to the fullest.
Fictional?! Of course! Yet my brain asks the simple question, could this fictional comedy speak some truths? Is there some way this life could be possible?
Stay posted - we'll see!
