Going Underground

The US presidential election and Brexit must have made me more nervous than I’d realised. It seems I’ve created an underground bunker without realising I was doing it.

Still – we’ve all done that at some point, right? No? Ah...

In that case, the fact that I have inadvertently turned my cellar into a rudimentary survival shelter, just in case it all kicks off, demonstrates a severe case of bunker mentality. Fretting about Donald and his wall, and Hillary and her emails, clearly made me more paranoid that I thought about the possibility of WW3 kicking off.

Whilst attempting to find a specific size of imperial washer the other day (turns out I’d mis-filed it in the nut cabinet – Tsk!) I was struck by what a lot of jam and chutney we have in the cellar. And I do mean a LOT. There are boxes of boiled-up sugar and fruit and more boxes of boiled up vinegar and fruit. We’re still only part way through 2015’s output too.

Then there’s the plastic containers holding pasta in various forms – lasagne sheets, spaghetti and bags of those spiral-y things too. And a freezer full of bread. A couple of bags of apples from our tree at the allotment. Coffee pods. Bottles of soda water.

All well and good, but if going upstairs became dangerous (who knows? Brexit seems to be getting weirder by the day) we’d need some method of cooking our jammy pasta, and a source of water.

Handy then that there’s a gas stove, and the water pipe for the house runs through the cellar. And a bunch of cookware in the charity-shop box. Still, it could get pretty chilly down there in the depths of winter, right? The fan heater and oil-filled radiator should fix that.

There are also old towels and sheets used for decorating, and we keep gardening and walking clothes down there. There’s even some rolled up offcuts of carpet, if it needed a more homely touch. Whipping up a bed using an old door and some surplus insulation shouldn’t be too tricky, either.

A long, depressing, stay whilst gangs roamed the streets, fighting to the death over the true meaning of Article 50, could be relieved by the presence of my old Hi-Fi, turntable, and a box of books.

We might have to hand-wash clothes, but the tumble dryer will save us from hanging damp pants on the garden furniture/dining area.

True, toilet facilities would be awkward, but there is the coal cupboard and the recycling box does have old copies of the North West Evening Mail in – not quite as soft as a roll of double-quilted aloe vera, but adequate in an emergency – and a good read too.

The wi-fi reaches the cellar, so we can catch up on the latest rumours about Hillary plotting a coup using the laptop.

Who knows – if there’s enough spare time I might get round to fixing the broken bird table. Presuming we survive the forthcoming politically-induced apocalypse.

This post first appeared as my 'Thank grumpy it's Friday' column, in the North West Evening Mail, on the 11th of November 2016. The hard to find version on their website added "Why I'm..." to the title, as did the print version. They also kindly added the missing 'L' to my spelling of Hilary. Duh.

I love my cellar. Without outside space for the type of shed a man truly needs to be complete, the cellar neatly fills the void and, over the last 10 years, it's gradually filled up with all sorts of important stuff. The fact that our loft is pretty inaccessible, and home to mutant life-forms, means it's also the catch-all for those things you don't want in regular rooms.

True, there are screwdrivers in a drawer I've not used this decade, and some of the old tins of paint have price labels, rather than barcodes, on them. There may be lightbulbs that don't fit anything we own, and that pile of old timber will get used on the fire. Eventually. But...

Who doesn't need a box of spare plumbing bits, empty CD cases and garden furniture cushions? EXACTLY. They've got to go somewhere.

(CD A-Z: Temporarily on hold for Marillion's latest, "F*** Everyone And Run". Pretty bloody good so far!)

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