Entry 4

 

Lorries rattle.

 

By the time I had reached Caistor Hill that lorry had rattled at me like a backseat full of sugar-high toddlers with weak bladders. At the onset to my journey I had worried that the thing might not make it up Caistor Hill’s steep incline – so laden with tinned food, jerry-canned diesel and shotguns as it was. Twenty minutes later, rattling towards the hill, I was hoping the damn thing would die on it and grind to a blissful silence.

 

No such luck. We rattled up the hill like a tin can full of marbles. On the downward journey, encouraged on by gravity, the lorry rattled like a tin can full of marbles being shook by a hepped-up jazz precisionist in a washing machine.

 

There had been no signs of life on the journey through Caistor. No improvised evacuation camp of Grimsby refugees, pulling together, displaying Blitz-like true grit and get-through-it-together-ness. No street party with bunting and long tables with jams and cakes on.

 

As it was only half an hour or so into my journey I ploughed on through, not wanting to stop and admit that my half-arsed theory was sunk just yet.

 

The roads were empty. I should have mentioned this before. In town and so far on my trip out of it, there are no abandoned or crashed cars, as if their owners had vanished mid-commute from Grimsby to Lincoln. There are no remnants of past life at all. No half-eaten meals. No piles of clothes in the street, as if people were defrocked by sudden non-existence. There are no piles of orange dust, no indentations in beds. It all seems rather ordered. As if humanity had a little tidy up before shuffling off into oblivion.

 

I hang onto this as support for my evacuation theory.

 

You wouldn’t want to leave the house untidy for looters. You’d want the place looking its best for when the bomb went off or whatever.

 

I’m afraid that I am the only untidy influence now.

 

I have stopped off at Snarford for a rummage around. It’s a little village off the A46 and I’d always delighted in the name as I drove past the sign on the way to Lincoln. Always wanted to stop off and have a look. So here I am.

 

Ransacking houses is fast becoming a new addiction.

 

Just one more, I tell myself as a break the door in on a nice detached bungalow.

 

I like a good airy entrance hall. Good flow of space and light. A place to put your keys when you come home at the end of the day.

 

This one ticks the boxes nicely. The carpet has a pleasant swirly design that harks back to a time that a feel nostalgic for but wasn’t necessarily a part of. I can imagine pleasant times here. A partner to welcome you home with a shout from the kitchen asking, ‘Is that you, dear?’ Maybe a dog scampering happy hellos.

 

That’s a bit of a downer.

 

As I mentioned before, one of the early signs of shit going down was that I woke up and my dog was gone.

 

You may think that I got over that quite quickly and without fuss.

 

Well, there was a good chunk of those first two weeks that I told you about that was dedicated to a wallowing grief for the loss of my dopey furry friend. So, let’s just move on shall we.

 

I put my favourite shotgun down on the kitchen table and had a look around.

 

Family photos.

 

I should know by now to avoid them.

 

No 18-year-old single malt here. Just homebrew white wine.

 

It’ll do.