It felt too soon to 'Be Ready' in my serene and secure Edinburgh home

I regret not eating more carrots as the end of the world draws closer. I’m tottering blindly towards my Leith address, like Mr Magoo, and it’s Stygian black. It feels as if I’m heading down a country lane into nowhere. All the streetlights are kaput, and two bus shelters only cast a tiny bit of a diffuse space-ship-like glow. There’s just moonlight available to highlight the edges of other pieces of street furniture. I spot a couple of guys, hoods up and loitering, so I pick up my pace.

There’s been a local power cut, thanks to, it turns out, a car crashing into the local substation. Anyway, it’s affecting our psyche more than usual, courtesy of all the government’s Be Ready advice that’s been circulated this month and makes us feel as if civilization is on a very shoogly peg. It advises that we should amass enough supplies, like food, water and medication, to keep us going for three days. Has AI or climate calamity broken the world already?

It may be a minor blip, but it feels more end-of-days than it should. I pat the door to find the keyhole, then get into the house, and chuck my coat into the blackness, stage left. There it goes, where it lands, nobody knows. My husband scuttles over, like a nocturnal woodland creature, with his cosiest gansey on. I feel that he’s quite enjoying this moment, as I follow him into the kitchen, where he’s boiling some water on the gas hob for our hot water bottles, which will be used in lieu of the electric blankets that we usually have cranked up to MAX XXX BURNING PYRE POWER in our drafty home.

“Are we going to eat the baked beans now?” I ask, as I spot the flickering candle in my nice glass holder that was meant for dinner parties but which we’ve never actually used until now. I have already eaten, while out on the town, but I had been craving toast and peanut butter all the way home. Now, I’ll take whatever’s available. He says no, the small stockpile of lentils and pulses - God, we’ll be so windy at Armageddon - is going to remain untouched for now.

This is hopefully a short term emergency, he thinks, and so does the WhatsApp neighbourhood group. Boo. I like baked beans, straight out of the tin. Chocolate will have to substitute. No ration plundering yet. However, in a ‘“What would Elvis do?” moment, I have already recently thought, should the world go to ruin, we can always eat the squirrels in our back garden. There are about six of them, and they have been fattening up on monkey nuts and whole morning rolls, so they’re ripe for the picking.

I’m not getting my hands dirty though. They’re too cute. Also, I feel that they would fight back, red in tooth, claw and little sniffly button nose. He can do the neck wringing, as he’s the practical prepper of the family. I’m no survivalist. If I have to live on cobnuts and vermin meat alone, then I don’t want any of it, thank you. As he pours the water into a manly leopard-print-fur-clad hottie, my other half looks benign, but I’m sure he would happily pluck the roly-polyest squirrel - Old Tufty - and deep fry him.

It could be served with a delicious celeriac remoulade and triple-cooked chips. We’d have beans for pudding. Anyway, this power cut would happen on the night after The Traitors airing, when I was planning to catch up on missed episodes. I’m always a couple behind, and there are spoilers wherever you look. I may as well go to bed then. But how to take my contact lenses out by candlelight? Is this how they did it in medieval times? Thankfully, he has found the jumbo emergency torch.

He shines it at my eyes, while I pluck my lenses out, left then right. At the proper end-of-days, I’ll probably have to wear my thick specs. That’ll be a sign of weakness, and I’ll be taken down, in a Lord of the Flies moment. Oh well. I lift my spirits by humming REM’s It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine). However, I don’t really feel fine. I’m a bit tipsy from earlier and extremely bored. It’s only about 10pm, and I don’t feel ready for bed, but it’s so dark, cold and shadowy.

I wonder what Old Tufty is doing now. Perhaps he’s thinking about eating us, and what he’d serve on the side. Nuts and buttered rolls, probably. Suddenly, as we’ve given up hope, the lights go back on. I swear there’s a flicker of disappointment on his face, but I cheer wholeheartedly. “How long did that last?” I ask him. “About two hours,” he says. Well, it was harrowing. I hated every second. I dash to the living room, to watch The Traitors, but the television is being temperamental.

The neighbours’ burglar alarm goes off. Things are still not quite back to normal and I can’t be bothered doing all the rebooting right now. At least the kitchen accessories are being obedient. I eat two slices of toast that are thickly spread with peanut butter. I consider a third, to help me get over my trauma. And, now that the avid prepper has gone to bed with his furry hot water bottle, I might as well tuck into a few beans as well.

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