Eager beaver readers will know of our cellar here in the Quirky Museum, it is the perfect place for a little workshop. The question now on my mind is about the creepy crawlies in our cellar.
If you are one of my American readers, cellar is the English term for a basement. Glad we have cleared that up. Our cellar is under the Victorian extension and consists of a stone and brick staircase, a little passage way and two small rooms, each with a small window which is below ground level outside. There is also a smaller room which is a wine cellar (which still has various bottles down there, all neatly stored and even includes some mead wine from the 1960s).
The floor is brick and the walls are not plastered. There is a well shaft, capped with a concrete slab. Underneath the slab you can see the deep shaft – circular and built with bricks which are still in good condition. The water level is about 15 feet down. Elsewhere in the cellar is a brick built ‘soak-away’ which always has water in it but I’m not completely sure where is comes from or where it goes.
The animal life down there
Rachel tells me a toad used to live down there many years ago. More recently I have seen a frog and I have no idea how it can survive. I suspect it came in through an open window in the summer and jumped down onto the floor, somehow managing to survive going splat.
A couple of times, through the corner of my eye, I have seen something move and this is slightly unnerving. This has happened a few times and then the other day I saw what it was. A centipede dashed across the floor, knowing exactly where it was going and disappeared into the soak-away. It was about 4 or 5cm long.
Then there is the odd cobweb, still probably in use by a resident cellar spider. Forgive my ignorance but if there’s a spider, a spider’s web, then there ought to be a source of spider food. Perhaps the odd fly or something?
The more I think about it, the more I think there must be a little zoo down there, certainly there’s the makings of a food-chain down there. Tiny flies get eaten by spiders. Spiders get eaten by a centipede who in turn gets gobbled up by the frog. Maybe I’m right?
Either way we are clearly doing our bit for biodiversity! Elsewhere in the Quirky Museum we have had a wasp nest in the exterior brickwork and we occasionally squash a carpet beetle. Mice from the garden appear to have moved into the back garage for the winter, and who can blame them?
That’s all very fine and dandy. The only thing I’m worried about it the soak-away. It measures about 60cm wide and the depth is about the same. Sometimes the water is cloudy, like something has disturbed it….. what the heck is it there? If this is my last blog post, you’ll know some cellar monster has eaten me!