It’s a bookcase.

It’s set into the wall beside the fireplace. I keep books on it. Generally, they’re the impressive intellectual ones that I want people to think I read. The James Herberts, Tom Sharpes and back issues of ‘Bloggers’ Wives’ are all hidden away upstairs.

Sensibly, I spaced the shelves at different intervals. So there’s room for the big books at the bottom – the dictionaries etc, the regulation-sized paperbacks fit snugly at the top, and the annoying-sized-books-that-don’t-quite-fit-into-your-coat-pocket have a shelf all to themselves.

But the thing about the bookcase is:

It secretly swings out on hinges to reveal a concealed chamber beyond, like in the Scooby Doo cartoons.

It’s only a tiny little cellar-like space, but it’s got a genuine stone floor and everything. Honestly, it’s incredibly exciting. I must have opened and closed the bookcase hundreds of times already.

I’m genuinely thinking of employing an out-of-work actor to hide in there dressed in an old-fashioned diving suit, so they can lumber out scarily with their arms held out in front of them. I also thought of cutting a couple of holes in the back for eyes to peer through.

In an ideal world it would open automatically when I removed an appropriately-named book. Something like “This Book Opens The Secret Opening Bookcase” by Paul Itofftheshelfandthebookcasewillopen. But the technical requirements for that were a bit daunting.

I keep looking at it and touching it and opening and closing it. Really, if it were socially acceptable to have sex with a piece of furniture I would do it. But somebody would be bound to walk in on me and get the wrong impression, and besides, I haven’t cut the eye-holes yet.

I reckon I am the only person in the village who has a secret swingy-outy Scooby Doo bookcase.

It’s really really good. It really is.