Ghosties

Rwanda's Shadow

After pancakes yesterday, I headed home for a nap. In the evening we met Giudi at Stella for food and drinks, then headed to Torero for a live reggae night. I was so tired I should probably have just stayed home, but was persuaded. Torero is a really nice place but the price of drinks is ridiculous, so we snuck in a wee drop of Gordons and bought tonic at the bar. We may have consumed rather a lot, but the music was good and Lies and Isadora were there. I left pretty early and was in bed by about 12:30.

Yesterday, Cathryn and I went for lunch at La Planet, then she headed to an Irish Committee meeting (in charge of organising Paddy's Day) and I went to Giudi's housewarming in Kicyro. It's an absolutely spectacular house by the side of a lake. All a bit high-brow, waffling on about development work, but some really nice people there and the food (mango curry) was out of this world. Got to drink wine like a grown-up, too ;)

Was a lovely night. Chatted to Dad when I got home for an hour or so. Said I was 'off to bed' but instead got a text from Cathryn who was at Stella, so popped over for a last drink with her, Paula and Sonya.

Then it all went a bit downhill. Whilst I was on the phone to Dad I'd started getting this uneasy feeling in the house. I went to the loo just before he called, and felt a bit freaked out by the doors at the end of my corridor. I'd gone outside to take the call on the porch and ended up feeling so uncomfortable I had to close the porch door because it felt like someone was standing behind me in the living room. Part-way through the call there was a momentary power-cut, which added to my unease. I still felt so unsettled after the call that, despite being knackered, I went to Stella.

As Cathryn and I were leaving the bar, I told her that I'd been feeling a bit uneasy about the house. She's one of the few people I can have these kind of conversations with (Graeme, my dear, you're the other). As we were about to cross the road, we just stood and stared at the house. This horrible cold feeling came over both of us.

We went into the garden, all the time this sense of unease growing. It was awful. All I could say is 'I'm so sorry, I've never had a feeling like this here before' - which is true. Despite the headless woman, and a little discomfort when I first moved in, the house is mine. I feel extremely comfortable there.

We opened the front door and I flicked the light on, but we stayed standing on the porch.

"It's a man." I said.

"A tall one." She was 'seeing' the same thing I was. "He shouldn't be here."

We both just stood there for a while. Then we went inside. The moment we went into the hall, where he was 'pacing', we both went extremely cold and had goosebumps and pins and needles up our legs and across our backs. It was a horrible feeling. We tried clapping and shouting to get it to go away, but it wouldn't. Really intense physical discomfort.

We ended up back outside, sitting on the porch with the door closed behind us and 'it' in the house. It was really quite horrible. Cathryn and I both suffer prolific dreams and occasional visions. That house is renowned for visitations. Cathryn even had one at the end of her bed, like the three I've had. It's never usually an unpleasant place, but sometimes it's too intense when all you want is a decent night's sleep. So, last night we both ended up sleeping in my bed in case anything went bump in the night. Nothing did. We both slept pretty well. The house is completely back to normal again today, its friendly, chirpy self, and the cats are acting normally again. They had been sitting as still as sentries outside the door when I got home from the housewarming. They didn't move, didn't greet me - like statues.

Not sure what that was all about. Just a random malevolent beastie roaming the hallway. Hopefully he'll not be back.

We're not mental, we're just a little bit wyrd ;)