Yesterday's post - a medley of decorating and animal escapades - Here
ALL (YES, every single one of those tales was...) TRUE
In my time, I've done some weird shit. I've done crazy shit and some shit I don't even believe my own memories of.
I've gone ghost hunting, film-making, researching, wandering around ancient buildings, landmarks and even Stonehenge (I'd like to go back there again).
From English Heritage
I cannot possibly tell you which I like to do best because it all depends on the mood, the situation and the company.
Here's the tale I'm going to tell today. All or Nothing - it's either completely TRUE or all FALSE - you decide.
The night we went to Batman's mansion to hunt ghosts and wander about on the roof.
From Wiki
Trev won a ticket to go on a ghost-walk. It was a fabulous twist of fate. I'd been asked if I'd like to go along with a group of local ghost hunters, a medium friend invited me along. I always say yes to these things and it was all set. The company charges £40 or £50 for a tour and I thought I was exceptionally lucky to be invited for free!
Trev and I went along to The Black Bull where my medium friend was helping out in a fund-raising thing. I took my books along because sometimes, people actually do buy them...
Trev bought a few raffle tickets and promptly forgot where he'd put them. No wonder he 'never wins anything' - he probably does, but doesn't find the tickets for weeks, by which time the prize has been given to another winner.
So Trev's number came out and he chose the Ghost hunt. The same Ghost hunt I had been invited on. That meant he couldn't give the prize to me - I was already going.
We set out on the night of the hunt. Wrapped up warm because it was winter and the place we were going to didn't have heating - or lights in most of the rooms we went in...
Wollaton Hall is quite close to where we live yet we've never visited it (that I can remember... maybe as a child). It's a great, imposing building, with a twisty drive into the grounds, surrounded by a massive wall.
We congregated in the main lobby and I have to say, even without great lighting, it's darned impressive.
There are stuffed animals EVERYWHERE because it's also a museum.
We went into the kitchen area first and the cooking range looks suitably old fashioned. I'm sure Bruce Wayne would have had it modernised...
I don't remember if anyone 'felt' any of the spirits in that room, but when we went into a closed-off corridor, the atmosphere did feel a little ominous. In the darkness, with only a few candles to see by (flashlights were banned to help with atmosphere), I swear I saw a cat slink around the door and come towards us. It was a white and ginger cat, but it didn't get to us... it faded away before it got to us!
OK...
We went into other rooms and the freakiest happening didn't happen to me...
Trev was invited to join a table where they were using a glass as a planchette.
The glass was very active and I could hear the women's cries of alarm as the glass shot across the table toward one or another of them.
The session seemed to go really well and then it stopped abruptly and the table cleared, everyone moving away.
I was looking in mirrors and wasn't really concentrating on them. I was peering into a mirror, trying to see what was flickering just behind me, a little out of clear-view, when Trev came up to the side of me and made me jump.
He laughed and seemed in a really good mood.
"That glass pushing thing," he said.
"Glass pushing thing? You're not supposed to push the glass!" I admonished him in a hushed voice.
"I know," he said. "I didn't... Well, I did... I stopped the glass from moving. I pressed hard on it."
"And it was trying to move?" I asked, a little in awe because Trev doesn't usually join in with these things.
"Well, sort of," he said. "When I let the glass go, one woman almost ended up across the table, she was trying to push it so hard."
So Trev had caught-out someone. She'd been pushing the glass to make everyone excited about the 'spirits' and when he'd stopped the glass from moving, she pushed harder and harder.
Oh dear. The woman and her group kept away from us after that.
Trev still doesn't believe in ghosts...