Home and hauntings

A mini-blog/reflective journal from a self-confessed air head

Home, and hauntings

Photo: Toa Heftiba

Photo: Jaye Haych

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Following a little splash of inspiration recently, I'd wanted to write about 'home' for this blog post; however I don't think I've enough material for an entire post on this topic.  Therefore I'm instead combining the two topics of 'home', and of 'hauntings'.  It makes a sort of sense, given that I previously lived in a haunted house!

I've been into ghosties and things that go bump in the night since I was a fairly small child (somewhere around 7 - 9 years of age).

Photo: Leonardo Yip

My first (possible) ghost sighting was, I think, somewhere around age 10 - 12, ish.  As a kid I used to love to go on day trips to ruined castles, among other historic places.  Here in England a good number of these are little more than partial castle walls, with no surviving upper storeys.  It was while exploring one of these one day (I can't recall where we were, unfortunately, except that I believe it was Wales) that I had this possible ghost sighting.

I'd seen a guy with long dark hair and wearing a long dark coat walk around the side of a ruined spiral staircase, which would have once been in a corner turret of this particular castle.  I followed, but the guy was nowhere to be seen.  There was nowhere he could have gone, since no second storey existed any longer.  If he'd gone part way up the stair case I'd have seen him there, and if he'd gone anywhere else I'd have seen him too as there was no other cover he could have been behind.

Photo: Mike Cassidy

Now, I'm prepared to admit that this man was very solid looking if he were indeed a ghost, and this was broad daylight.  Plus, I wasn't very old and therefore had a child's imagination.  But I've never been able to explain where he could have gone that day.

Other than the above (if it was indeed a ghost sighting), I'm not generally especially sensitive to the paranormal.  In fact I suspect I'm fairly un-sensitive.  I've just two other 'ghost' stories, despite having gone on several ghost hunts, including one which took place at a reputedly haunted historic local farm.

But I did live in a haunted house before we moved to our current address, and this is obviously my favourite personal ghost story to tell.

Photo: Tierra Mallorca

The house was an old Victorian terraced one, which had been converted by the landlord into a number of flats.  I lived on the upper storey, initially by myself and then later together with my then boyfriend (now my husband).

Photo: Library of Congress

I'd been aware of a presence in the hallway of this property, centred around the stairway.  I never saw or heard anything, but at night I could often sense that someone else was there besides just me, even when I was travelling the hallway completely alone.  The only thing I could sense about this presence was that it seemed to me to be female.


The cool bit came after my other half started staying the night, as he actually saw the ghost (despite me never having told him about this presence which I felt existed in our hallway)!  He says he was coming to my door one night when he encountered an older woman on the stairs in the dark - he motioned for her to go first, but she didn't react so he spoke to her and yet she still didn't react.  When he told me about it, I knew that he must have seen the ghost!  You see, all my neighbours at the time were male (and while it could have been a visitor of one of theirs', knowing their demographics I didn't think it at all likely - and besides, a visitor would have responded in some way when my husband interacted with them, even if non-verbally).

Photo: David Dibert

I lived in that property for four years before we moved to where we live now.  Moving here was a blessed relief for me, not because I was at all scared by the ghost at my former address but just because I was sick of those (living) neighbours.

Photo: Harmen Jelle van Mourik

This place (where we live now), the day we viewed it, was so serene and restful to me.  There was a glorious eucalyptus tree out the front providing magical dappled shade to the living room.  Large picture windows front and back meant that you could see right the way through the apartment from the eucalyptus at the front to the row of trees out the back.  The whole place was decorated in a calming shade of light sage green.  It was like a little private oasis.

Photo: Lea Böhm

But we've no ghosts here, unless you count the two kitcats we've sadly lost whilst living here who have perhaps visited on a few occasions.  So I missed my chance to carry out my own ghost hunts in the comfort of my own home.  I don't really know why it never occurred to me in the four years I was living

Photo: Oleksandra Bardash

there, except that I had other stuff going on at that time in my life.  Now, if I want to go  ghost seeking, I'll most likely have to splash out on further commercial ghost hunting tours (at such time as these resume post-Covid19).

That's okay, I guess - the one I went on with a friend a few years back was fun*, and I'm something of a believer in what I call "keeping the economy going around" by spending money with local (especially) businesses.  Particularly following this Covid-19 crisis, and given that you can't take it with you when you go over to the great beyond, wherever/whatever that is.

*https://www.paranormaladventures.co.uk/





Photo credits: all photos from Unsplash



Bonus tree photos (spooky edition):

Photo: Zane Lee

Photo: Marco Marques

Photo: Zane Lee

Photo: Re Stacks

Photo: Terra Roro

Photo: Andy Watkins

Photo: Johannes Plenio

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