As Halloween approaches...

The Kraken slumbers peacefully for his afternoon nap. I'm settling downstairs with my lunch and a brew when the monitor goes off. I stop what I'm doing and listen to the sounds of the Kraken chunnering in his sleep. The chunners settle down and a lovely peace descends upon the house. Then I hear it. The floorboards upstairs. Creaking as if someone is walking around.... o_0

Reason dictates that it is nothing but the floorboards settling, the heating's on so of course the wood expands, blah blah blah. However, I've seen Paranormal Activity too many times. This is how horror films always start...so I followed the only sensible course of action. I tweeted about it.

The fab Lisa at How To Be A Domestic Disgrace has recently written a blog about spooky happenings, and tweeted in reply to my peril, so I thought I'd share my own personal tales of the supernatural.

My friend, the lovely @Chocolatewestie, used to live in a very old house. It was a beautiful old farmhouse, and came with many tales of ghosts and tragic happenings. Me and @Chocolatewestie were absolute besties and I used to stay at her house at least once a week. One morning, I got up quite early to let Sophie, her dog, out of the room. I went back to bed, snuggled back under the covers and suddenly I felt frozen from head to toe. I couldn't move, I couldn't speak, I couldn't even get my breath. At the foot of the bed was the indistinct figure of a young girl. I couldn't see her clearly, except for her eyes. She didn't move, or speak, just stared at me with those big, black eyes. I've no idea how long I was frozen there, but just as abruptly, I snapped out of it and came to. @Chocolatewestie woke up, and asked me what was wrong, as I was white as a sheet and trembling. I explained what had happened and we became as hysterical as only you can at the age of 14 and you're spooked out of your tree.

The second, absolutely true, spooky tale happened many years later, when I was working as a barmaid in my local pub. We always used to joke about the 'pub ghost', and had the usual odd but easily explainable things happen, like keys go missing to turn up in the same place you left them, almost seeing someone out of the corner of your eye, etc. It had been my turn to close up the pub one quiet Thursday night, as the bar manager hadn't been able to stay the night in the pub. I'd done all the usual checks, locked the internal doors, checked the safe and the cellar, then locked all the outside doors with the only spare set of keys. One of the locals, a mate of my mum, had stayed to walk me back to my house so I got home safe. The next morning, I woke to a phone call from Karl, my highly pissed off manager. Why the hell had I taken all of the pint glasses down from the overhanging shelf and laid them out along the bar? What the frig was I playing at? He'd had to spend an hour putting them all back, did I think I was funny? I protested my innocence, but I can see why he'd thought it was me. I had been the last in the pub, and no-one else but us had a set of keys... He only believed that it wasn't me, when my friend who'd walked me home verified my story...

So there you go, my two, absolutely true tales of ghostly happenings. As for the footsteps upstairs? Er, next-door's cat had got in and was exploring.

Have you any spooky tales to tell? If so, link back to Lisa's blog here