I don’t actually have any direct experience with anything spooky to share with you, so instead I’m going to tell you a true story about what happened to a friend of mine when her family moved into a new house in London.

Wendy (not her real name) comes from a large family and her parents decided it was time to move to a bigger house to accommodate them all. They found a house perfect for their needs on a newly built estate and soon moved in. Everything seemed fine and they were all happy with their new home but then little problems started to appear. It all began with the usual things: lights flickering, appliances switching on and off, and it was explained away as faulty wiring in a new house. However, it wasn’t long before things began to escalate. Footsteps were heard in the hallway in the middle of the night, despite the fact the hallway was carpeted and all the family was in bed. The following night, a ball could be heard bouncing along the hallway and duvets were pulled off beds. The episodes continued night after night and soon the entire family were starting to freak out. The children refused to go to bed alone and it wasn’t long before they were all sleeping in the same room downstairs.

A chance comment from a neighbour revealed the family weren’t suffering alone. The neighbour, not a big believer in the supernatural, finally decided to call in a medium and it wasn’t long before he reported sensing a number of presences. Impressed, Wendy’s family invited him into their house and he told them he could sense the presence of children, which explained the bouncing ball episode, and the presence of an older man who seemed to be searching for them. The medium called forth the spirit of the man and managed to reunite him with his children, after which there were no further incidents.

Wendy’s mum did some research into the area and later found out the entire estate was built on the site of an old workhouse which explained the numerous hauntings and unrest. The workhouses were built to offer relief to society’s destitute and life there was deliberately harsh to act as a deterrent. For many, ending up in the workhouse was the ultimate degradation.

For more information, visit: The Workhouses

Posted as part of the Cybercruise Halloween Event

Appetizer
If you were a dog, what breed would you be, and why?

LOL, I am totally useless at things like this because I really don’t know a lot about dogs! I guess I’d be a terrier (a Scots one of course!)

Soup
What does the color purple make you think of?

The first thing that popped into my head was the book by Alice Walker! As for the colour, my mum once decorated my bedroom in purple and I absolutely hated it! I’m still not mad keen on the colour.

Salad
Approximately how long does it take you to get ready each morning?

30 mins. I get organised the night before so I just fall out of bed, into my clothes, have breakfast and out the door!

Main Course
How many cousins do you have, and are you close to them?

I’m close to the cousins I have on my mother’s side - one actually works with me. I’m not very familiar with the cousins on my dad’s side and am not sure how many I actually have because of marital splits, etc. I grew up with five close first cousins.

Dessert
Take your initials (first, middle, last) and come up with something else those letters could stand for. (Example: SFO = Sweet Funny Otter)

The Elder Gods - it’s a game apparently!

When I was a little girl, I made the decision that I would never get married and I have no intention of ever changing my mind. Today, I was sitting in the work staff room, trying to each my lunch in peace, when two of my female colleagues started moaning about how useless their husbands were. I’d like to say this was an isolated incident but it happens every day. So, I sit there wondering why they are still married if they think so badly of the other halves?

Sadly, I know more people who are separated or divorced than married these days.

I haven’t been doing much blogging lately because I’ve been busy with another web project where I can let my creative side out. A few years ago, I joined a site which teaches pixel painting (painting pictures one pixel at a time in a graphics programme) but, as always, it fell by the way side as other things took my interest. It was the old syndrome of too many interests and not enough time. Anyway, I started visiting other places when I got bored with the first site and caught the bug again. So much so that I’m joining sites like mad! I bought a cheap graphics pen and tablet because my wrist was starting to ache from using a mouse all the time and it takes some getting used to!

It’s one of my biggest regrets that I wasn’t gifted with an artistic talent but I try to make up for it with enthusiasm. You have no idea how frustrating it is wanting to draw something and not having the ability - I think that’s why pixel painting appeals to me so much. It’s easier for me to draw that way.

My niece and I were busy creating fairy mobiles yesterday and feeling all pleased with ourselves, especially when we had to improvise with our materials. It’s actually quite fun and a great way to relieve stress. Sometimes my job gets me down so much, I want to run away so what better place to go than Fairyland?

So ends another weekend, let the week misery begin anew.

We’ve been having a lot of hassle with Virgin Media over the past couple of weeks; we were really starting to wonder if we should cut our losses and go with Sky. It all began when the downstairs box started freezing up and we asked for an engineer to come out and fix it. The engineer came out, replaced the smart card and everything seemed fine. A few days later, the interactive features stopped working entirely so we called the phone number on the screen and ended up talking to someone in a call centre in India. You have no idea how frustrating that was for me. I stayed as calm as possible and spoke very slowly and clearly. The trouble is the call centre operators work from a script and they have no real understanding of the technical stuff! To cut a long story short, she couldn’t help and logged the call for an engineer to call us within 5 days.

Before she ended our call, I asked her to reset the PIN on the box we have upstairs and she assured me that she had done it. I went upstairs and it was still locked. So, we finally got a call back on Monday from a lady in the UK who arranged for an engineer to come back out and then reset the PIN number on the second box. Not. I tried it when I got home and it was still locked!

Anyway, the engineer came out today and replaced the first box with one of those fancy new Virgin+ boxes with the hard drives and actually managed to get the PIN released (at last!) on the second box. So, we now have a new deal to go along with new box with an increase in internet speed to 20MB! And now, I have access to a whole library of TV programmes!

I haven’t felt like blogging the past week or so and I nearly missed two cruiser birthdays! Bad me! I managed to fight off the cold germs but have been suffering from headaches over the past week that have left me feeling blah! There are a lot of virus bugs going around at the moment, especially one that makes you feel like you have the flu but really don’t. I just feel really tired most of the time and haven’t been in the mood to do much at all. I spent most of Sunday curled up on my bed watching concerts on DVD. I’m totally in love with Jon Bon Jovi who just has the sexiest butt on the planet (after our Captain of course), I mean leather trousers were invented for him. Okay, you can see where my thoughts have been lately! *snigger*

On Saturday, I watched back to back episodes of Who Do You Think You Are, a BBC programme that follows celebrities as they research their family trees and of course, it just spurred me on to do some more research into my own. We are so spoiled in Scotland though as it is very easy to research your family tree online but they don’t have the same facility in England which I’m finding very frustrating. My mum’s dad was from County Durham and I’ve only been able to use census records to find out about his parents, grandparents, etc, but they don’t have much information on them and it is very hard finding evidence to back up anything. The only way I’m going to find out more is by actually travelling down that way and spending time with the records - something I really don’t have time to do at the moment.

It’s really quite hard to keep my interest going because I’m reaching the end of the paper trail with my Scottish roots and it now means I have to wait until new records are released. I think I may have gone back as far as I can and that disappoints me because I don’t want it to be over. I love genealogy so much and could totally see myself in that profession if I’d had the opportunity but it’s too late now.