Monday 7 September 2009

Back to something a bit more normal...


I'm already a bit embarrassed by that last post. Just in case anyone should actually read it. But I'm going to leave it up because this blogging lark is all about stepping outside your comfort zone, surely?

But to redress the balance slightly, I can't go to sleep on just that. SO. I must just jot down something I didn't know before and do now. Papal Bulls, such that came whizzing over from Roma to tell Henry VIII to get back in his regal box, for example, were named after BULLAE (Lat noun pl), which were, apparently, a type of clay or metal seal used in such highly protected communications. Because this type of seal was pretty much tamper-proof.

Interesting. I always wondered why they were so-named. Must remember to tell Best Friend From School, who believed through much of our A level history that the chosen papal messenger in Tudor times was, actually, a long-travelling pet bull from the pope's own herd. Oh, and who also expressed great admiration for the "terribly clever" gorillas who had once "driven themselves" into Mexico City. And who once managed to get the words "masturbation" and "menstruation" into school prayers after becoming distracted by "how budgies feed each other". And who, in her proudest moment, accepted a waggish dare to lock our moody lacrosse teacher into the stick cupboard so we might avoid a lost-match shouty post mortem lecture, and managed it brilliantly, BUT with herself also on the wrong side of the door. Wonderful, wonderful.

I am now giggling into my tea like a schoolgirl-that-was and am no longer feeling quite so spooked.

Much better.

I'm not sure for how long I can admit to this in public but...

Someone recently pointed out, without too much intention of being helpful, that a blog which remains dormant is of "little interest" to the blog reading community. I take the dark hint, indeed - but 2 things. I don't think my blog is of interest to any community, for a start, and secondly, I have to claim school holidays as a Difficult Time for Blogging. I have been fully immersed into an idyllic summer existence of tee pees and campfires and beach trips and country shows and all sorts. And yes, before it sounds too horribly fake, a good deal of bleeping about Having No Time To Myself and general, mind-numbing exhaustion and sneakily early bedtimes. Plus, I couldn't think of anything to blog about.

But now I can. And it's only because I'm reasonably confident that no one is going to read this any more after its long state of dormancy, that I am happy to write it. R will tut and sigh and hrumph but I actually think, self-indulgently as ever, airing this may be a cathartic action to take. Perhaps, when it's all written down, I will look at it and say "What rot!", delete it, roll eyes at self and continue as before.

So this is it anyhow: I think, or at least, I think that I think that I think that I am beginning to get some kind of sixth sense. And I call it that, only because I have no other way to describe it. Some kind of intuition maybe. Something weird is in the water and I don't quite know what to do with it.

I THINK I am beginning to see something, some kind of company, which I have to describe as a ghost because I have no other word, or description for it. And it's not "seeing" as such. More like a sensation. A very acute smell, and a physical response. I suddenly hear what I can only describe as a pop, right behind my ear. I have felt myself shaken, and I have had moments when the air around me is suddenly pervaded by an intense odour. Sometimes perfumey, if this is an adjective, sometimes smokey and cold. And it's not just happening in those bleary night time moments of semi-consciousness. It's happening in the middle of the broad damn daylight and I have no rational explanation with which I can shoo it all away.

Now. I can at this stage tut and sigh along with everyone else and put this down to tiredness, an active imagination, and expectation of what I might already suspect, or, more, want to suspect. Or better, some kind of strange psychological response to something I will not understand because I waftily studied languages ( the year abroad, of course) and not sensible, practical scientific subjects...I don't know. But I do know that I am not mad, and I do know that it is not just me who is "getting" all this.

My beautiful Hungarian hunting dog, who I have often derided for her lack of sense, seems to be getting it too. She reacts to the same things I am sensing, and at the same time. I hear a pop and she growls. I get a funny smell and she puts her head up and starts sniffing curiously. I get an odd sense of company and she stares intently at one place in the room, her hackles ever so slightly flicking up her back. If it weren't for her, I would happily write it all off as mental or hormonal instability, but unless this sort of thing is a virus prone to cross-species contamination, I can't.

And one thing I do have to bear in mind is that it has happened before, years ago when we were in Japan. And R saw it at the same time, although now he does rather huff and sigh if you remind him of it. (you do, R, you do). I almost wish you hadn't. You see, other people saying "Oooh that IS weird", or dogs suddenly frowning and staring at a something just over your shoulder, is a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it's great comfort to know you are not a ditsy air-brain with an over-active imagination. Or at least, if you are, there are two of you. On the other, you end up with unanswered questions, which can be unsettling.

Another interesting thing, people are beginning to bring their own smells. Someone was lying to me the other day, and I could SMELL it. Really. I knew the truth was being fabricated and I could smell it, like burnt rubber. Another recent occasion of being thrown into the company of someone I really can't abide (but shhhhhhh) and this person STANK of wet potato peelings left in a carrier bag. Rotten, disgusting potato peelings. Conversely, all the lovely people I have seen lately haven't smelt at all; one might have expected them to bring with them the air of a fresh daisy field, but no. It seems to be only the bad stenches that come through.

What's going on? What is my brain doing to me? Is it all self-made? Am I jumping at a theoretical version of my own shadow? Or is there something unexplained which will remain unexplained enough for me to stamp my own interpretation onto it? Or has R managed to play to most elaborate practical joke yet on me and persuaded the dog to be in on it?

And since this now seems to be nothing but a list of questions, here are some more. Where the hell do you go to ask? What can anybody say? My experience is that you either get amused, smirky-but- sympathetic looks from confident non-believers who think you've turned the corner to Doolally, and always find a way of expressing their politest surprise that you - "of all people, really" - would be "into that sort of thing". OR you get people who say "My auntie sees ghosts and talks to them in 'er parlour with 'er cats". OR you end up forcing a reaction from your uncomfortable friends who do their best either to muster polite interest, with curious sidelong glances at each other when they think you're not looking, OR who shriek "Yikes! WITCHY!" and cancel coffee unless it "can be somewhere else rather than at yours cos it sounds a bit spooky there" (you know who you are...).

Do you ask vicars or doctors about this? Can anyone tell you? Is there a trustworthy book? Is the best thing just to shut up about the whole hoojimaflip and hope it goes away? Or do you think "Ooh, interesting!" and embrace it? And if so, how?

Because what worries me most of all, is that accepting it would inevitably mean I would have to find a reason for why this is all happening now. Is it a subconscious expression of some snippet of dread, which perhaps itself comes from nothing more than the general hazard of having young children and reading the news about the Big Bad World? Is it because recent events have conspired to leave me missing my mum so much that I am prepared to invent a whole new para-world as a safety net over ultimate loss? Have I just alerted my mind to the possibility and now it's trying to find all sorts of examples to back it up? Or am I simply imagining it all as an excuse to blog instead of cleaning that tenacious sauce off the difficult bit of the hob?

I am nearly 39 years old and I am writing about what I think may be ghosts, and looking over my shoulder at my empty room. Turns you didn't expect your life to take.

Thank goodness the dog is asleep.

Answers, please. Any at all.